WPX Downtown HQ

[LandArchPoke]

I wonder where Canoo will office, assuming everything pans out for them?  Looks like they have 375 positions to fill in Tulsa.  Maybe they will occupy some of the floors in this building.  They could put their name on the building. 

I had forgot about Canoo's R&D office.

It was actually on FOX 23 tonight that it is Helmerich & Payne and will be taking up the top three floors and take up 80,000 sq ft and they will have signage on the building.

[shavethewhales]

The H&P news is huge for this building. Not sure how well that company has been doing lately, but they are a Tulsa mainstay and will hopefully grow again in the near future. Good to have an oil company occupying a building that was built for that purpose. Does that pretty much fill up the remainder of this tower, or do you think that was included in the four floors that were already leased a few days ago?

Wonder what that means for their current space though... unfortunately this is kind of a lateral move for Tulsa office space that opens up another big hole in a worse building. Who knows though, it might be easier to fill the Boulder Towers space since it probably charges a lower rate.

[SXSW]

The H&P news is huge for this building. Not sure how well that company has been doing lately, but they are a Tulsa mainstay and will hopefully grow again in the near future. Good to have an oil company occupying a building that was built for that purpose. Does that pretty much fill up the remainder of this tower, or do you think that was included in the four floors that were already leased a few days ago?

Wonder what that means for their current space though... unfortunately this is kind of a lateral move for Tulsa office space that opens up another big hole in a worse building. Who knows though, it might be easier to fill the Boulder Towers space since it probably charges a lower rate.

Boulder Towers is one of the fugliest buildings in Tulsa.  A re-cladding would do wonders for it though and not only improve the energy efficiency but also its leasing prospects once its anchor tenant moves out (UMB Bank is also a large tenant there that is presumably staying).  Look at BankFirst Tower in OKC that is finishing up a re-cladding and also this impressive transformation in Denver: https://denverinfill.com/2019/02/new-project-930-15th-renovation.html

[LandArchPoke]

The H&P news is huge for this building. Not sure how well that company has been doing lately, but they are a Tulsa mainstay and will hopefully grow again in the near future. Good to have an oil company occupying a building that was built for that purpose. Does that pretty much fill up the remainder of this tower, or do you think that was included in the four floors that were already leased a few days ago?

Wonder what that means for their current space though... unfortunately this is kind of a lateral move for Tulsa office space that opens up another big hole in a worse building. Who knows though, it might be easier to fill the Boulder Towers space since it probably charges a lower rate.

At least lately it seems some of these lateral moves have really pushed some of the legacy Tulsa ownership groups to get serious about redevelopment. Cimarex was what broke Kanbar and got him to sell out to Price and now that tower is 90%+ occupied along with a lot of that portfolio redeveloped too. The main ownership of the Boulder Towers are the people behind Santa Fe Square's office building. I can't imagine they'll let that property just die - they'll either do some renovations or sell it to someone who will reposition it.

I think there is still about 100,000 sq ft of space left to lease in the WPX building - so it's about 40-50% leased now with H&P and the law firm. That's frankly pretty incredible to see for a market this size post Covid with this building, Santa Fe, and the Greenwood building all seeing substantial leasing so fast.

This long-term can be good for Tulsa because the existing building stock to convert into residential downtown is pretty much gone. Having some of these B-/B+ buildings have tenants leave can open the door to getting those repositioned into more hotel or residential. Boulder Towers really isn't set up well for modern office space, the floorplates are large and not contiguous which also makes it really difficult to break into small office suites too. Floor heights are too low, etc. and you see this too with the Kennedy building too which is going to be almost 100% vacant when Santa Fe Square opens. Baumgartner isn't the easiest to work with so it's possible that will sit vacant for a while. The Beacon building is another example of a B/B+ building that really is better served to be converted to residential and having some of these local tenants move into new Class A is going to eventually open the door to more repositioning opportunities. 

Boulder Towers is set up perfectly to be converted to a mixed-use residential and hotel. The dropoff area right off Boulder just north of 15th would be just what a good hotel would need for valet drop off, etc. and has the attached covered parking garage for residential tenants. One wing of the building could be a hotel, one wing could be residential. You could easily get a 100+ room hotel and a 200-300 apartments. The top floor along Boulder would make an awesome amenity space and rooftop restaurant/lounge space for a hotel with unimpeded views towards downtown, west, and south. Reclad the exterior or at least modernize it a bit and open up the street-level for ground floor retail, especially the part that faces 15th. It has a natural overhang from the building that would make great outdoor seating facing 15th. They also own a lot of those parking lots around the building that could be infill development too and would really change that neighborhood. They could easily pull the excess demand from Cherry Street a bit west with the right development and this area could be a stepping stone to pulling all that further north into the southern part of downtown too.

[SXSW]

Boulder Towers is around 82% leased with H&P.  Total of 521k rsf.  Anyone know how much space they currently have leased in there?

I like the idea of pushing the office users to the newer buildings downtown and turn this into hotel/residential use.  Are the floor plates in the separate towers too large though for hotel rooms/apartment units?

[LandArchPoke]

Boulder Towers is around 82% leased with H&P.  Total of 521k rsf.  Anyone know how much space they currently have leased in there?

Push the office users to the newer buildings downtown and turn this into hotel/residential use.  Are the floor plates in the separate towers too large though for hotel rooms/apartment units?

The floorplates in Boulder Towers range from like 25k to 35k which are massive for tenants in Tulsa... but they are set up in a U shape with the elevator banks in the center of that U. So it'd be easy to divide one side into residential and one into a hotel. This would also keep the floorplates from being too large width wise for hotel/multifamily floorplans. Each tower wing is about 100 feet wide and modern multifamily is usually about 75-90 feet wide for urban properties (View and Edge are both about 75 ft to 80 ft wide on the parts with double sided units and interior corridor in the center). Really that's what helps make it perfect for a conversion from office. The U shape isn't ideal for modern office tenants - they like the bigger/wider box floorplans where they can maximize the space and have more 'collaboration' spaces as well.

H&P I think leased about 200k in the building and are downsizing to 80k in the WPX. Most of that is just due to how much more efficient modern office space is for users, so even though they are paying more per sq ft they likely aren't paying much more total and can get the same amount of people in the space.

The other big tenants are UMB, Mid-Continent Insurance, SGA Design, and CBRE. They all take up between 15k to 40k each. Then there's some smaller tenants as well.

[DowntownDan]

I would like to see some of these older buildings converted to housing and downtown become more of a residential neighborhood in addition to office space. There is plenty of space for small and mid-scale commercial developments to cater to residents, ideally taking up some of the southern parking crater. I know it's a big ask for this town, but a boy can dream.

[swake]

I would like to see some of these older buildings converted to housing and downtown become more of a residential neighborhood in addition to office space. There is plenty of space for small and mid-scale commercial developments to cater to residents, ideally taking up some of the southern parking crater. I know it's a big ask for this town, but a boy can dream.

Not trying to be rude here,

But do you mean like the Arco Building, Reunion Building, Sinclair Building, Oil Capital Lofts, Adams Lofts, 111 Lofts, Jacobs Lofts, The Meridia, YMCA Lofts, Transok Lofts, East End Village, Harrington's Lofts, Vandever Lofts, Robinson Packer Lofts, Bedcheck Building, 420 Mayo, Mayo Hotel, Philtower Lofts, Tribune Building...



I mean, Tulsa is actually doing very well on this front.

[SXSW]

Not trying to be rude here,

But do you mean like the Arco Building, Reunion Building, Sinclair Building, Oil Capital Lofts, Adams Lofts, 111 Lofts, Jacobs Lofts, The Meridia, YMCA Lofts, Transok Lofts, East End Village, Harrington's Lofts, Vandever Lofts, Robinson Packer Lofts, Bedcheck Building, 420 Mayo, Mayo Hotel, Philtower Lofts, Tribune Building...



I mean, Tulsa is actually doing very well on this front.

I recently compiled a list of office-to-residential units in downtown Tulsa within the IDL, it includes most of the ones you listed:
111 Lofts - 69 units
Mayo 420 - 67 units
Mayo Apartments - 76 units
Philtower Lofts - 22 units
Reunion Building - 79 units
Oil Capital Lofts - 46 units
Adams Lofts - 65 units
Jacobs Lofts - 28 units
Meridia - 93 units
Y Lofts - 79 units
Transok Lofts - 37 units
East End Village - 84 units
Harrington Lofts - 34 units
Vandever Lofts - 40 units
Robinson Packer Lofts - 12 units
Tribune Lofts - 35 units
Total - 866 units

Under development
Sinclair Building - 60 units
ARCO Building - 80 units
Total - 140 units

This does not include the 800+ units of new construction apartments and condos within the IDL with another 450 under development

[Red Arrow]

Not trying to be rude here,
But do you mean like the Arco Building, Reunion Building, Sinclair Building, Oil Capital Lofts, Adams Lofts, 111 Lofts, Jacobs Lofts, The Meridia, YMCA Lofts, Transok Lofts, East End Village, Harrington's Lofts, Vandever Lofts, Robinson Packer Lofts, Bedcheck Building, 420 Mayo, Mayo Hotel, Philtower Lofts, Tribune Building...
I mean, Tulsa is actually doing very well on this front.

I saw the post by SXSW too but my question is, what is the threshold of downtown residents to support grocery stores, pharmacies, beverage stores.....?

[LandArchPoke]

I saw the post by SXSW too but my question is, what is the threshold of downtown residents to support grocery stores, pharmacies, beverage stores.....?

We've been well over that for a while now. This site's closet competition would be the Reasor's on 15th which is awful - like legitimate gross. It's a shame they didn't just close that store and build a flagship downtown.

30,000 + daytime population inside the IDL. Downtown's population is at least 5,000 full time at this point plus hotel/visitors which is easily 1,000 + people staying downtown on a regular day.

Then you have Riverview that is over 5,000 population, Pearl District/Tracy Park another 2,500+, Greenwood/Heights/Owen Park/Crosbie Heights easily 5,000+. The immediate downtown/core neighborhoods was over 30,000 people five years ago so it's probably pushing 40,000 or more at this point. There's probably a lot of people on Cherry Street/North Maple Ridge areas too that'd go to a new Oasis store versus the Reasor's on 15th because downtown would still be closer than their nicer store in Brookside.

The density around downtown is always forgotten, but Tulsa has a very dense core area - the IDL is just such a huge physiological barrier and physical barrier for many people - downtown doesn't end at the IDL. It's been one of our bigger hold backs to downtown is the lack of educational awareness to people in the brokerage and economic development circles to not properly identify and market the urban core.

If you put a vital thing inside the IDL people in Owen Park, Riverview, etc. will all go to it. There's a reason that Home Depot on 11th is one of the highest grossing stores they have - it's a shame we've not marketed downtown well for so long. Downtown frankly is rip for larger scale retail development if anyone ever buildings some well designed urban big box developments. Like Columbia Heights in DC, Metropole in San Fran, etc. Target downtown somewhere on the ground floor of a mixed-use project would kill it. Everyone from Brookside and north would go to that store versus Tulsa Hills.

OKC and other cities have no issue marketing far flung neighborhoods as 'downtown' - they call Midtown in OKC as a downtown neighborhood. Which isn't any closer to the center of their CBD than Cherry Street is for Tulsa.

It would do wonders if the downtown coordinating council, etc. expanded the boundaries of downtown and didn't allow the IDL to define it.

[LandArchPoke]

Not trying to be rude here,

But do you mean like the Arco Building, Reunion Building, Sinclair Building, Oil Capital Lofts, Adams Lofts, 111 Lofts, Jacobs Lofts, The Meridia, YMCA Lofts, Transok Lofts, East End Village, Harrington's Lofts, Vandever Lofts, Robinson Packer Lofts, Bedcheck Building, 420 Mayo, Mayo Hotel, Philtower Lofts, Tribune Building...



I mean, Tulsa is actually doing very well on this front.

Very very well - there really is very few under utilized or completely vacant buildings anymore inside the IDL. I think because rehabs are not as noticeable as new construction people don't realize how much residential has really been created downtown or how much redevelopment has occurred. You're talking millions of sq. ft. of former office space is now residential or hotel uses. Tulsa really is a model city on older building conversions, Dallas and other bigger cities have really struggled to get developers to do this. Frankly, what has allowed it here so easily is having no on-site parking requirements. That is such a massive hurdle for a lot of older buildings to overcome and the number of residential buildings downtown with no on site parking is really shocking for a southern city and isn't talked about much. Outside of Austin you don't really see that on this scale anywhere else. (Wish they would remove parking minimums for Cherry Street, Riverview, Pearl, Greenwood, etc.)

With ARCO and Sinclair being redeveloped, the only big building left is Philcade. It does have a big data center in the building and for security reasons that might be why Price hasn't tried to do something different with that building.

You have the Parker building and building next to it as the next biggest vacant buildings inside the IDL. Other than that not many buildings over 5 stories downtown are left that are mostly vacant and in disrepair.

The Beacon and Kennedy buildings are pushing towards being high vacancy properties that should be converted. I wouldn't really describe them as in disrepair though. So not a bad thing to see local tenants shuffling and moving into new Class A buildings - will provide some room in buildings like those two to become residential or hotels and would like to see that trend continue. Would be nice to see a few more brand new infill office buildings if it means opening up redevelopment/conversion opportunities in older towers downtown.   

[SXSW]

^ I've heard the IBM building at 6th & Boston is targeted for conversion to apartments by PFP.  The Thompson Building at 5th & Boston and ONG Building at 7th & Boston would be good candidates too.

[Red Arrow]

The density around downtown is always forgotten, but Tulsa has a very dense core area - the IDL is just such a huge physiological barrier and physical barrier for many people - downtown doesn't end at the IDL.

I agree the IDL is a physiological barrier.  It shouldn't be a physical barrier. I don't know how to fix that.  It's kind of like "the other side of the tracks".  Physically, a few under or overpasses shouldn't be that big a deal.  But, i know that it is.   i understand the concept of buying a day's worth of groceries vs. a week's worth of groceries but "Mr. Suburbia" here would rather do the later and have the place to store them.  A good, reliable public transit system (yes, I like rail) would help urban living but I also understand the chicken-egg problem.

Long story short... I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, PA.  We could get (almost) anything we wanted the same day with a quick trip to "downtown".  When our family moved to Bixby (1971), we could get almost anything we wanted... the next day from Dallas.  Amazon (etc) has changed a lot of that (at a shipping cost) but sometimes it's nice to actually see and feel what one is buying the same day.  OK, I still live in the 20th Century but not all change is progress.

It would do wonders if the downtown coordinating council, etc. expanded the boundaries of downtown and didn't allow the IDL to define it.

Yep

[tulsabug]

... This site's closet competition would be the Reasor's on 15th which is awful - like legitimate gross.

Lol! Not to take this off-topic but are we talking design or health code violations - please elaborate.