Waffle House

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

halfway houses have nothing to do with crack dens.

Then I guess it isnt a halfway house.  Sorry for the ignorance!

[bugo]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

I believe the proper term is "crack den".

I wonder if QuikTrip has thought about pouncing on a spot along 51st between Harvard and Lewis now that it is going to remain two-ways.  I'm guessing the Shells at I-44 and Harvard and I-44 and Peoria are going to be gone, in addition to the crappy Sinclair place at I-44 and Wheeling.  I could see a lot of new development going on there when the dust settles.

Is that Sinclair actually open?  When I need to get gas, I always go to the 66 station just to the east.  The Sinclair always looks closed, so I've never stopped there.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by bugo

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

I believe the proper term is "crack den".

I wonder if QuikTrip has thought about pouncing on a spot along 51st between Harvard and Lewis now that it is going to remain two-ways.  I'm guessing the Shells at I-44 and Harvard and I-44 and Peoria are going to be gone, in addition to the crappy Sinclair place at I-44 and Wheeling.  I could see a lot of new development going on there when the dust settles.

Is that Sinclair actually open?  When I need to get gas, I always go to the 66 station just to the east.  The Sinclair always looks closed, so I've never stopped there.

The Phillips 66 is probably what Im thinking of.  I dont know of the Sinclair is open either.  Both properties are probably history though.

[flybriz]

Err... Yes, the one on I-44 and Peoria.  This is the second time I've done this - Intending on replying to an existing thread (in this case, the I-44 expansion question about whether or not the Super 8 and Waffle House were getting smoked) and accidentally clicking "New Topic".

And, uh, thanks everyone for picking up on the topic even though my post was incredibly vague.

[Townsend]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectID=32&articleID=20080312_5_E1_spanc05357


The former site of Celebration Station has been sold to a hotel operator who intends to redevelop the land along with a tract at the former Don Pablo's restaurant for hotels and other eating places.

Champak Patel of Sunny Investment Properties, an Oklahoma LLC, purchased the Celebration Station building and the surrounding 8.2 acres from Merrillville, Ind.-based Whiteco Industries Inc. for $4.3 million, said Stan Frisbie of Stan Frisbie Real Estate LLC.

Earlier this year, Patel purchased Don Pablo's for $1.5 million. He was not available for comment Tuesday.

Patel operates a number of hotels in Oklahoma, including the Days Inn at 4724 S. Yale Ave. near the properties.

Jeff Morton, president of the Celebration Station chain, closed the Tulsa location in December. Whiteco Industries, the park's parent company and former property owner, auctioned its video games, restaurant equipment and carnival rides in January.

Celebration Station has five locations, including parks in Oklahoma City; Mesquite, Texas; and Clearwater, Fla.

The Don Pablo's restaurant, the last of the brand operating in Tulsa, closed in September. Paul Seidman, a company spokesman, previously said the restaurant had underperformed.

The sale of Celebration Station was brokered by Frisbie and Tony Lombardi.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Townsend

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectID=32&articleID=20080312_5_E1_spanc05357


The former site of Celebration Station has been sold to a hotel operator who intends to redevelop the land along with a tract at the former Don Pablo's restaurant for hotels and other eating places.

Champak Patel of Sunny Investment Properties, an Oklahoma LLC, purchased the Celebration Station building and the surrounding 8.2 acres from Merrillville, Ind.-based Whiteco Industries Inc. for $4.3 million, said Stan Frisbie of Stan Frisbie Real Estate LLC.

Earlier this year, Patel purchased Don Pablo's for $1.5 million. He was not available for comment Tuesday.

Patel operates a number of hotels in Oklahoma, including the Days Inn at 4724 S. Yale Ave. near the properties.

Jeff Morton, president of the Celebration Station chain, closed the Tulsa location in December. Whiteco Industries, the park's parent company and former property owner, auctioned its video games, restaurant equipment and carnival rides in January.

Celebration Station has five locations, including parks in Oklahoma City; Mesquite, Texas; and Clearwater, Fla.

The Don Pablo's restaurant, the last of the brand operating in Tulsa, closed in September. Paul Seidman, a company spokesman, previously said the restaurant had underperformed.

The sale of Celebration Station was brokered by Frisbie and Tony Lombardi.

The Patels are pretty bad about running their properties at a bare minimum of what is required to keep them open.  I highly recommend throwing your bed spread to the floor prior to sitting or otherwise laying on your bed at one of their properties.  Ghack!!!

[YoungTulsan]

Oh boy, more Patel Hotels!

That really sucks for Celebration Station and Don Pablos, because I believe the way it happened was, they sold during the period that the I-44 & Yale construction was basically killing all of their business.  If they just stuck around a little while longer, they would be thriving again.

I guess since the Patel's own the Days Inn, they would level it, and on the combined land mass build something larger and nicer?

[Townsend]

Waffle House can't hide you anymore.

http://www.kjrh.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=5058261e-62c9-484b-827c-927f7ad611c0


A driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after he crashed into a semi on I-44 Wednesday night.

Police and state troopers said the driver swerved and hit the side of a moving truck at the westbound exit to Peoria Avenue.

His pickup truck then bounced off the truck and hit the center wall of the interstate before the driver fled.

He was found a short time later inside a nearby Waffle House restaurant.

He was treated for a cut on his head and then arrested.

[wordherder]

Fun fact: the Patels aren't an interconnected business.

Heck, they aren't even family.

It's become increasingly common for mid-sized hotels and motels across the nation to be owned by Asian Indians.  It turns out "Patel" is about as common as "Smith" or "Jones" are here.  The BBC did an article on this phenomenon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3177054.stm

I've heard anecdotally that some hotel owners will actually change their last name to "Patel" since the name relates to good fortune, or to capitalize on a kind of "brand name."  Not sure if it's true, but I've seen lots of Patels and no other names for Asian Indian hotel owners.

[sauerkraut]

Robbed once a month? The workers need to put in for hazzard-duty pay.[xx(]

[dbacks fan]

quote:Originally posted by wordherder

Fun fact: the Patels aren't an interconnected business.

Heck, they aren't even family.

It's become increasingly common for mid-sized hotels and motels across the nation to be owned by Asian Indians.  It turns out "Patel" is about as common as "Smith" or "Jones" are here.  The BBC did an article on this phenomenon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3177054.stm

I've heard anecdotally that some hotel owners will actually change their last name to "Patel" since the name relates to good fortune, or to capitalize on a kind of "brand name."  Not sure if it's true, but I've seen lots of Patels and no other names for Asian Indian hotel owners.

Thanks for that bit of info because I was going to ask if this is the same Patel who in the late 80's owned a couple of the No-tell Motels near Admiral an 89th E ave near what was then "Dream Land Adult Theater" and the "Show Place Topless Club". I remember he got busted for showing unedited X rated movies. At the same time as was going to Spartan with a guy by the name of Niren Patel who's father I think was president of Kuwait Airlines. We always asked him if he was related, and what his cut on the action was.

Somebody else mentioned that where the Waffle house was was starting to turn ghetto because of the widening project, I have to tell you that it was going that way when they were filming the movie "Tex" in that area back in 1982.

[sauerkraut]

Geeesh, 11th & Denver is pretty bad. That's why the SafeWay store closed up. Cheyenne is a bad area if you go north of a certain point. Then when you get down to 15th and Riverside the neighborhood gets better. There's many such areas I will not go near after dark. Sometimes a bad area is just a few blocks away from a safer area. Wichita, Kansas is like that too. One block is dangerous the next is not too bad.

[sgrizzle]

Waffle House gets the boot soon:
http://www.kjrh.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=2c9f648d-1925-401e-a99c-d7a91325d7ec

[Rage]

This Patel that bought this property is the biggest of the Patel's in Oklahoma. He owns 63 hotels now and has a networth of more then $600 million so yea he is doing pretty good right now...

From what I have heard... Expect one of the hotel's from a Hilton Brand... He works very close with them and it won't be shocking to just see a Hilton.

[mrB]

quote:Originally posted by Rage

This Patel that bought this property is the biggest of the Patel's in Oklahoma. He owns 63 hotels now and has a networth of more then $600 million so yea he is doing pretty good right now...
From what I have heard... Expect one of the hotel's from a Hilton Brand... He works very close with them and it won't be shocking to just see a Hilton.

quote:
Real Estate OKC, Edmond developers plan Tulsa hotel complex

May 28, 2008 TULSA – Champion Hotel Development of Oklahoma City and Tapp Development of Edmond have teamed up to build two five-story hotels and a two-story office complex in a new retail project along Tulsa's broadened Interstate 44.

Called 51Yale, the joint venture promises the first new hotel construction in more than two decades along that busy section of interstate, said Mike Craddock, the Tulsa managing broker of HotelBrokerOne and president-elect of the Oklahoma Association of Realtors.

51Yale also offers seven pads for lease to restaurant and small retail development at Yale and E. Skelly Drive, the former locations of Don Pablo's Mexican restaurant, the Celebration Station restaurant, and two other properties.

"We're in conversations with multiple restaurant uses for that site," said Tapp President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Tapp. "I would expect one of the two hotels under construction by the end of the year and some of the restaurants by the end of the year."

The 17.36-acre, doughnut-shaped site sits along the key entryway corridor to S. Yale Avenue's large office and health care clusters. One parcel promises 12,000 square feet of upscale retail space. Another features the 29,622-square-foot office site. "That little L-shaped building in itself is going to be a neat deal," said Tapp, describing its high-end mixture of office, retail and restaurant. "You don't see a lot of that in Tulsa."

Site plans indicate Tapp and Champion – the development arm of hotel investor Champ Patel – plan to raise a 137,754-square-foot hotel with 104 rooms and a 113,550-square-foot hotel with 117 rooms. Both will boast an indoor pool and three meeting rooms.

Tapp identified one hotel as a Residence Inn. The other awaits brand approval.Workers have started demolition of the Don Pablo's to clear the 51Yale site, which encircles but does not involve Tulsa's lone Baymont Inn.

While outparcel construction will depend on pre-leasing successes and regulatory approvals, Tapp said 51Yale also will involve some speculative construction. He said developers have enjoyed strong pre-leasing interest.

"All of the vertical improvements ... all of that will be in phase-one demolition," said Tapp, with Crafton Tull Sparks overseeing engineering needs. "Our next phase of engineer drawing includes the Residence Inn footprint and the site requirement. I expect that to take 90 to 120 days."

Some observers projected the total construction cost at more than $20 million."It would exceed that by a long shot," said Tapp, who said it would be premature to estimate such factors. "The two hotels would achieve that."

Tulsa County Courthouse records show Sunny Investment Properties LLC, identified as a Patel company, paid $3.5 million earlier this year for the former Celebration Station site. The developers gave $1.6 million for the Don Pablo's site.

Craddock said completing construction early next year could give 51Yale an advantage over other hospitality properties along the interstate, which is in midst of an extended widening. Several existing hotels have started or completed multimillion-dollar renovations along the I-44 corridor, including the Holiday Inn Select at Yale and the Embassy Suites at the hospitality cluster bordering the interstate's intersection with State Highway 51.

"The Yale exit already has been remodeled or reconfigured, so he will not have to deal with that interchange road construction, unlike the other hotels to the west, which will have to deal with construction of the highway," said Craddock. "Plus, there will be four hotels taken out by the widening of I-44, so you do have a supply of hotels being taken out and newer rooms added. They'll be the latest and greatest brands within the marketplace."

Those four hotels – the Tower, Ramada, Howard Johnsons and Victorian Inn – together contribute about 200 rooms to the 13,000-room Tulsa market, which ended 2007 with a 61-percent occupancy rate.

Craddock suggested this construction could be the first of many hospitality projects along this widening traffic lane.

"If you take that corridor back east to the river, your newest product there is a minimum of 24 years old," he said. "That was the main corridor through Tulsa and where some of the first properties were built in Tulsa. So with the redevelopment of the highway you're definitely going to see an urban renewal of commercial sites."

Copyright © 2008 The Journal Record All Rights Reserved
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http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recID=89253