Why?
This was my favorite of all the housing projects coming to downtown :-(
It was also the most recently announced of the major housing projects (>50 units) and the only one announced in 2014. That means there's nothing been substantively announced in 18 months.
Considering the pace of 2013, It seems to me that with the lack of residential announcements + this (and sycamore) going south that the money is waiting to see how downtown handles increasing it's residential offerings by more than 50% in a 18-24 month window.
I predict if Metropolitan, Lift, and Mosaic still have the incredible occupancy rates that downtown units currently hold, then there could be a major rush to build 2016/17.
By this time next year, 750 units that aren't currently on the market should be open…That's somewhere between 1100 and 1500 residents being added to downtown in 12 months, which is probably as much as has been added in the last 3 years combined.
To be fair, we have units under construction downtown right now that will increase total inventory by 50%.
Also, the Clayco stuff was proposed in 2014 (506 units), and the extra 150 units at Steelyard were also announced to be moving forward very soon. And although not officially announced, the Hall Capital stuff has already been planned.
Still tons of units proposed and I know of at least a half a dozen projects of all types that will be announced in the near future.
Not disagreeing with you Teo, just trying to provide more perspective. Since the same group has not moved forward at Sycamore Square -- and that's a property they already own -- I suspect the cancellation has more to do with their particular situation than the market. They never really got it off the ground for some reason.
My personal belief is that occupancy rates are going remain amazing and that by 2020, OKC will have near 10,000 units built/under construction/proposed. So I'm not saying I'm worried, or even that investors are worried about occupancy rates, but if everyone were 100% sure that downtown could support more units, there's nothing really stopping them from moving forward. It just seems like people are still testing the water, but I think we're getting pretty close to a full-blown pool party.
Admittedly this is a specific circumstance that as you said looks to have more to do with this specific group than OKC in general.
I'll believe the Clayco thing when I see it. I'd bet money on Hall Capital producing that many units in the next 5 years before I would Clayco.
I think the most likely scenario with the Clayco residential towers is that they pull in outside investors or bring in other developers.
I hope the first one gets built just so we can finally have specific data points on new high-rise.
The water testing is weird. Downtown housing is off the charts in every city. It's a proven product. It's a necessity to compete in today's world and OKC isn't building enough compared to other cities. Cleveland for instance has no growth and no market for new housing let alone existing housing, and from 2010 to 2015 they've gone from 10,000 to 15,000 downtown residents, and proposed new supply alone will make it 20,000 by 2020. You can not even get on a waiting list in downtown Cleveland. I've seen downtown housing be a huge hit in surprising cities like Sioux City, Davenport, Sioux Falls, Wichita, Lincoln, Chattanooga, Youngstown, Charleston WV, Wheeling, and on and on.
I just don't get having to test the waters. Nobody is testing the waters in the desirable suburban school districts... I thought this project looked awesome, and I'd be wary of an investment group that pulls the plug on something like this.
Too bad. That was a killer design.
^
That's awesome.
I'm going to do something similar; take the data from the Downtown Housing Summary we already have.
And it goes to show how the more you build, the more people will want to be downtown.
It's disappointing that this project isn't happening.
I think the issue with "testing the waters" has to do with the fact every market is different and OKC in particular experienced significantly greater depopulation and dilapidation in its urban core from the 1970s through the 1990s compared to other cities. It's getting better, but some developers and banks are still somewhat concerned about the viability of urban living here and/or how much demand for it there actually is. If the housing currently under construction is wildly successful, that should give banks and developers more confidence to go bigger.
OKC has been answering that question since people first freaked out in 1999 that the Deep Deuce Apartments were so much bigger than the Auto Alley loft rehabs that comprised all development activity before then.
I think there would be tremendous value in trying to get comparable figures for other cities too. I rarely find data in a vacuum to be useful. Downtown SID/BIDs usually have this stuff ready to go.
I think its important to compare what is happening here with comparable cities. Cities like Denver, Kansas City, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Columbus are all a tier or two above OKC so it isn't really fair to compare what is happening in those places with what is happening here.
The cities for OKC to watch are Louisville, Omaha, Tulsa, Memphis, Richmond, and Jacksonville.
Wow...people freaked out over the size of the Deep Deuce apartments..? I'm surprised I never heard about that.
Yes. I will find you an article questioning market absorption if you insist.
Testy.
I will never forget the conversation I had with a former Chamber employee attending a fun open house party at Deep Deuce shortly after it opened. It was a fun, swinging party. The guy actually asked me, without irony, "Do you think this is going to be a flop?"
it was insane how clueless some of these people used to be. I guess I can't blame them because almost all of the city leadership lived in Edmond back then (and many still do).
I think it really just demonstrates that most people in OKC have very little experience with this type of housing. Even now, 10+ years later, most people aren't quite sure what to make of it. Realize that people on this board are more informed than 99% of the people in the city, or in the country really, about this particular subject. Investors here are proceeding cautiously because, well, they're cautious by nature and this is a thing they don't know a lot about.
People in Edmond aren't "stupid", its just a different mindset. People who prefer the Edmond lifestyle probably aren't going to like dense urban living and vice versa. When the city is really going to progress is when it has leadership that really understands urban living and what is trying to be accomplished. In Edmond, it's all about good schools, quiet, family oriented subdivisions, and easy access to everything by car. Downtown is about walkability and vibrancy. The city still doesn't fully get it as evidenced by the effort to remove the bike lane and parallel parking on Walker downtown in order to widen the street. OKC isn't going to be what it can potentially be as long as its leadership has a "cars first" mindset. With that being said, the city has come a long, long ways over the past 15 years and continues to get better.
At the time of the construction of the Deep Deuce Apartments most of the concerns I was aware of (especially in downtown development circles) revolved around the lack of density and the quality of the build, or lack thereof. There was also much concern that the project ate up so much land for so few units. I'm not saying nobody was discussing market absorption, but I didn't hear those concerns voiced often if at all among downtown folks, and it certainly never rose to the level of "freaking out."
At just about the same time as the build, OCURA released a study/survey that indicated around 6-7K (IIRC) downtown living units would be IMMEDIATELY absorbed by the market if they appeared overnight, and it was actually puzzling to most observers why more projects weren't being considered. Deep Deuce Apartments had somewhere just below 300 units, again IIRC.
I DO recall speculation that locals were anxious to see how DD would do, because super-fast absorption might quickly lead to locally-based projects (which didn't really happen). At the time there were few locals with the type of experience needed and/or a desire to build downtown, and in fact the DD project was done by a Dallas company, First Worthing.
You're absolutely right. I had no idea. For instance I thought the Century Center was developed by OPUBCO, with the profits from selling their old fortress for a fortune.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks