It's that time of year again. Promises that there will be lofts by the spring. For real this time!
Work starting again on downtown First Street Lofts
Posted: Thursday, July 31, 2014 12:00 am | Updated: 9:25 am, Thu Jul 31, 2014.
By KYLE ARNOLD World Business Writer | 3 comments
Work on the long-anticipated First Street Lofts in the Blue Dome District is set to start again, said downtown developer Michael Sager.
Sager and his real estate group Blue Dome Properties LLC have started work after years of delay on the apartment portion of the former Jacobs Hotel site at 310 E. First St. with plans to offer the project for bids in the coming weeks.
“We have been working for three to four months to revise all of our construction plans for completion,” Sager said.
With the new plans, Sager said construction could start in the next 60 days, with 180 days of scheduled construction. That timeline would put the completion of the project sometime in the early spring of 2015 with apartment leasing to start shortly after.
The 40,000-square-foot building has five floors, with apartments planned for the second through fifth stories.
Sager has been working on the First Street Lofts project since before 2007, when his company was granted $1.3 million from the original Vision 2025 tax.
“It’s just been all about timing and the cash to make it happen,” Sager said.
Originally, Sager and his company had hoped to finished the apartment section of the building first, and then come in later with ground-level retail.
But retailers were eager to move in with the boom in commercial property demand in the Blue Dome and Brady districts.
The S&J Oyster House restaurant reopened on the ground level of the First Street Lofts building in 2012, alongside liquor retailer Whiskey Business.
The property also has room for a third retail business on the east end of the building, but that space won’t be open to a tenant until after the apartment sections are done, he said. That’s because contractors will need that space to finish the upstairs space.
While Sager has been planning the lofts for more than a decade, he and his investment partners have actually owned the building since 1997.
Sager has revised the plans for the lofts substantially since his originally designs in 2007 and 2008.
He is now planning for 23 units on the property, ranging from 700 to 1,100 square feet. The old plans called for units up to 2,000 square feet.
“We just want some diversity. This is not a cookie-cutter project at all,” he said.
Sager said the core systems in the building are finished, including electric, heating and air and plumbing. The remaining work, he said, will be to finish building the actual apartments.
So far there aren’t any firm commitments for renters, but Sager said he isn’t asking for commitments until the property is actually done.
“I can pick up the phone and call 12 or 15 people, but we haven’t been prepared because we want people to see it before they sign anything,” Sager said.
Kyle Arnold 918-581-8380
kyle.arnold@tulsaworld.com
