Well this used to be a 7-page thread on the old forum... here goes again.



Phase One. Loft housing will come in future phases. This mixed-use site is going to be America's 4th largest retail site according to the Norman Transcript. So umm... ya. The developer is the University of Oklahoma Regents (although the real developer is the TIF zone the city gave the project).

So far the Target is the only thing that's up, but there's a whole lot of ground broken. Target has a Thanksgiving opening date. John Q. Hammons (local hotel developer) is building a 9-story Embassy Suites. There will also be a convention center in the development. The only other named business is an AMC movie plex going in to the east of the Target.

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Here's a very good story that ran in the Oke a couple of days ago:

Norman Master Plan
The Big Gulp

NORMAN — Drivers zipping along Interstate 35 may have noticed a red-brick structure evolving into a solid-looking SuperTarget — but it’s only the first step in a super-size retail development here.

The master plan for University Town Center calls for 2.5 million square feet of new retail space.

Besides six anchor stores, development plans show three hotels, a movie theater, conference center and an eight-acre park, said Stanton Nelson, partner and spokesman for the development partnership, University Town Center LLC.

A 500,000-square-foot Lifestyle Center, an open-air shopping mall, is the area most likely to attract stores unique to the metropolitan area, he said.

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The only malls that are bigger are Mall of America, King of Prussia, and something in the LA area that I forget's name...

Rest of the story...

Norman Master Plan
University Town Center to rival giant enclosed malls
By Chris Brawley Morgan Business Writer

NORMAN — Drivers zipping along Interstate 35 may have noticed a red-brick structure evolving into a solid-looking SuperTarget — but it’s only the first step in a super-size retail development here.

The master plan for University Town Center calls for 2.5 million square feet of new retail space.

Besides six anchor stores, development plans show three hotels, a movie theater, conference center and an eight-acre park, said Stanton Nelson, partner and spokesman for the development partnership, University Town Center LLC.

A 500,000-square-foot Lifestyle Center, an open-air shopping mall, is the area most likely to attract stores unique to the metropolitan area, he said.

“This is the heart and soul of the project. It will make the difference between a typical development and what we are doing here,” Nelson said.

In the end, construction costs for University Town Center may top $350 million. The development extends across 280 acres, a mile of which is adjacent to Interstate 35. The entire project probably will take between five and 10 years to complete, Nelson said.

If the University Town Center is completed as planned, it will be just slightly smaller than the three largest enclosed malls in the United States.

The three malls, all of which are under contiguous roofs, all boast 2.8 million square feet. That’s a mere 300,000 feet more than Norman’s University Town Center. The largest malls are the Mall of America in Minnesota, the King of Prussia Plaza in Pennsylvania and South Coast Plaza in California.

Patrice Duker, spokes- woman for the New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers, said the trend today is to build open-air shopping centers, rather than enclosed malls, particularly in warmer regions.

The next phase of construction for University Town Center will begin next fall, when work will start on three “small shops” on the south side of Target.

Also next fall, work should begin on a 130,000-squarefoot facility — which will be divided into smaller retail operations — on the north side of the $25 million Target.

Developer John Q. Hammons said he plans to start work in October on a third construction project next October — a $50 million, 10-story Embassy Suites Hotel and conference center.

“When the boys came to me, they told me they wanted to build a shopping center and they asked me if I wanted to build a hotel,” Hammons said. “So I answered the question. I said “yes” and I’m doing it.”

Hammons’ company, located in Springfield, Mo., owns and operates more than 63 hotel and resort properties in the United States, including the Courtyard by Marriott and Renaissance Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City.

Norman City Manager Brad Gambill thinks University Town Center may draw shoppers from across the region, including north Texas.
“There have been some pretty big name stores that want to come to Norman and that’s exciting in itself,” Gambill said. “There are some unique stores on the list.”

Nelson said he wouldn’t disclose any retailers who are in negotiations to move to the new development.

University Town Center is being developed by the University of Oklahoma Foundation, R.T. Oliver Investments and Sooner Investment Co., Nelson said. He also is a partner of R.T. Oliver Investments, which both owns and manages several downtown Oklahoma City high-rise buildings, including the Corporate Tower.

A TIF (tax increment financing) district will provide for $54 million in sales and ad valorem tax revenues to be set aside to help develop public aspects of the projects, including roads, the park and conference center, Gambill said.

The sprawling development will be connected by the buildings’ red-brick-and-cream-stone exteriors. “Since the university is such an important place in Norman, we are incorporating the university feel,” Nelson said.

Said Gambill, “The University Foundation and the University of Oklahoma set up some very detailed design criteria these stores have to meet. It’s going to be really nice, a lot of landscaping.”

Gambill said OU President David Boren has taken an interest in the aesthetics of the development.

Nelson said the Lifestyle Center will provide retail space for possibly 50 tenants, including two department stores. Most of the stores will be comparable to retailers located in Penn Square Mall, he said.

It's too bad that there's a ridiculous amount of parking here, but hopefully they have planned well enough that as they start to make money off of this thing they'll be able to add new buildings on parking lots and maybe replace the nasty surface parking with a nice garage or something. Where is all the residential stuff going to go, I wonder?

This is Phase 1.

I've always thought a better name for this project would simply be 24th Avenue. That would perfectly describe the development, especially because it's located nowhere near OU.

Any updates on the buiding progess or possible tennate? That is a sea of parking, so if I wanted to go to a store at the end of the street I have to jump in my car and drive there? Can you imagine that area during the holiday. That seem to be a long distance to walk. How cool would it be if the lifestyle center contain all the buildings on the campus with parking garage around that.

That would be a very neat development, but it would require for there to be a huge demand for retail space in Norman, which there is for this development, but not to the point that this development, the nation's 4th largest, has to squeeze retailers in. I'm sure, just as Penn Square is eating away at their parking, the parking here will eventually be wittled down, which in a way that offers future opportunities once this is said and done.

I've seen new Cheesecake Factories in metros smaller than half the size of OKC (Des Moines is probably one of those). So I think OKC could get two Cheesecake Factories, if this development were to attract one.

The Target is supposed to open around Thanksgiving. Right now it's just a huge field where they're moving dirt.

I've noticed that huge pile of Earth's gone.

That's Mount Williams, a grassy outcropping on the earth, hardly a mountain, that the Navy used for artillery practice a long time ago.

Yeah it's long gone. There was opposition as some said that ugly hill was a landmark.