Magic City Books / Archer Building

[dsjeffries]

The Archer Building, a warehouse owned by BOKF Foundation in the Brady District (the big, white building on Archer, between Cincinnati and Detroit) will soon become home to art studios, apartments, and almost a dozen retailers, including Holy Mountain Records, a second Glacier Confectioners location named Chocolate City, a nonprofit book store, Magic City Books. All profits from book sales will help fund literacy programs in Tulsa through the Tulsa Literary Coalition (TLC). The $30,000,000 project to convert the building will be paid for by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Notable TLC advisory board members include David Sedaris, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, Nancy Pearl and Teresa Miller, among others. This is a really cool concept, and it's amazing to have such support from those authors! Can't wait for it to open and breathe life into that corner of the Brady District.

Tulsa Literary Coalition Webpage • Magic City Books Facebook Page







The building occupies an entire block of Archer St, was built in 1940, and contains more than 72,000 square feet of space.


//edited to include more details and renderings of the project.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Good news for the Brady!

I saw this on the Tulsa World:

Bookstore coming to the Brady Arts District

A new non-profit group is set to bring "literary magic" to the Brady Arts District.
Magic City Books will be a project of the newly-formed group Tulsa Literary Coalition. The independent store will be the anchor tenant in a building on Archer Street between Detroit Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the Brady Arts District.
Renovations on the building are set to begin soon with the bookstore opening later this year or early 2017. The building is owned by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and Chris Lilly Architects is leading the renovations.
Jeff Martin founded the bookstore and Tulsa Literary Coalition. As part of the new group, Martin will bring in his popular BookSmart Tulsa series to bring in more author events to the Tulsa community.
"It's no surprise that Downtown Tulsa is experiencing a renaissance." Martin said. "Magic City Books and the ongoing outreach of the Tulsa Literary Coalition will create and foster a new literary tradition in Tulsa, providing a much needed center for the literary arts. We will keep Tulsa reading, thinking, and talking about books and ideas."
The for-profit bookstore will be part of the funding source for the literary non-profit group.
Cindy Hulsey will serve as executive director of the coalition and general manager of the bookstore. Martin will serve as president and board of directors for the coalition.
The bookstore will also feature a cafe, meeting room, newsstand. The cafe will offer light food, coffee, tea, wine and beer.
The Tulsa Literary Coalition will provide programs beginning this summer and Magic City Books will have pop-up shops at various events and venues before the opening.
For more, go to tulsalitco.org.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/scene/arts/bookstore-coming-to-the-brady-arts-district/article_d825c8aa-d96a-5d66-8076-5ae266bccc5c.html

I heard of another development by the GKF between Boulder & Cheyenne, south of Easton. Something about converting the old factories to a mixed use development or maybe building new. Has anyone else heard of this?

[carltonplace]

Good news for the Brady!

I saw this on the Tulsa World:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/scene/arts/bookstore-coming-to-the-brady-arts-district/article_d825c8aa-d96a-5d66-8076-5ae266bccc5c.html

I heard of another development by the GKF between Boulder & Cheyenne, south of Easton. Something about converting the old factories to a mixed use development or maybe building new. Has anyone else heard of this?

Those buildings are very cool. That would be great news.

[Conan71]

I wonder if that will push Tulsa Tough out of their warehouse space.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I like books...

[sgrizzle]

Books? Aren't those like, movies on paper?

Sounds cool though

[heironymouspasparagus]

Books? Aren't those like, movies on paper?

Sounds cool though

Better!!   MUCH better!!

[TheArtist]

Excellent!  I think downtown could use two bookstores.  https://www.facebook.com/DecopolisBooks/  We will both likely be able to tap into different markets and feature different items.  DECOPOLIS Books will continue to grow its "classics selections" (just ordered another hundred different titles today) and we would also really like to start featuring more unique art books, pop-up books, miniature books, leather-bound editions, any books we can find that you don't normally see at your usual bookstore, and of course our local authors.  Really great news for downtown Tulsa.  

[sgrizzle]

Better!!   MUCH better!!

I checked and not a single one offers 7.1 sound.

[Conan71]

Based on a story on KOTV tonight, if I heard this correctly, they are saying there is room for up to 10 restaurants or retail spaces on the bottom level.  Glacier Confection will have a 7000' space for a "base to finished product" store.  There is also room for artist studios and apartments for artists in the Tulsa Artist Fellowship program.  This is a $30 million project, according to the story.

It's basically a multi-use development wet dream many other cities would love to have.

Kudos again Mr. Kaiser and to the visionaries who operate your foundation.  Tulsa is very fortunate to have a such a generous citizen.

TULSA, Oklahoma -
At almost 100 years young, another one of Tulsa's historic buildings will get a new life thanks to a major renovation set to begin next month.

An old warehouse in the heart of the Brady Arts District has sat empty for years. The 72,000 square foot building might not look like much now, but the George Kaiser Family Foundation has big plans for the space.

One of the first tenants announced is a bookstore, but that is just the beginning.

Built in the 1920s, the Archer Building has strong bones, but is in need of a fix-up. The original tin tiles line the walls and the old warehouse doors help tell its story.

But in March, The George Kaiser Family Foundation will start writing the new chapter - a $30 million renovation that will include 35 artist studios and 14 apartments for those involved with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

On the bottom floor, up to ten new restaurants and businesses - one of which will be Magic City Books, supported by the Tulsa Literary Coalition.

Board President Jeff Martin gave News On 6 a tour and history lesson on the 'Magic City' term; apparently coined by President Teddy Roosevelt after you could get rich from oil here - like magic.

"We wanted to enforce that our magic time is not over, it is right now, and what is in the future," Martin said.

Novels will line the walls and there will be event space for things like book clubs.

Martin said, "It's hard to imagine 'cause its raw right now, but when it comes together it will be beautiful, and special and super cozy like a favorite book store should be."

And once you're done reading your books, maybe you'll be in the market for a unique vinyl. Holy Mountain records will be moving from 11th Street into the Brady District.

Owner Jay Hancock called the opportunity to pair with GKFF, mind blowing, and, at first, hard to believe.

"We're just little guys. There is no way this is going to come to fruition," he said.

But it is, and Hancock said not much will change as far as the shop is concerned - except the premiere location in the heart of the Brady Arts District.

Glacier Chocolates will also be opening a second location called the City of Chocolate. It will have everything from the bean to the final product and around 7000 square feet of an educational component.

http://www.newson6.com/story/31298720/kaiser-foundation-plans-30m-renovation-for-brady-district-building

[hello]

This is a dream come true! Plus, Holy Mountain (Tulsa's best record store, imo) is moving from 11th street into the building as well. Give me a Reasor's in Downtown and I'll be able to walk to everything I need.

[swake]

This really sounds great.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I checked and not a single one offers 7.1 sound.

Even better!!   Goes to something called "imagination"....that thing that lets you paint a picture, create a symphony, build a world inside your own head without someone else 'interpreting' and putting their overlay onto your version of the experience!

[ZYX]

This looks great! We are incredibly fortunate to have the generosity of the GKFF. Tulsa would be a much different place without Kaiser.

This will push the Brady much farther along into feeling like a solid, complete neighborhood. I am very excited to see construction begin!

[TheArtist]

   On the one hand, I know this will be good for downtown.  On the other, I am really afraid of what it will do to my business and perhaps even the other businesses in our part of downtown.  Most of us over here are small fry working really really REALLY hard with what we got to make a go of it.  We have dreams and hopes of creating something wonderful ourselves.

Then you see this.  Someone with big pockets who can go in and make their own ideas happen and leave the rest of us possibly faltering and our years of hard work and dreams dashed.  

I look at First Fridays and see how my sales go dramatically down on that day compared to Fridays when that is not going on.

I think of some of our regular customers that we love to see.  I think in particular of the one gentleman and his little girl who come in every so often because she says she loves our store and likes going to Mods and the little Candy Castle across the street.  Then I imagine "Whats she going to choose when this big bookstore goes in with a giant chocolate shop next door?"  

Where are our local authors going to go now for their book signings?  To my store or this other one? Those books signings help us create a little buzz for our store.  


I have always known it would be a race against time.  That I would have to work really hard to grow and expand and better the business before the bigger competition and money would come into play downtown so that I could have a chance at competing.  

I have worked so hard to be a part of something, to try and use my talents to make Tulsa better.  

Perhaps I am just too small a person to make a difference, to compete and hopefully have my dreams come true.  

I can pivot and find a niche.... but then you always run the chance that, no matter how hard you work no matter how talented you are, no matter how hard you push, work day and night and weekends,  someone else with deeper pockets will waltz in and kick you off to the side.  It's tough out here.  

3 years and I haven't made a time off the business, have still had to work my day jobs to make ends meet.  This year was the year that I could have done that but then with the big move to a larger more expensive space the "schedule" for me to start making a little was going to have to wait a little more.  But the dream is worth it. Someday it will be great and we will make it.  But now with this going in... gonna be even harder.  I don't know yet what my next pivot is going to be exactly.  And even if I do, will someone else just come in again before I can take off with that dream and pull the rug out from under all that work.    

If anything I kind of wish we could have worked together on this and we could have been a part of whats going on there.  Surely they know of us and our efforts and realize what it will do to us.  I have always reached out and invited the "book community" to be a part of what we are trying to do for instance.  Us helping them helps us kind of thing.   And then out of the blue.  Yea it will be better for them, but not likely for us.