EMSA's move worth watching
Prime location in Midtown offers array of development possibilities
If only everyone could share the disappointment voiced by Clay Farha last week when he was informed EMSA is going ahead with plans to move out of its longtime home in the heart of Midtown.
Farha is president of B.D. Eddie Enterprises, one of the city's quieter and smaller development firms, but one with a history dating back a century to when it was a grocery and feed store.
The 19,721-squarefoot building rests on a 40,000-square-foot triangular block, one of a handful that still exist from a time when the grid was often interrupted by the original
streetcar tracks in the early 1900s.
From 1948 to 1975 it was home to Boulevard Cafeteria, which then moved a block north to NW 11 and Dewey.
B.D. Eddie Enterprises bought the block in 1980 from the family that owned the cafeteria and leased it to AmCare, the ambulance operation preceding EMSA. It was not long after the city plunged into the years-long oil bust and Midtown was largely blighted by the early 1990s.
The near loss of St. Anthony Hospital, a downtown revival triggered by MAPS and millions invested in restoring old properties changed fortunes in Midtown and it is now filled with shops, restaurants, offices and housing. A bookstore, grocery, bowling alley and YMCA make Midtown a contender for the city's best mixed-use urban neighborhood.
The EMSA lease brought in good lease money: $300,000 a year. B.D. Eddie Enterprises has a small mix of retail and office developments across the city and Farha admits it's different from the rest of the firm's portfolio.
The block is in the middle of everything that makes Midtown a great neighborhood. It's across the street from the hospital, Brown's Bakery, the Midtown YMCA and an array of shops and restaurants. Dust Bowl Lanes, Commonplace Bookstore, The Market at Commonplace, several restaurants and shops are all within a quick walk.
The Oklahoma City Streetcar passes the block, connecting it with Bricktown, Automobile Alley, the Myriad Gardens, Scissortail Park, Chesapeake Energy Arena, and the downtown business district.
Farha's first thought is to look at tearing down the current structure (it's not historic) and build offices above underground parking. It's what his firm is used to doing. Housing is not.
But housing may be the best and most viable option for development.
The office market is in free fall due to the pandemic and may not recover for years. Likewise, the battle in Midtown and everywhere else is to keep existing retail space from going empty as the pandemic continues to devastate restaurants and shops.
Housing, however, is holding steady both downtown and in the suburbs. Even just a five-story building on the block could support the addition of anywhere from 60 to 100 residents. The underground parking would not be cheap. But doing anything with the site will require such parking unless one were to go higher and build in floors of parking between the ground and the residential floors.
That option would require going taller, possibly 10 stories or higher. And while that height would blend in well with the hospital, it would tower over the threestory Plaza Court and one-story Kaiser's.
It might be the best of all the options. But it also would require an architect experienced in designing for tight urban spaces and help to navigate required city urban design review where the height would face an uncertain reception from neighbors.
Maybe it would be easier if EMSA had renewed its lease instead of deciding to move to far east Oklahoma City. But the prospects of what can follow will be fun to watch.