Loft Living
12/2/2011
ktul.com
Mayo 420 Building Receives
Tulsa Preservation Award
09/21/2011
The Tulsa Preservation Commission granted a 2011 Preservation Award last week to the recently renovated Mayo 420 Building, at 5th and Main in downtown Tulsa. Wiggin Properties completed the redevelopment of the former office building earlier this year, combining 67 luxury rental apartments with a new home for the downtown YMCA, and another 8,000 square feet of retail and office space. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, the building had been vacant, except for the restaurant Billy's on the Square, since 1994.
The Tulsa Development Authority selected Wiggin Properties' proposal in 2006 for funding from the Vision 2025 Downtown Housing Fund. Construction began in 2008 with additional
funding from Bank of Oklahoma and the National Trust Community Investment Fund. Architectural design was performed by Kinslow Keith and Todd. The YMCA opened its new facilities in the building
in 2010, and apartments became available for lease later in the year. By the summer of 2011 the apartments and retail space were fully leased.
During the renovation, many aspects of the original building were painstakingly preserved and restored. The exterior facades, the trademark sign, the original elevators and lobbies, the ornamental stairs, and corridors were all rehabilitated according to the Secretary of the Interior's standards for historic preservation. "Preserving the historical integrity of the Mayo 420 building was extremely important to us" said Chuck Wiggin, President of Wiggin Properties. "The result is a building with special character, and apartments which are both modern and unique. New construction could not duplicate what the Mayo Building has to offer its tenants."
"When you enter one of the apartments from a historic corridor,
you walk into a completely new space, with a fully rebuilt kitchen, bathrooms, floors, ceilings, walls, electrical wiring, lighting, heating and air conditioning," Wiggin commented. "Our preservation of original attributes of the building did not hamper the elegance or luxury of the apartments whatsoever. Rather, the apartments are much enhanced by the historic details we maintained". In addition to modern apartments, the building boasts a rooftop terrace with stunning views, a bridge to the adjacent parking garage, and a community room available to all Mayo 420 residents.
Young professional takes on downtown
by Lindsey Morehead, Tulsa Business.com
01/03/2011
Khang Nguyen says he's a lucky man.
"I don't even know how I ended up where I am, with the job that I have, with the (grade point average) that I had," Nguyen said, shaking his head. "I had a 2.54 accounting GPA. That was like the lowest of low."
Now that he has a job, he's working to keep it.
"Being entry-level, you want to go in and you want to excel and succeed," he said. "The rule was always come in before your boss and leave after your boss. Go get your dinner, get your workout in, then come back and do more work."
To make the long hours more manageable, Nguyen recently moved into the Mayo 420 Building downtown at the corner of Fifth and Main streets, on Bartlett Square. From his one-bedroom apartment, which he rents for $850 a month, he can see his office at Samson Resources in Williams Tower II, 2 W. Second St. It's about five minutes, he said, "from bed to cubicle."
"I see the office building, and it's motivation," Nguyen said excitedly. "Let's bring it today. What do you want to accomplish? Let's knock it out."
Owned by the Mayo 420 LLC and managed by Wiggin Properties LLC, the building offers 34 one-bedroom units and 33 two-bedroom units ranging in size from 600 to 2,000 SF on floors 2 through 10. Wiggin Properties Vice President Emily Rohleder said she began leasing properties in June. Today, all of the one-bedroom units are leased, and the remaining finished units are going quickly.
"It's a mix of young professionals, empty nesters, people that are just wanting to downsize (and) people that want to live downtown because they're tired of driving, want to do more walking and want to live in that environment," she said.
The building has restaurant space on the ground level with Billy's On the Square and a YMCA health club on portions of the first and second floors and the basement.
Nguyen, a University of Oklahoma graduate, likes to think of the building's youthful live, work, play atmosphere as grown-up student housing.
"Think of it like being in the dorm, but you're with amazing people," he explained. "Not just people that just want to get flipped off drunk, but professional, awesome people who are all passionate and ambitious about their lives and whatever their goals are. Put them all in a single building, and it's just awesome. You have your privacy, but if you want to hang out, you can.
"It's like college, but better. I have a 401(k); I've got a Roth (Individual Retirement Account). I don't even know what any of that stuff is, but it's totally awesome."
"Nguyen's small one-bedroom apartment is decorated sparsely, mostly with unwanted furniture from his parents.
"I just don't know why people need furniture," he said. "What do you need a couch for? To sit down?"
His main living space, chiefly characterized by oversized windows with a commanding view of downtown, has only three chairs and a small dining table for one.
"As a young professional, you're in the office all day looking at a computer screen," he said. "The last thing I want to do is watch TV, so that's why I don't have one."
Nguyen's apartment is more launching pad than living space. The ebullient youth spends his free time working out at the YMCA, where as a building tenant he gets half-priced membership. He also sometimes tags along with neighbors training for marathons or heading to The Yoga Room. And, he enjoys entertaining on the rooftop terrace, his favorite feature of the building.
Rohleder said the rooftop will soon be fully furnished with a grill and television and Wi-Fi connections, but Nguyen said the best part is simply the sweeping view.
"Everyday I look around, I see work, I see all these things, and it's like, man, this is just awesome," he said, smiling. "It's a lot of appreciation going on. It's a wonderful feeling." «
Downtown Tulsa residences on the rise
by Michael Overall, World Staff Writer
07/04/2011
Downtown after sunset, in the middle of the week, a line stretches out the door at McNellie's pub while cars circle the block looking for somewhere to park.
It's an hour wait for a table, maybe longer if you insist on sitting downstairs in the more family-friendly section.
For $3 burger nights every Wednesday, more than 1,500 people will pack into the corner of First Street and Elgin Avenue. The crowd offers definitive proof the naysayers were wrong when they warned Elliot Nelson not to waste his money investing in Tulsa's central business district.
"People said I was crazy," remembers Nelson, who now owns three other restaurants within walking distance of McNellie's, with a fifth under development.
"Tulsa had basically given up on downtown as a place where people wanted to be."
In Tulsa history, March 11, 2004, will be remembered as a turning point for downtown, when McNellie's first opened its door and debunked that "conventional wisdom."
Nelson shrugs off that kind of praise, pointing out that he wasn't the first restaurateur to take a risk on downtown.
But with a wave of condo and lofts under construction now, McNellie's is the one that developers mention in the same breath as Vision 2025 for inspiring confidence.
"We weren't the only ones," Elliot still insists. "It took a lot of people and a lot of different things to make downtown happen."
'Wasn't overnight'
In 1983, when Lee Anne Zeigler first came to Tulsa, office workers would abandon downtown after working hours, leaving the storefronts vacant and the sidewalks empty.
There was a not-so-funny joke about the homeless sleeping in the middle of the streets, where it was safe.
"Here were all these beautiful buildings, just sitting here vacant," Zeigler says, "I never understood why we weren't using them."
If anything, downtown only seemed worse by 2001, when Zeigler took over as the executive director of the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture.
By then, roughly 40 percent of the land area downtown was being used for surface parking lots, "the worst possible thing for an urban area," she says.
Of the city's famed Art Deco architecture, at least 50 percent had been torn down, "a breathtaking and tragic loss," she says.
In hindsight, however, 2001 appears to have been another turning point, one that paved the way for McNellie's and all the development that followed.
That year, Tulsa adopted the International Existing Building Code, letting developers restore old buildings without having to meet the same requirements as new construction.
That same year, the historic Tulsa Tribune building reopened as the city's first true loft-style apartments, turning six stories of blight into 35 upscale residences.
The Philtower lofts followed in 2005, with the Mayo Hotel including 72 rental units when it reopened last year.
Now, the Mayo Building will reopen this month after a total renovation to create 67 new apartments.
And a few blocks away, crews are turning the vacant Service Pipeline Building into the 119 Downtown condos, with the first two units sold after only two weeks on the market.
Meanwhile, construction is also under way on the Detroit Lofts, close to the Tribune Lofts in the Brady District.
"We've reached that critical mass, where everything just takes off," Zeigler said. "It seems like it has happened overnight, but it wasn't overnight at all."
'A glimpse of it'
Known mostly for funding construction of the BOK Center, Vision 2025 also offered subsidies for downtown apartment projects when it passed on Sept. 9, 2003.
With workers now putting the final touches on construction, the Mayo Building at Fifth and Main streets received $3 million in Vision funds.
"In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that much," says Emily Rohleder, vice president of Wiggin Properties. "But it was important symbolically."
A major investor in redevelopment projects in downtown Oklahoma City, Wiggin had wanted to make similar investments in Tulsa for a long time. But it wasn't until the approval of Vision 2025 that the company finally took the risk.
"It demonstrated how serious and committed the city was about its downtown," Rohleder says. "And that gave us a lot of confidence."
Nothing builds confidence, however, more than success itself. One profitable investment makes the next investment all the more enticing.
River City Development, for example, took advantage of a $1 million grant from the city of Tulsa, along with federal and state tax credits, to convert the upper floors of the Philtower into lofts in 2005.
Now the same company is making do without public funds to remodel the Service Pipeline Building.
"Tulsa is ready to have a vibrant and exciting downtown," says Lanny McIntosh, the architect who's designing the 119 Downtown lofts at Sixth Street and Cincinnati Avenue.
"We're not there yet, but we have a glimpse of it."
'Maybe it will happen'
Pinned to the wall behind Elliot Nelson's desk, blueprints reveal plans for a new bowling alley as the next addition to his downtown empire.
The naysayers still think he's a bit crazy. Maybe people will come downtown for dinner and drinks, but bowling?
Downtown, they warn him, is still a risky bet.
And surprisingly, he agrees. Or at least he doesn't entirely disagree.
"We're not there yet," he echoes McIntosh. "I mean, downtown still has long, long way to go."
The right description will be "revitalizing," not "revitalized," until at least a few thousand people are living inside the Inner Dispersal Loop.
All combined, the recent loft and condo projects amount to only a few hundred units. Together with a handful of older condos and apartments, it adds up to about 1,500 residential units in downtown Tulsa, officials say.
That still leaves downtown as a small, struggling neighborhood.
"Maybe it will happen in my lifetime," Nelson smiles. "Who knows? Maybe by the time my kids are graduating from college."
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100704_11_A17_LeAneg210905
Something old and something new
by Mike Jones, Tulsa World
02/07/2010
If the progress being made in downtown Tulsa could be summed up in one project it might be the Mayo Building. There's a little inconvenience, it's a little messy and it might not be moving along as quickly as some would like, but the attention being paid to detail and the care in the rejuvenation of an old building reflect the overall goal of those interested in seeing downtown return. And the end results should be well worthy any wait or inconvenience.
Opened in 1910, the Mayo Building, at Fifth and Main streets - and not to be confused with the Mayo Hotel about two blocks west - is one of Tulsa's oldest buildings. The 100-year-old building had fallen into disrepair. But with the foresight of Wiggin Properties and an infusion of Vision 2025 funding, the building is nearing completion of a $30-million renovation project.
The Mayo Building is one of Tulsa's more historic structures and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In short, it was built by the brothers Cass and John Mayo, who also built the Mayo Hotel as well as other historic downtown buildings. Its roots are deep in the history of Tulsa's oil boom.
Due to the restrictions set in place by its historic-places designation, certain care had to be taken in restoring the old building. That care was evident on a recent tour. For instance, all of the original doors are being restored. The glass, of course, had to be replaced but even it matches the original glass. Even the old transoms remain, although they no longer open.
Wiggin, which recently saw the opening of the new downtown YMCA in the building, is now giving tours to potential residents of the 67 one- and two-bedroom apartments on floors three through 10. Emily Rohleder, vice president of Oklahoma City-based Wiggin, said during the tour last week that there has been a good deal of interest in the residences. She hopes to have most or all of the units leased by the completion of the renovation, which is expected in April.
Make no mistake, these are not units that everyone can afford — rents will range from $1.25 to $1.45 a square foot and units range in size from about 650 square feet to 2,000 square feet — but the clientele is likely to be young professionals with disposable income who work downtown.
And it will be an interesting place to live and will impress residents' visitors. Walking through the construction one can see the attention being paid to detail. The original marble is being polished, the original crown moulding is being refurbished and, as mentioned, there are those great doors.
The access to the Y, at a discount rate for residents, and the location in downtown make it ideal for downtown workers.
The recent success of the Mayo Hotel residence leasing gives Wiggin confidence that the Mayo Building will follow suit.
As both the Mayo Building and the Mayo Hotel share some success, other parts of downtown continue to show signs of life. On the high end is the BOK Center. A recent study found that the new arena is an island of success in an economic tempest. At the end of December, halfway through the fiscal year, the arena had shown a profit of $1.2 million. That figure is certain to increase with some big-time concerts on the horizon such as Reba McEntire and George Strait, whose show sold out in less than an hour.
The center also ranked No. 8 in the United States by Pollstar in the number of tickets sold for the 2009 calendar year. That's an incredible showing in a market shared by Los Angeles, New York City and other cities much larger than Tulsa.
In the BOK's second quarter, from October through December, it generated $516,326 in tax revenue through sales of tickets, T-shirts, concessions and other items. For the fiscal year, the center's sales tax remittance to the city, county and state is $1,523,709. The arena's budget is based on a profit of $285,597 for the entire fiscal year.
That sort of success will again prove the naysayers wrong, although it likely won't change their tune.
I expect the same sort of success — and the same doubters — when the new ONEOK Field baseball park opens in the spring. The anti-progress crowd will again complain of parking problems and crime. One only has to look at the BOK Center to understand how ludicrous those fears are.
More new restaurants and even a bowling alley are scheduled to open in the Blue Dome District soon.
Does there need to be more progress in downtown? Certainly. There needs to be more restaurants, although there are several now and more on the drawing boards. The nightlife in downtown continues to thrive.
My only concern is that the economy and any slowdown in progress might hurt the much-anticipated NCAA first- and second-round basketball tournament scheduled for the BOK Center in 2011. Tulsa needs to put its best foot forward for that prestigious event.
The Mayo Building continues its march toward rejuvenation as does all of downtown. It's beginning to feel more like a neighborhood all the time.
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Wiggin takes wraps off $30M Mayo 420
by Kirby Lee Davis, The Journal Record
01/14/2010
Within the next week, Wiggin Properties hopes to start signing leases on its 67-unit Mayo 420 Building, finishing its $30 million renovation of the downtown Tulsa office building by early April.
"We've started doing some tours," said Wiggin Vice President Emily Rohleder. "We've got some people interested."
Those units across floors three through 10 provide a near-even mix of one- and two-bedroom units ranging from 650 to 2,000 square feet. Rohleder expects lease rates ro range from $1.25 to $1.45 per square foot, or about $813 to $2,900 a month.
Wiggin's progress marks another advance in the chicken-and-egg problem of downtown Tulsa residential options. Rohleder remains optimistic about their leasing options, pointing to the early success the Mayo Hotel and Residences enjoyed last fall with its 76 apartments, leasing 60 almost immediately.
That was achieved even as Tulsa apartment vacancy rates rose to 9.5 percent lst year from 8 percent in 2008, according to the latest report by David Forrest with CB Richard Ellis of Oklahoma. That report showed Tulsa apartment rental rates dropping 2.5 percent last year, averaging from $462 for a one-bedroom unit to $631 for two bedrooms/two baths.
Some analysts attributed the Mayo Hotel's early apartment success to its small inventory and unique hotel services, providing hedges against the recession. Analyst Darla Knight said the Mayo 420's similar size and niche appeal could help it find a similar audience.
"I think they really need to focus their advertising dollars on identifying who those people are and where that market is," said Knight, the Tulsa representative for the Norman-based multifamily brokerage Commercial Realty Resources Co. "I think they should lease up okay, given the size of it."
Wiggin boasts a couple of strong attractions in Billy's Restaurant, which remained open through the restoration effort, and the YMCA of Greater Tulsa, which started 2010 by moving its downtown Tulsa branch into the Mayo 420 Building.
"It's really nice being in the center of everything," said Susan Plank, chief executive of the 100-year-old YMCA arm. "Our major goal was to be open Jan. 1 for the new year's resolution crowd. We were able to meet that goal."
The YMCA ocupies not only the other half of the first floor from Billy's, but also portions of the basement and the second floor. That floor's other half offers four private offices for lease, totaling 3,000 square feet, and a 2,000-square-foot community room for apartment tenants.
Oklahoma City-based Wiggin acquired the 10-story, 130,000-square-foot structure at Fifth and Main Streets in August 2008 for $1.3 million.
The property management company hired architects Kinslow Keith & Todd of Tulsa and Colcord Construction LLC of Oklahoma City to restore the buliding along historic preservation standards.
That presented some interesting challenges since the existing structure evolved through three construction projects. It started as a five-story building raised in 1910 by brothers Cass and John Mayo to house their furniture store. In 1914 they added a neighboring five-story building. Three years later they connected the two into one building while adding five more stories.
Through six decades under Mayo management the structure operated as a combination retail/office complex. As suburbia set in the structure went through a series of ownership changes, its occupancy falling as downtown Tulsa struggled. Before Wiggin acquired it, the building stood largely empty since 1994.
Plank, for one, thinks the restorers did a marvelous job. Surrounding its weight equipment, treadmills and exercise bikes, the Y's first-floor exercise area employs bare brick walls left from the stripped-down interior, all sheltered by a white plaster ceiling boasting a chain of domes lit by recessed lights.
The second floor continues that eye to history, with workers polishing and retaining extensive marble panels, terrazzo floors, a barrel hallway ceiling and old-fashioned doorway transoms. Such character provides a backdrop to the basement exercise rooms, whirlpool and sauna.
"Isn't this classic?" she said of the grand floor's rustic iron door, left over from bygone days. "They were going to drywall all of this, and we asked them not to. I like it."
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Mayo Building Named to National Register of Historic Places
December 2008
The Mayo Building was recently named to the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation.
Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is the official federal list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects significant in American History, architecture, archeology, engineering and culture. National Register properties have significance to the history of their community, state or the nation.
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