Mike Henderson is developing a 303-unit, $26M 5-story complex that will cover an entire block in Arts Central, west of Downtown in OKC. Personally I think that this project, with 303 units, easily could have been a 20, 30-story tower, which really would have been great, but I guess I'll take this and be happy with it. The developer, Mike Henderson, has developed a lot of suburban apartment complexes around the metro and this doesn't really look a lot differant from any of those. But it has a nice, clean urban look. The parking is hidden in the center, under the building and there will be street-level retail. The 303 units won't really hurt Downtown either, it's good to pack people in however we can as long as there isn't any tract housing in Downtown.

Oh it's been dubbed Leagacy Summit at Arts Central. The reason the neighborhood west of downtown OKC is called 'Arts Central' is because it's home to Chihuly public art on the streets, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the Myriad Gardens, Ford Center, Film Row, Civic City Music Hall, and a whole bunch of other really neat cultural attractions.

Drove by this area the other day and it looked better then I thought it would look. If henderson can get some great local and unquie retail on the bottom levels then I think this would be a nice addition to the area.

Henderson has a lot of apartment developments across the metro, so he has the resources to pull a big project off like this. And with that side of the metro filling up with great bottom-level tenants, like Trattoria il Centro, I think it will be done. But I would be sorely bummed if the tenants are Starbucks and Kinkos.

He probably doesn't really care who the tenants are, all he cares about is whether they sign the lease and pay. But I think there will be interest from some good retail companies in the location so hopefully it will fill up with good stores.

Yea I don't like the idea of a starbucks being a tenant. I think it would be cool if like a french bakery open up with outdoor tables and chairs going up to the curb or something like that.

Actually most developers do care about that sort of thing...

Is there not already a La Baguette in downtown, because that could be perfect. Or maybe a Panera, which I wouldn't mind at all as far as chains go.

Mmmm, Panera would be good. And popular with the office workers.

I understand that MOST developers care about who goes into their retail spaces, but I don't know if Henderson will. He's never really done a mixed use project before, has he?

The streetscape adjacent to Legacy is supposed to widen the sidewalks to be more pedestrian friendly- perhaps allowing enough room for a sizeable sidewalk cafe.

Oh yeah, I need to find the scoop on all of that. Basically the city and two developers (I think Henderson and Rick Dowell) are going to split the cost of streetscaping Walker in the innercity area.

How many stories would this be if it only covered 1/4 of the ground it does? Maybe 30? 40?