(PROJECT) One Place Tower

[DowntownDan]

Downtown could use a good dedicated sports bar.  Even a national chain would fit in.  Buffalo Wild Wings or Fox and Hound would work.

[DTowner]

There are other occupants of the Northwest building, I am not sure of the company but their mark is on the Southwest corner of the building.  As for time frames and why something haven't happened.  I know very little about construction processes and time frames, however the construction began around Oct 2011 and the building was probably turned over for beneficial occupancy around Dec 2012.  13 month construction period and you have two buildings complete.  Northwest mutual moved its offices from South to Downtown, again additional jobs downtown.  

In a year from now, an empty First place tower proves nothing other than the management company is crappy at bringing new tenants.  As for the retail/eating in the base floor of One Place, I am guess that the upper floors were to be completed before working on the bottom floor.  As they complete that, you will see tenants.  Now, for the blacktop parking lot next to Northwestern.  You still have construction going on the north side of the buiding which makes the travel to and from the lot north of the building difficult.

Why automatically jump to negativity when things don't happen at the pace you so desire or if they don't comply with your predetermined criteria.  After starting a business with the better half, I now understand that things don't necessarily happen the way I want them to, they do happen for what is best for the situation.

Those are all reasonable points.  However, the developers have been showing and marketing the restaurant spaces of the NW Mutual Building for a long time.  The fact that they still have no tenants signed up is a reasonable concern.

[rdj]

There have been rumors for a long time of an upscale national steak chain moving into the NW Mutual building.  Last I heard they were starting to look out south.  As far as I know a lease was never signed.

I'm not negative on the building, I think it's great for downtown to experience new construction.  But, it so far has not brought more than two floors of new employees to downtown and helped aid in emptying First Place Tower.  If they had left First Place Tower behind for a tower in the Village on Main development in Jenks everyone would be freaking out and considering it suburban sprawl, but because the new tower is 4-6 blocks away it is a good thing.  It's a revenue neutral move at best.  Shuffling the pieces around on the board, if you will.

[JCnOwasso]

I am just trying to play devils advocate, but with ground floor construction still in process on the north side of the building I imagine that is going to shy restraunts away for the time being.  Once 2nd street is cleared up, you will see a push.  With BOK being right across the street you are looking at an optimal location for food.  It is not a matter of if, it is when.

RDJ, while I partly understand your argument, if Cimarex had merely stayed in place, the size of one place would have been very different.  You would have had less office space for availability AND you would have had a company thats current location would not have fulfilled its needs, they would not have been able to grow (and bring more employees to downtown) and probably would have looked for another location somewhere down the road.  Under the current situation, you have a 100% leased One Place, and you have office space available at First place.  They needed a large business to move in to One Place to free up lessor expensive property downtown (of course I have no idea the lease rates of either location).  I see more flexibility for small business with First Place as compared to One Place (sweet jesus the First/One is confusing the smile out of me).  If you want to afford companies the ability to grow and hire more people, you have to accept that they will, at some point, desire to move from one location to the next.  You just hope that it is in the same area, which is what happened here.  Cimarex took 100% lease because they wanted that very thing, the ability to grow.   

[DTowner]

I am just trying to play devils advocate, but with ground floor construction still in process on the north side of the building I imagine that is going to shy restraunts away for the time being.  Once 2nd street is cleared up, you will see a push.  With BOK being right across the street you are looking at an optimal location for food.  It is not a matter of if, it is when.

The fact is, that marketing effort went on for more than a year and a half and still nothing.  It wasn't for a lack of trying or showing off the space to potential candidates.  Realistically, to obtain the necessary permits and complete a build out of the unfinished space is going to take a minimum of 4-6 months.  The fact that the NW Mutual Building has been open for business for approximately 6 months and still no leases for those restaurant spaces gives me pause as to what the problem might be.

Perhaps the developers aimed for too upscale with the high end steak house who's name shall not be mentioned, but the reality is BOK visitors now walk by a building with an unoccupied ground floor that is gravel and fill dirt.  Better than the surfact parking lot and flop house apartments that formerly occupied this space, but not exactly the image of a vibrant and successful development on a prime piece of downtown real estate.  And the other half of the lot is still a surface parking lot.

[JCnOwasso]

You may be absolutely correct, but I don't care when Northwesterns facility was complete, I look at the overall complex.  Now, as of last week there was still orange barrels and construction vehicles occupying the 2nd street corridor.  I just checked and it appears they are gone.  If I was a steak house, sushi eatery, or mazzios pizza I would wait until that was complete before I began my work.  Primarily because I don't want my places first couple weeks/months of business to be behind orange barrels, or have interuptions because of construction in the adjacent building. 

As for the state of the lower floor at Northwestern, i.e. gravel on the floor... I honestly thought that was a crazy design feature since the gravel looked larger than what I would expect to see as a substrate.  I will take another stroll by there in the coming days to see if I can tell anything else.  Additionally, without knowledge of whether any negotiations are going on between the building management and X company, I am not sure what to say about the lack of movement.  I know that sometimes negotiations can take an extremely long period of time, even when you have been established in a building for an extended period of time.  Since it is such a blank canvas, there may be additional time in the negotiations finding out who will cover what costs, getting basic designs agreed too etc.  This is all just speculation, and your comments could very well ring true.  And after thinking about it a bit more, another thing to consider is that any restaurant would be the furthest eating establishment to the west in this portion of DT.

Random thought, how much concern do you think a mainstream "upper class" eatery would be concerned with the bus plaza a block down the street?

[rdj]

Have you ever been in First Place Tower?  The floor plates are not meant for small businesses, they are about 10k and the available space has historically been taken up by single users so a lot of build out would need to be done to accommodate smaller tenants.  On the approx lower 1/2 of the building they are a little over 20k and where the tower meets the original building there is a funky ramp because the floors don't meet exactly.  The lower half can be subdivided much easier, but you are still looking at large plates.  First Place was built to be a single tenant building, it was never meant to be divided up.  When you design a building for single tenant use it is laid out much differently and can be difficult to convert to multi-tenant.  I hope Kanbar and their latest local equity partners can get it turned around, but it really isn't a Class A+ building any longer and will need rent concessions to fill back up.

[TheArtist]

  I hope they are successful getting things for the ground floor of One Place.  My beef has always been that they have a suburban highrise design that is not amenable to downtowns pedestrian environment.

As downtown fills in, people are going to flock to those areas that have the most life, aka people out and about, aka the pedestrian friendly areas.  More businesses will open in those areas, more people will come, and so on.  As those areas become more attractive, the non-pedestrian friendly ones will appear even more boring and dead/undesirable to hang out in, eat and shop in, etc.

People are very accommodating to the "imperfections" of our downtown environment at the moment because many want to see downtown succeed and or they want to be in an urban environment and what we have is the best we have.  But as downtown develops higher quality pedestrian friendly areas, people will trend towards those and away from the lesser quality ones they may go to now.

Sure you get bursts of activity and crowds at the arena. Huge ones. But you look at the lower levels of One Place, and restaurant or no there is nothing to attract you to go over there compared to what is developing in other parts of downtown.  Don't get me wrong, whatever goes in there will get business from the arena, how much only experience will tell and whatever goes in next to it will also determine it's degree of success, but as things are it will very likely be dead, dead, dead as a doornail the rest of the time (Will they close when there are no concerts starting or ending kind of like the restaurants in the CBD that are only open to serve the office workers at lunch and breakfast, One Place will only serve those who are going to or from a concert?) . Someone might try to make a go of it if they are adventurous, but one might wonder whether a more established company would take the risk when there are better places available.  Again, the location was fine, but the buildings stark, pedestrian unfriendly, ground floor design ruined it and not only ruined it for that building but will hurt whatever goes in next to it or across from it to the north and south.  

Let me try it this way... If someone were to offer me to choose between taking a spot at One Place having the same square footage for the same price as the shop space I have now (which itself isn't in the best location) I would still choose my current location over One Place.  I am going to get more and steadier traffic on the tail end of Boston Ave, where at least the people walking around the busier part further north can still see me, rather than over there by the arena waiting for the next concert crowd to show up and hope they have the time to wander all the way over to my shop in that unattractive building. One thing I have noticed is that people going say "too and from church, or too and from a meeting, wedding,  or some other event, etc. often are fitting that into the rest of a daily schedule and hurry on by my shop.  Some stop in, but most are focused on being on their way to that event/meeting, and then have some place to go afterwards, even if that some place is another "destination" eating area.  One Place, I can not see in its current configuration being an eating or shopping destination.  It's a place people are going to go past quickly to get to somewhere else. 

[JCnOwasso]

Have you ever been in First Place Tower?  The floor plates are not meant for small businesses, they are about 10k and the available space has historically been taken up by single users so a lot of build out would need to be done to accommodate smaller tenants.  On the approx lower 1/2 of the building they are a little over 20k and where the tower meets the original building there is a funky ramp because the floors don't meet exactly.  The lower half can be subdivided much easier, but you are still looking at large plates.  First Place was built to be a single tenant building, it was never meant to be divided up.  When you design a building for single tenant use it is laid out much differently and can be difficult to convert to multi-tenant.  I hope Kanbar and their latest local equity partners can get it turned around, but it really isn't a Class A+ building any longer and will need rent concessions to fill back up.

I have not been there, however, I did just check out the Kanbar website for availability.  Lots of spaces less than 10k and would be optimal for a smaller business.  Some big enough for a single office, some big enough for a handful of offices.  While the building may have been designed, way back in the day, for single tenant, you are going to have a hard time finding a single tenant who will occupy 41 stories of any building, and in this building that appears to be approximately 600,000 sf.  But you said it yourself... it isn't a class A+ building any longer and rather than rent concessions, it will probably need a bit of an update.

Artist, I agree in regards to location.  It isn't an optimal location yet, and may never be, but I have been wrong on many occasions in regards to activities downtown (The arena, the influx of residential, etc).  The arena will draw people, but without other retail or restaurants, a single location will struggle when there is not an event.  Additionally, it will most likely struggle when the event is going on.  Parking will be at a premium and any "regular" customers will avoid the area.  The retail/restaurant approach in this specific area was/is a huge risk, but potentially has huge upside.  The giant BOK surface lot across from the arena has great potential, and will eventually be tapped.  When and if they get funding for the hilton based hotel for the one place complex, aLoft hotel, etc etc etc.  There are things that will make this location enticing.  Anytime they shut down 3rd street outside the arena, it will draw people to the area.  However, there are a few hurdles in this whole thing.  You have several "dead" buildings in the area, meaning they are Government buildings and do not, in and of themselves, have a positive draw to the area.  Personally, I would love to see the entire complex around old city hall converted.  IT could have been an awesome choice for a One Place type development.  You already have the plaza, you have unground parking, location for a hotel and a location for offices.  But with all the uproar over the movement of City Hall, I don't think that would be a feasible option. 

[rdj]

The publicly listed availability doesn't include the recently vacated Cimarex space or the space JPMorgan vacated a few months back.  I believe JPMC had three floors not included the first floor branch.  So, if and when they ever update the available space publicly it will look a lot different.  Yes, there are some smaller suites in the building but not nearly enough to fill a 41 story tower.

The biggest issue with ground floor retail at First Place Tower is the lack of bathrooms.  The only restroom to service the first floor is in the basement and the only access is through the former JPMC branch.  Those bathrooms are in dire need of updating and they need to provide restrooms that are available later in the evening.  Until that happens the restaurant will never be open past 5p.

[zstyles]

The first place tower also recently updated the 41st floor to host events, put in new carpet, etc...they have since stopped renting that space out for future bookings...in other words anyone ON the books is good but nothing new will be booked...

[dioscorides]

SIAP...i didn't see mention of this yet.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/post.aspx/Naples_Flatbread_to_open_across_from_BOK_Center/20383

Naples Flatbread & Wine Bar has become the first restaurant to sign a lease for space in the new One Place building, located across the street from the BOK Center.

"My Tulsa partner, Jim Wilburn, started planting the seed about locating downtown when I first came here last year," Naples Flatbread founder Ralph Desiano said Thursday inside the new space that has nothing more than a gravel floor and support columns.

"He knew the owners of the building and knew they wanted restaurants in here. It was hard not to fall in love with a great place across from the BOK Center."

Desiano and Wilburn opened a Naples Flatbread last November near 71st Street and Yale Avenue. Desiano has three others in the Naples, Fla., area.

"This will be our largest restaurant and will be the prototype for franchising," Desiano said. "Our first four were remodels of failed restaurants, so this will be our first we have built from scratch."

The downtown restaurant will have 4,000 square feet, plus another 1,450 square feet on a south patio. It has floor-to-ceiling windows looking west and south.

Desiano said local architect James Boswell will design the restaurant.

Desiano said he expects One Place eventually will have six, "maybe more" restaurants.

Other restaurants rumored to be in negotiations are Ruth's Chris Steak House, Abuelo's Mexican Food, George's Pub (a pub and grill in Jenks) and In the Raw.

Ruth's Chris hasn't answered inquiries. An Abuelo's spokesperson said the restaurant was considering a second Tulsa location, "but we haven't committed to anything yet." George's Pub and In the Raw owners could not be reached for comment.

Naples Flatbread specializes in a wide assortment of flatbread toppings, pizza and pasta dishes, all cooked in a fiery hearth oven.

Desiano said he hopes to have the new Naples Flatbread open by the Justin Timberlake concert Nov. 21.

[DTowner]

I haven't tried this place, but this is good news.  I suspect most don't want to be the first one in, so getting someone signed up might help get the ball rollling on the remaining space.

I agree with previous posters, I think a true sports bar/casual food type place would be the best fit in this building.

[Jeff P]

I just went to the 71st and Yale Naples for the first time a few weeks ago.

I thought it was pretty good... it's perfect for that OnePlace spot next to BOK.    I'd call it kind of "upscale casual" Italian.

I think they'll do really well on concert nights.

[JCnOwasso]

Thank goodness, RDJ was starting to get in my head and make me doubt my arguement.