Downtown Living Tour - Part 4

Our last stop on this tour (which was actually our very first stop that morning) is the Park Harvey apartments. I think these apartments capture the essence of downtown living, with tall buildings surrounding it and stunning views (from the higher-up floors) of Oklahoma City.

As you might expect from most downtown homes, space is at a premium, so these are not the most spacious homes (or the most economical). However, I thought the Park Harvey apartments did a decent job maximizing space and making it feel more roomy than the floor plan might suggest. On the down side, if you lease or buy one of these apartments, you’ll pay as much for 1000 square feet here as you might for a house more than twice its size somewhere outside of the downtown area.

Like The Legacy at Arts Quarter, you’re paying a premium for convenience — of course, that assumes living downtown would be convenient for you. For me, it would be very convenient because I work downtown and I could easily spend all my time downtown. If I lived in Park Harvey, I literally would just walk next door to get to my office building. You can’t get any closer than that without actually living within the same building you work in!

And, like the other urban housing places, you are also paying a premium for the novelty of downtown living. For some people it’s not worth it, but for others it certainly is. I, for one, like the convenience and the novelty of living downtown. I just can’t do it right now.

Although the Park Harvey apartments didn’t rank as my first or second pick, it really would be a toss-up between Park Harvey and the Block 42 townhouse for my third overall pick. The building is dated because it was originally built in the 50s (see more details at the end of this post), but the developers have done a nice job of renovating the space and giving an updated look. The apartments themselves are quite nice, with modern fixtures, appliances and decor.

This one bedroom apartment that we looked was roomy enough for a bachelor or even a couple that didn’t mind smaller space. The views from this particular unit were pretty cool, although its south- and west-face windows are likely to make this room quite warm during the Oklahoma summer afternoons and evenings. But the morning, late evening and nighttime scenery would be quite awesome.

The two-bedroom apartment had more space, but this unit’s layout seemed less impressive to me. The views were nice and I could still live here, but its “wow”-factor was not quite as high as the other places we looked at.

The master suite was pretty roomy for an apartment this size and it had a most impressive walk-in closet — much bigger than the closet we have. This suite was a big plus in this unit, offsetting some of the lower marks I gave the living/dining/kitchen area.

The Park Harvey building is located in the heart of downtown, nestled among Oklahoma City’s largest office skyscrapers. It’s situated right next to Leadership Square, where I work and which you can see in the picture below — it’s the shiny, mirrored-glass building sitting right next to Park Harvey.

(Photo courtesy parkharvey.com)

The Park Harvey building was initially designed and built as an office building in the heart of Downtown Oklahoma City. The 170,000-square-foot building was completed in 1957. Located across from the Oklahoma County Courthouse and within a block of the Federal Courthouse, the building was home to several law offices.

After several years of decline as many businesses moved from downtown to suburbia, Downtown Oklahoma City began a renaissance. As the downtown area was revitalized with a massive urban renewal project known as MAPS, buildings like the Park Harvey once again became highly sought-after property. Developers Justin Gardner and Richard Tanenbaum captured the renewal vision and committed to revitalizing this historic building. They invested $20 million in renovations, converting the office building to upscale urban housing. For those who work downtown, you won’t get much closer to the office than living in Park Harvey, especially if you work in my building which is literally next door.

* * *

So now you’ve seen some of what we saw last Saturday on the Move UP Downtown Living Tour. We enjoyed “window shopping” for urban housing even though we’re not in the market anytime soon. It allowed us to dream a little and see what the possibilities might be should we decide down the road that the idea of downtown living is still appealing. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour as much as we enjoyed our tour.

.
Related:

• Moving (on) UP to downtown living (or at least dreaming about it) — Part 1
  
• Downtown Living Tour - Part 2
• Downtown Living Tour - Part 3
  
• Move UP Downtown Living Tour
• Block 42
• The Legacy at Arts Quarter
• Park Harvey