The renovation of two buildings into a mixed-use building with retail and affordable apartments
CDE: New Markets Redevelopment (Wiggin)
KIPP Oklahoma City and EPIC
Purchase and gut renovation of the charter school’s seventh location, a dedicated high school to be relocated to a 155,000 square foot abandoned mall on Oklahoma City’s Southside. Santa Fe South High School will occupy the first floor of this building and the second floor will be leased by two other charter schools: KIPP Oklahoma City and Epic Charter Schools.
Variety Care Britton Health Center
Variety Care, a federally qualified Community Health Center, has targeted a distressed part of Oklahoma City for its next campus. Located within a “medically underserved” area with one of the highest areas of poverty in the county, this new Variety Care campus in north Oklahoma City will provide women’s health services, prenatal care, postpartum care, pediatric/adolescent care, integrated early childhood development, Teen Tot clinic, parental and marital counseling. The new health center anticipates 90% of its clientele live in households at or below poverty. At capacity the center will serve 20,000 new patients. The construction of the 35,000 square foot clinic was made possible with $5 million in New Markets Tax Credits from NMR and an additional $5.5 million from REI Development corp.
Tandy Family YMCA and Healthy Living Center
The Thornton Family YMCA has doubled its size to 92,000 square feet with a project made possible by the NMTC
21c Museum Hotel Oklahoma City
21c Museum Hotel Oklahoma City has transformed the historic Fred Jones Manufacturing complex, containing more than 150,000 square feet, into a vibrant contemporary art museum, a 135-room boutique hotel, with restaurant, bar, meeting and event space, and office space for the ADG architectural firm. Originally a Ford assembly plant that sold and serviced Model Ts and Model As, the 4-story building is a cornerstone in Oklahoma City’s historic character and bookends downtown development on the west. The iconic structure has become a vibrant gathering place for the community with the contemporary art and cultural center, open free to the public 24/7, and by attracting new visitors and business, the 21c Museum Hotel will serve as a catalyst for economic development in downtown Oklahoma City.
Universal Ford – Fox Building Renovations
Tulsa’s downtown warehouse and industrial district, now known as Brady Arts, was the site of the Tulsa race riot in 1921. Since that time, the neighborhood has struggled, and is characterized even today by vacant lots, vacant and deteriorated buildings, and the demographics of
poverty. The George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), based in Tulsa, negotiated long term leases on two buildings dating back to 1906 and
1917, to further their mission of revitalizing the area as an economic engine for the City of Tulsa. Both buildings were re-envisioned as multiuse properties to combine low-cost apartments, retail uses that would appeal to residents and visitors, and entrepreneurial spaces in a business accelerator. This concept presented the best opportunity to attract more residents and unique businesses to the heart of the neighborhood and contribute to its long-term viability as a residential and arts district. The plan included 31 housing units to provide low cost housing for teachers, retail spaces, an office suite and a large space for an entrepreneurship accelerator. However, at 100 years old the buildings presented challenges that would have made the redevelopment much too costly for a developer with traditional financing. In order to keep rents at a level that was affordable for the commercial tenants and the residents the project needed the boost of New Markets Tax Credits and Historic Tax Credits.
A representative of GKFF presented the project to New Markets Redevelopment, LLC (NMR) and REI Development Corp (REI) in the spring of 2014. NMR and REI each agreed to provide a $5 million allocation of New Markets Tax Credits to the $16 million project. U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation was the NMTC investor and the HTC investor.
The commercial spaces were all leased before the project began and once open there was a waiting list for the residences which were filled with participants in GKFF’s Teach for America and Tulsa Artists Fellowship programs. The entrepreneurial space consisting of seven
offices and 48 desks was filled by the time construction was completed.
The project generated 141 construction jobs and an estimated 75 permanent jobs. In addition over 50 small businesses or business startups have been accommodated in the entrepreneurship space and affordable housing is provided for teachers and art fellows.
