Great news! This looks like quite an ambitious project and plan. So is it just an application at this point?
I am curious about the various developments I've heard about around 36th St and other developments along Pine. I wonder what the master plan is for the community. Would it be better to focus on certain corridors to get some momentum or is spreading it out better to prevent gentrification and escalating rent? There are some neighborhoods in the area that are just not owner-friendly and are full of red flags that scare away potential home owners and look to remain so, even with all the new projects. It seems like the ideal neighborhoods to focus on would be from Gilcrease Museum Road to Peoria, from Apache to downtown (Or East Marshall so that you focus on the Booker T Washington School District zone).
Some of those areas are already really nice (Gilcrease Hills, Reservoir Hill) and most the other neighborhoods by there have patches that are up and coming, while most other homes have great potential and are worth saving.
In the project specifically, they plan to eventually demolishing 271 units of housing. I know it's not the best place for community living, but it is pretty nice and you could argue some of the nicest and best maintained housing in that vicinity right now. I know they're trying to show how mixed income housing and better environment will improve lives of all involved, but can't they do that without destroying perfectly fine homes? There's plenty of empty lots around there and the new developments around it will improve the original too. It is such a massive waste. It would be so much better if they could keep those 271 units of housing plus add the 462 new units of housing planned. That would add homes for around 700 more people. What is our obsession with demolishing perfectly adequate buildings?
This area is already as suburban as it gets, completely surrounded by parking lots and admin style buildings. Maybe the new developments will create sort of a mini town there. I just wonder if destroying so many high density residential buildings will be a net gain long term. There's only so much government funding for housing so no reason to waste existing stock, especially when so much of it was built recently. I'd be all for 462 new units surrounding the existing housing and just remodel facades as needed to improve the look (An exterior designer could make those look awesome for far less than cost of demolish/rebuild).