The new urbanism of Midwest City

This is a post about the Midwest City Town Center. I realize that the Town Center is basically a suburban strip mall for the most part, but there is the small slice in the middle of it that is actually well-planned. Because well-planned retail spaces are such a rare commodity in the OKC metro, I will focus exclusively on that and ignore the vast expanses of the unacceptable that comprise this development.

Oh, and let me address the location. MWC? Yeah, I wouldn't have thought MWC had the potential for this nice of a project either. But actually the location really is a huge selling point, right in front of the main visitor's gate to Tinker AFB, I-40 goes through an open depression between the Town Center and Tinker, and there is another layer of traffic being carried along SE 29th Street, which is a very busy arterial through the Mid-Del area. The traffic counts have to be similar to Memorial/Penn or I-35 through Moore, which I believe is over 100,000 cars a day.

The Town Center consists for the most part of storefronts built up to the sidewalk along Mid-America Boulevard. In the median of Mid-America Blvd is a landscaped median with walking trails, reminiscent in some ways of a real boulevard.




In my opinion, this has the potential to become a great space as it matures over time. The lawn is smallish, but broad enough that it can play host to events. MWC really could try to pull of something like a summer blues festival in the green, or a community chili cook-off, or whatever kind of event would be most embraced by the residents of Midwest City (55,000 of them in the 2000 census, and 2010 will reflect some decent growth in Eastern Oklahoma County). As a suburban bedroom community of OKC and Tinker AFB, I imagine it would be similar to community events that exist in Moore or other bedroom communities.

One of the things that makes this a real, legitimate town center that to some extent is capable of standing on its own from the mess of Wal-Mart/JC Penney's/Lowe's/restaurant pad sites is that Mid-America Blvd is a real street. It has prominent egress and ingress at 29th Street and goes through the development and connects to the neighborhood behind it, where it opens up and splits--in the middle of it is MWC City Hall and other city buildings. The neighborhood behind it is largely old and run-down, but it shows that there are interesting urban redevelopment opportunities for bad areas. You could ostensibly drive through the connection between the neighborhood behind the Town Center and SE 29th without even realizing the presence of an enormous strip mall until you get into SE 29th. Because I forgot to snap a pic myself, here's a Google streetview image of the approach on Mid-America Blvd coming from the neighborhood north of the Town Center:


In order to actually achieve the effect of the lifestyle center portion dominating the interior of the Town Center, the storefronts leading up to Mid-America Blvd approaching from other streets resemble sort of a lead-up to the lifestyle center. On one side the shops come right up to the sidewalk of the street, whereas on another side it opens up to the sea of parking that is intended for one of the big box retailers like JC Penney's and others. Because it is a step down, there is not nearly the effect of the "Main Street" going through the development--but it provides continuity that keeps the influence of the parking lots away from the "Main Street."




And lastly, an important part of why this is a successfully masterplanned development is that the architecture of certain buildings stands out. It has the intention of being a charming hodge podge of storefronts that work together in a linear pattern. The spots that stick out the most have been given particular attention. Surprisingly, the lifestyle-oriented tenants of the "Main Street" like Panera or Starbucks don't occupy any of these keystone storefronts.




Obviously the rest of the Town Center just completely cancels out anything positive along Mid-America Blvd, but it's so far out in front ahead of the competition among other supersized retail centers in the metro (like Westgate Marketplace, 19th Street in Moore, Memorial/Penn, etc). This is a shining example of redevelopment, as well--other older, lower or middle income suburbs of OKC such as Del City, Bethany, Warr Acres, Britton (technically OKC now), The Village, and others should be paying close attention to this. Not only has MWC transformed an area that was once blighted, they've also vastly improved its reputation and image, set its tax coffers flush with new sales revenues, and positioned itself to be more competitive in economic development. Even suburbs that are larger, growing faster, and more prosperous such as Edmond, Yukon, Moore, Norman--even these cities should be looking at the MWC Town Center as an example in my opinion, not just the Del Citys and Bethanys.

New lifestyle center at County Line / Memorial Rd?

Sheesh.. way out at County Line Rd off of Memorial is what looks to be a proposed lifestyle center, in the SE bend in the Kilpatrick Turnpike, between the turnpike and County Line Rd (in Canadian County). According to the text of the official application, which was approved by the Planning Commission back in October, it will feature office, retail, AND residential.

The application was filed by a "Rippage Investments LLC" but from what I've heard, Caliber might be behind it. For those who aren't familiar with development around Deer Creek, Caliber has been a very aggressive development firm with several large projects in the Deer Creek area--and I think they might be based in Delaware, though I haven't been able to find anything for them online.

Not sure what to think of these projects. I like lifestyle centers because, as a realist, I understand that sprawl is going to happen regardless and there is nothing we can do to curtail that. But my problem with lifestyle centers is with the type of tenants that they attract, typically the same tenants we're trying to lure to our downtown area--if Edmond or Memorial Road projects lure the retailers we've been after, like Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, Crate and Barrel, etc..they won't come downtown. That will be it. And from a location perspective, I seriously doubt that Memorial and County Line is a good idea. I don't think I'm alone in considering anything along Memorial and west of Portland way out there, and that includes Mercy Medical Center and Gailardia..




Just to cast a light on the abhorrent growth of sprawl outside of the Kilpatrick Turnpike:

Now you see me..


Now you don't..


You could do this for basically any square mile in the Piedmont, Deer Creek, or Edmond school districts (assuming that every blade of grass in the Putnam City school district has already been developed on). Every ounce of Deer Creek and Edmond will be filled up, and I know you can head west up the NW Expressway all the way out to Piedmont and you will see development underway on tons of sprawl that doesn't yet appear on any street maps.

When we toot our own horn, congratulating ourselves for ending the white flight, thinking that we're making proactive steps to get a handle on our sprawl, nothing could in fact be further from the truth. Our sprawl is getting closer to reaching a critical level with each and every Planning Commission meeting that passes..

Jenks, America: Oklahoma's "super-suburb"

Anyone who has been following any Jenks-related news in the last few years has to be pretty impressed. It appears that the small town of Jenks, once known for being the "Antique Capital of Oklahoma," has come out of nowhere and seized its place as a venerable contender in economic development. While the 2000 population of Jenks was 9,557, the town has always had a larger footprint than that for being on the edge of Tulsa, and for its top-notch school system that extends covering a lot of area on the Tulsa side of the Arkansas River. Now though, Jenks is making a play at becoming a full-circle community, known for more than just antiques and its high school.

Three major lifestyle projects are underway in Jenks right now, at a time when almost all of the other lifestyle projects across the state have been canceled (having a $96,000 household income in a 3-mile radius would probably help that a little bit). The lifestyle projects are RiverWalk Crossing, the River District, and the Village on Main.

RiverWalk Crossing actually happens to be mostly finished. Back in 2004 the first phase was finished, with several restaurants along a promenade fronting the Arkansas River, a cinema complex, a Holiday Inn, an amphitheater area, as well as 110,000 sf of retail and office. They also just began on the second phase, which was long-delayed after Stillwater National Bank dropped out as an investor, which they've now been replaced by American National Bank of Texas.

The $50 million second phase will include 125,000 sf of retail and office, as well as significant housing additions, broken up into two sections. The retail/office is combined with a 207-unit luxury apartment complex for the "RiverWalk Village" component, and then adjacent is a 6-story 50-unit condo project called "RiverWalk Lofts" that will begin construction later. More phase two info here.


The River District is definitely the big kahuna. This project has already been delayed, but now they have decided to proceed forward in stages (as opposed to doing it all at once). It has already broken ground and work is fixing to resume soon. It's development cost will be around $800 million, with over a million sf of retail and restaurant, another million sf of office space, 500 residential units, an upscale cinema component, as well as a hotel and conference center. It will be the complete package.

The River District is probably, by far, the best example of a new-urbanist lifestyle center coming to Oklahoma. With several million square feet of development and an urban layout, this has to be considered the class of lifestyle projects. That said, it's interesting that the developer is the same as much of Lower Bricktown. Go figure.

Another project closer to downtown Jenks (right across the Creek Turnpike from the River District) is the Village on Main. The triumphant planning feature of the $60 million Village on Main project is that it is virtually designed to feel simply like an extension of Main Street in Jenks. The developers have said, “The Village on Main is the integral piece that
connects the Oklahoma Aquarium, RiverWalk Crossing, Historic Downtown, River District, and Riverview.” The Village will feature over 420,000 sf of space, including a 22,000 medical office building already under construction for the Utica Park Clinic in Tulsa. Overall the project will feature 150,000 sf of retail and restaurants, 140,000 sf of new offices, at least 100 residential units, a 100-room boutique hotel, community events center.

What's surprising is the small, compact core that all of these projects are going in. They're all practically adjacent to the new Oklahoma Aquarium, the Creek Turnpike, the Arkansas River, and downtown Jenks, one known for its antique stores, but now known for its lifestyle centers going up. Jenks, which was recently one of the Top 2 fastest growing cities in Oklahoma, may have only had 9,000 in the 2000 census, but now it is a big-time contender (that's taken a lot of Tulsa's economic development). Jenks is the model of how even a suburb 10 miles downstream from downtown Tulsa can have positive growth.

Norman's University Town Center..renderings

I was cleaning out my hard drive and came across these, some renderings that I had for the Town Center that will eventually get built as a part of University North Park/University Town Center. It's such a shame, how many excellent projects OKC had in the works that got momentarily derailed by the national economy. It's fortunate that most of these developments haven't been canceled, just pushed back until there is some recovery and loosening up in the national retail market.

So in the meantime feast your eyes on these: