The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Another downtown property purchased by a church.


Avanti Building sold to First Presbyterian Church
 

Tulsa World By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Published: 2/13/2013  2:15 AM

The Avanti Building, the southernmost property in the Kanbar portfolio of downtown office holdings, has been sold to First Presbyterian Church for $2.1 million.

Plans for the vacant, six-story structure at 810 S. Cincinnati Ave. have yet to be determined, said Steve Caldwell, director of operations for First Presbyterian Church.

"We're looking at different possible uses for the building, but we haven't arrived at any final decisions," he said Tuesday.

California inventor and philanthropist Maurice Kanbar purchased the building in 2005 for $2.4 million. It was one of 19 buildings he owned when his holdings reached a peak of one-third of all available office space downtown.

 Tulsa County tax records indicate the Avanti Building has a fair market value of $1.56 million.

The property is two blocks away from a cluster that makes up the rest of Kanbar's holdings.

In mid-2011, Kanbar Properties vacated all tenants from Avanti as well as the Oil Capital Building, 507 S. Main St., with Kanbar officials citing their low occupancies and the expense of keeping the buildings in operation.

Kanbar Properties is now known as KPM, and local investors John and Stuart Price have purchased a stake in the portfolio.

Calls to the Price brothers were not returned by press time Tuesday.

Caldwell said the purchase of Avanti marks a continuation of First Presbyterian's growth.

First Presbyterian purchased the nearby former Powerhouse Gym building on Cincinnati Avenue in 2008 for $2.1 million, and now uses it as a youth and worship center.

"We've been through a major expansion and renovation, and Powerhouse was part of that," Caldwell said.

The sale reduces the Kanbar portfolio to 13 buildings. Some have been sold off, such as the Atlas Life Building at 415 S. Boston Ave. and the Enterprise Building at 522 S. Boston Ave., while the McBirney and Cordell buildings on Main Street between Fourth and Fifth streets were demolished due to structural problems.

Kanbar Properties put the Pythian Building up for auction last year, but a buyer was not found.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20130213_32_E1_CUTLIN503661

Goodie....I like the Churches buying up crap buildings. By virtue of tax loopholes, 5013c, they have the funding and incentives to level or fix these outdated structures. Too bad the tax rolls will lose a building...

How is this a "crap" building? Are you just in a bad mood today?

First pres already owns one building that seems to be used primarily for non-church purposes (Bernsen) as it houses meeting space and offices for various non-profits. I am wondering if this is a further step in that direction.

How much money does that church have?  They already own a bunch of buildings, just finished a multi-million dollar expansion, and now this?  I see another south downtown parking lot in the future.  What else would a church need a six story office building for?  And yay on losing a taxable building.

The church a few years ago had plans of turning the original ONG building into lofts.  Just because a church buys a building doesn't mean they aren't going to automatically demolish.

Tulsa is lucky to have so many thriving religious organizations downtown.

You think we'd be luckier to have them if our liquor laws changed to allow entertainment districts to grow around them?

Of course.  But, how many developments has that really stunted at this point?  What became The Vault is the only serious bar I'm aware of that didn't work.  I know of a few others that looked at the southern part of downtown, but never got off the ground.

I think we are lucky they are thriving, because otherwise we'd have multiple vacant buildings in the southern part of downtown.

I'm sure we'll never know because anyone looking to develop a district like that would just skip the area/Tulsa.

It doesn't "automatically" mean demolition, but I'd place the odds at over 50 % that a new parking lot will be the longterm future.