Unfortunately we fell short in some regard according to this article posted by the Journal Record this afternoon. We will regroup and attempt to find alternative means of financing to move this project forward, hopefully in the near future. Will keep you posted.
Five projects vie for downtown Tulsa Development Authority fundsby Kirby Lee Davis
Published: August 4th, 2011
TULSA – Over the next week the Tulsa Development Authority will weigh five finalists for $3 million in downtown housing assistance from the city’s third penny sales tax program.
The city drew 13 responses from its May 27 request for proposals, TDA Downtown Housing Task Force Chairman Roy Peters said Thursday.
On Monday, Peters said the nine-member task force screened out seven proposals based on their readiness to go forward, their financial resources, experience in the field and demonstrated quality of the project.
After reviewing the six remaining proposals Tuesday and Wednesday, Peters outlined their plans for the TDA Thursday. In executive session the authority determined one of the finalists did not qualify for funding. That left these five apartment proposals, three plotting renovations of existing buildings and two new construction projects:
• East End Village LLC, led by Travis Skaggs. He requested $1 million, or $18,900 per housing unit, to be spent toward remodeling the former Bill White Chevrolet block between Elgin and Frankfurt avenues into 53 apartments.
• TDL NOW for Vandever Lofts, led by Mayo Hotel and Detroit Lofts developer John Snyder. Snyder, who has left a “For Sale” sign on the skyscraper district’s Vandever Building over the last quarter, requested $925,000, or $23,125 per unit, toward renovating the former department store into 40 apartments.
• TDL NOW for YMCA Lofts, also led by Snyder. This proposal requested $1.99 million, or $29,000 per unit, to renovate downtown’s historic YMCA building into 82 apartments. Snyder would also need to buy the building.
• Nelson and Stowe Development, led by Casey T. Stowe and Elliot Nelson. This proposal requested $3 million to build a new, 142-unit apartment complex east of the Blue Dome district.
• GreenArch LLC, led by Kajeer Yar. This proposal sought $2 million, or $28,600 per unit, to build a 68-unit apartment complex just south of the Greenwood district.
“The developers for the most part were focusing on smaller apartment units, heavily favoring one-bedroom and efficiency apartment units,” Peters said.
Only one of the rejected projects was directly identified Thursday, a proposal by River City Development to transform the former Arco Building into 68 apartments. The others will be identified next week.
“We’ve determined today that this River City Development project isn’t a qualified project because they don’t have site control of the building,” Peters said.
The River City move marked a shift from their year-ago proposal to redevelop the Fifth and Cincinnati building as for-sale condos. Peters said River City officials announced the change in their presentation before the task force Wednesday.
Another rejection came to light through its own public relations gambit. On Tuesday, the 120 Development Group put out a press release saying David Sharp’s year-old mixed-use redevelopment proposal for the Enterprise Building was ready to go forward if it received funding from the TDA.
“We like the Enterprise project,” said Peters on its not making the final list. “We like other projects that didn’t get selected. But just from a practical standpoint, when we went through the evaluation of all these projects, we thought these five were more viable.”
Peters stressed that these projects could still proceed without public funding.
“I too believe some of those projects will move forward without the TDA funds,” said Darla Knight, the Tulsa market representative for the Norman-based multifamily brokerage Commercial Realty Resources Co. “The Mayo, Philtower, and Tribune Lofts all have rents exceeding $1.20 per square foot. More housing opportunity is another step forward for our downtown.”
The TDA’s original 13 proposals had requested a total of $21 million. The five remaining finalists sought a total of $8.9 million.
Since the TDA has only $3 million to distribute, Peters acknowledged the authority will have to weigh not only the best value for the public funds, but also how much funding a project may need to proceed.
“It’s hard,” said the former president of the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance. “You’re just really trying to spread the public money to the best, most viable projects, and in order to do that we probably couldn’t fund everybody at the level they’ve asked for. We’re just trying to figure out at what level this public money would allow the developer to move forward with the good projects.”
Peters said all of the requests represent just a fraction of their total project costs, many of which remain in the development stages.
“My hopes are that several that are not on this short list will still go forward,” he said. “In the long list we had three that wanted all $3 million.”
Peters said he came through this process feeling very good about downtown housing demand.
“One of the results of this process has been revelation, at least on my part, that there is a lot of interest in living downtown,” he said after the TDA meeting. “We’ve learned from the projects that were previously funded with public money that it has generated a lot of enthusiasm for living downtown. That’s going to help our retail prospects going forward, it’s going to help our restaurant prospects going forward and it’s going to support big projects like the BOK Center and the ballpark, because people are living here, can walk and be involved in the community.”
Complete URL:
http://journalrecord.com/2011/08/04/five-projects-vie-for-downtown-tulsa-development-authority-funds-real-estate/
