Santa Fe Square on the big surface parking lot in the Blue Dome...

[TheArtist]

A "now leasing" sign at the corner of 2nd and Elgin popped up a few weeks ago showing the picture of an office building.  Not sure if that means anything with respect to which phase/location will come next.

If ~200 apartments a year are flooding the downtown housing market, then we are not growing anywhere nearly as fast as we need to be.

True, sad thing is I don't think Tulsa is growing at all. If downtown is that means that likely there are more empty houses somewhere else in the city. 

[SXSW]

If ~200 apartments a year are flooding the downtown housing market, then we are not growing anywhere nearly as fast as we need to be.

200 is the rough number of new apartments coming online in the old buildings downtown, excluding new construction projects with parking and amenities like pools and fitness centers.  I don't know the exact number but this includes projects like the Adams Building, Reunion Center, etc it may be larger than that. The View and the Annex combined will have over 500 units and compete with the Cosmopolitan which will have another 260 units coming online next year in addition to the 62 units that just opened up in the Flats on Archer.

EDIT: it's 270 units under construction or proposed in existing buildings.  Adams (65), Reunion (80), Hartford (55) and 111 W 5th (70).

[carltonplace]

True, sad thing is I don't think Tulsa is growing at all. If downtown is that means that likely there are more empty houses somewhere else in the city. 

I meet people all the time that have moved to downtown or downtown adjacent from Bixby or Owasso.

[ComeOnBenjals]

Anyone heard any update on this project? Hotel Indigo seems to be very successful, the rooftop bar is always slam packed on the weekends!

[SXSW]

Anyone heard any update on this project? Hotel Indigo seems to be very successful, the rooftop bar is always slam packed on the weekends!

They need to lease up the office building before they can start that phase (the office building at 2nd & Elgin).  I've been told ARG wants to finish the The View before starting the residential component at Santa Fe Square.  So the entire project is still a few years out from being finished, but it's always been a multi-year multi-phase project.

[swake]

They need to lease up the office building before they can start that phase (the office building at 2nd & Elgin).  I've been told ARG wants to finish the The View before starting the residential component at Santa Fe Square.  So the entire project is still a few years out from being finished, but it's always been a multi-year multi-phase project.

Hopefully what WPX is doing will up the quality of what the tenants of the 2nd and Elgin building will want in a building. The last renderings of that building were kinda lame.

[shavethewhales]

With WPX moving out, that leaves more space in Williams tower. I don't think they were at full occupancy anyway. I think there's still a lot of office vacancy around DT Tulsa, so demand for the new tower can't be that high. That's not to say that maybe a company seeks out a bigger cohesive space though...

I just want to see that building across from the Blue Dome built first. That would really fill in a major gap for the area.

[SXSW]

With WPX moving out, that leaves more space in Williams tower. I don't think they were at full occupancy anyway. I think there's still a lot of office vacancy around DT Tulsa, so demand for the new tower can't be that high. That's not to say that maybe a company seeks out a bigger cohesive space though...

I just want to see that building across from the Blue Dome built first. That would really fill in a major gap for the area.

I had heard Laredo Petroleum was looking at moving into Santa Fe Square but that was over a year ago.  Energy prices may have put those plans on hold.  

I saw where WeWork is leasing 200k sq ft in a new tower proposed in downtown Bentonville.  Maybe they would be interested and then you could fill the building with a bunch of smaller companies, especially tech companies.

https://talkbusiness.net/2019/04/wework-coming-to-downtown-bentonville-planning-200000-sf-building-on-south-main-street/

[ComeOnBenjals]

They need to lease up the office building before they can start that phase (the office building at 2nd & Elgin).  I've been told ARG wants to finish the The View before starting the residential component at Santa Fe Square.  So the entire project is still a few years out from being finished, but it's always been a multi-year multi-phase project.

Makes sense, good insight . Hopefully the demand is there for office tenants. Are those offices on the opposite side (facing McNellies) completed? Don't remember if they were still vacant the last time I walked by.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Makes sense, good insight . Hopefully the demand is there for office tenants. Are those offices on the opposite side (facing McNellies) completed? Don't remember if they were still vacant the last time I walked by.

Yes, if you're talking about the old Santa Fe Rail Depot, the TW  had an article about the first tenants there a while back. Looks nice.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/former-santa-fe-rail-depot-reincarnated-as-contemporary-office-space/article_b86dd415-dc2d-5802-98ab-6a5671e92663.html

[Weatherdemon]

True, sad thing is I don't think Tulsa is growing at all. If downtown is that means that likely there are more empty houses somewhere else in the city.  

IDK..
They're still building neighborhoods around Owasso.
It seems odd that our population appears stagnant yet, housing construction continues at a decent pace.

[LandArchPoke]

Yes, if you're talking about the old Santa Fe Rail Depot, the TW  had an article about the first tenants there a while back. Looks nice.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/former-santa-fe-rail-depot-reincarnated-as-contemporary-office-space/article_b86dd415-dc2d-5802-98ab-6a5671e92663.html

The guy's financing a large portion of the equity of this development are the one's who moved into this building IDO (Industrial Developers of Oklahoma). They're the guys who own the H&P Building, Old Ford Glass Plant, they're building the Amazon facility, and others. So they have a vested interest to see this get built. 

This development will happen, it's just going to take time as Tulsa can't support a large high-end spec office building - look what happened in OKC with the BOK Tower - it's 90% vacant still.

From what I've heard is ARG is the main hold up, along with a retail broker who wasn't really prepared for this type of project and didn't effectively market it to tenants. ARG got spooked because the East Village project leased up very slowly and that was about the time when Williams and Energy Transfer did their dance. ARG does not want to build this until the Greenwood project is done.. and they've dragged their feet on that project because of the East Village project due to various levels of excuses. They could have built the residential portion without the office building as this was always set up to be built in phases but have chosen not to given ARG's cold feet and a lack of the retail broker successfully signing any LOI's or pre-leases. 

The reason ARG has struggled some is their new builds have lacked character and are expensive when you compare it to some of the historic reno's like the Mayo Building. You get higher quality finishes in concrete construction in many of the historic reno's for similar $$ per month. ARG needs to adapt to the fact you can't smash a suburban property into a faux urban building and expect success when you have competition. If they can figure out how to infuse some character into thier buildings and do a better job of having them fit the urban environment they'd have better success.

They tried to no put any retail in the Greenwood project because they claim the retail in the Metro building doesn't have demand. They have also been fighting to not include retail in the Santa Fe Square project but the other investors have veto'd that for now because they see the benefits of street-level retail in this part of downtown. The Metro building doesn't have demand because you can't tell there's even supposed to be retail there - terrible street level design and visibility and the Greenwood project has copied that design. Yet, somehow across the street from both in buildings that were properly design there's seems to be plenty of demand for retail, for example the Vast Bank building.

[Oil Capital]

The guy's financing a large portion of the equity of this development are the one's who moved into this building IDO (Industrial Developers of Oklahoma). They're the guys who own the H&P Building, Old Ford Glass Plant, they're building the Amazon facility, and others. So they have a vested interest to see this get built. 

This development will happen, it's just going to take time as Tulsa can't support a large high-end spec office building - look what happened in OKC with the BOK Tower - it's 90% vacant still.

BOK Park Plaza is certainly struggling with the downturn in oil prices and the shrinkage of Devon, but it is not 90% vacant and never has been. (Last I knew, the office space was approximately 60% vacant.)

[SXSW]

LandArch, good insights into the hold up at Santa Fe Square.  I've heard many of the same things.  I would hope ARG is patient and makes this their premier downtown project as it will warrant it.  And that a good amount of retail is part of the development.

[LandArchPoke]

BOK Park Plaza is certainly struggling with the downturn in oil prices and the shrinkage of Devon, but it is not 90% vacant and never has been. (Last I knew, the office space was approximately 60% vacant.)

Well if we want to get super technical about it, it really isn't "vacant" it's just not occupied as Devon is still paying rent on a huge portion of that building - that's the only reason it's escaped foreclosure for now. The fact is though the entire building was dark for a long period of time until BOK moved in - so 60%, 90% either way when that amount of office space is dark and on the market for sublease or direct lease it has the same effect on the office market. I do believe another tenant did recently move out of Energy Square into the building into some of Devon's sublease space... but you're really just moving chess pieces around the board at that point because they immediately put space on the market elsewhere. Not only did that tenant, BOK do that, Devon also put all the other space they had in various buildings downtown on the market too as the BOK Park Plaza building was not growth, it was a planned consolidation out of several other buildings and to give them a few floors extra to growth into with direct connection to their headquarter tower.

But that's the reason why anchor tenants are important to begin construction in markets like Tulsa or OKC, the markets can shift quickly and the perceived risks can be high for office buildings over 100,000 sq. ft. in either of these markets.