X

Developers anxious to obtain Shawnee real estate



Urban renewal commissioners shifted their focus for future land purchases Wednesday after learning a tentative deal struck in June for retail development of a 10-acre tract fell apart.

Armstrong Development Properties Inc., a Pennsylvania-based real estate investment trust, tendered a proposal to buy at a price of $4 a square foot a 10-acre tract east of North Sixth Street along West Shawnee Bypass. The shopping center proposed by the company would have been anchored by a grocery store and included other retail tenants and restaurants.

Rickey Hayes of Retail Attractions said the company, which recently developed a corner in midtown Tulsa that features a Sprouts Farmers Market, wanted to delay its development plans in Muskogee. Hayes, a consultant retained by the city of Muskogee and a number of other municipalities, said there is too much interest to wait for Armstrong.

"There's a ton of interest and some internal discussions about how to proceed putting that into the hands of those who wish to develop it," Hayes said about the 10-acre tract eyed by the real estate investment trust. "The Armstrong deal is off: The entity wanted to delay, and we can't hold good dirt because somebody wants to delay — we've got people wanting it."

Hayes said there also is a lot of interest from developers who want to "pick off the pads" that front West Shawnee Bypass. He and Retail Business Enterprise Director Don Root counseled against that option, favoring instead large-tract developers who can bring with them big-box retailers.

When Armstrong was in the picture, urban renewal commissioners instructed city staffers to pursue land acquisitions within an area defined as Phase IB. That area is located east of North Sixth Street along West Shawnee Bypass and extends south to about Miller Street.

With Armstrong dropping out, commissioners included in their immediate acquisition plans tracts located within the the western portions of Phase IB and Phase III. The latter, as defined by the master plan, would include multi-family housing for which a development proposal was approved about a year ago.

City Attorney Roy Tucker said the urban renewal authority owns or has option contracts to buy about 50 percent of the parcels located within the western half of Phase IB. Tucker said about 60 percent of the land needed for RECO Development Group's multifamily housing development proposal must be acquired before that project can move forward.

The area designated for urban renewal is bounded by Chicago and 11th streets on the east and west and Shawnee Bypass and Talladega Street on the north and south. Urban renewal commissioners divided the 90-acre tract into three project areas, with most of it being set aside for big-box retail projects, and smaller portions designated for commercial infill and residential development.

A master plan proposed for the urban renewal project area features a 20-acre focal point where a second shopping center, restaurants and water features just east of Sixth Street. The master plan, which is expected to be presented for final approval in October, was assembled by Planning Design Group, a Tulsa landscape architectural firm.

The second shopping center envisioned for the project area would be nestled between Three Rivers Plaza, which is being built west of Sixth Street, and existing restaurants located east of the project's core area. The master plan also envisions single- and multi-family housing along the second shopping center's southern perimeter and a complex featuring a combination of office and warehouse space on tracts that front Talladega Street south of Three Rivers Plaza.

Reach D.E. Smoot at (918) 684-2901 or dsmoot@muskogeephoenix.com.