All Posts Tagged With: "urban homes"

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. Continued

The Legacy has a clubhouse that seems similar to what you might find a nicer hotel, with a grand lobby, conference/meeting/banquet rooms and other nice amenities. Continued

Before I show you the next stop on our downtown living tour, I wanted to add a couple more tidbits to my discussion from the last post. First, reader CGHill (a quite well-known Oklahoma blogger and long-time Oklahoma City resident) pointed out something quite interesting about the Block 42 development:

Did you notice that there are exactly 42 units?

No, I hadn’t noticed that. But, that’s just plain cool! I love it when people go to that much detail when creating something. It shows that there was more thought put into a project than just simply designing a nice building. It’s something I try to do with my creative projects, adding a subtext to the main subject to make it a little more interesting.

Also, in the picture below, sitting high above the Block 42 sign, you’ll see the large penthouse at the top of that section of the development. We were told by one of the tour guides that this unit was bought by a Tulsa businessman, who paid more than $1 million — how much more wasn’t known by that particular guide. It was a secondary home for him. Unfortunately, that penthouse wasn’t available for viewing. Judging from the exterior, the views have to be fantastic, and based on the purchase price, I’m betting that it’s decked out pretty nicely as well.

Incidently, in this picture you can see the penthouse that we did tour and that I highlighted in the last post. It sits at the top of the rectangular section in the corner of the development (left of center in the photo) that stands taller than the other units on either side of it.

Now, continuing on our tour Continued

For the last several years, I’ve had a growing desire to live and work downtown. There’s something novel and cool about it. Granted, I’ve never done it so I really don’t know, but it still seems like fun.

Well, I’m halfway there! In December, I started working downtown (which I’ll post pictures that I took last Saturday of my office building sometime later this week). Last Saturday, we took a tour of some downtown housing. It was part of the Move UP Downtown Living Tour.

It was like window shopping for my dream home. And that’s exactly what it is — a dream. It won’t be happening anytime soon. Economically and pragmatically, we just can’t swing it yet. Downtown living just ain’t cheap! Not only that, it’s not really feasible to move downtown with the girls still living at home. But Karla and I have dreamed of the possibility of moving downtown sometime after the girls leave the nest. (Mind you, I’m not in hurry. They certainly can stick around as long as they want. These are my baby girls we’re talking about, even if they are 13 and 14-going-on-15.)

It was fun looking and dreaming nonetheless. We toured several downtown living properties. Some we liked, so we didn’t like… and there was one that we really fell in love with. It was a penthouse in the Block 42 development. And it was just plain cool. Maybe by the time we’re ready to buy, the couple currently living there will be ready to sell!

The master bedroom had an awesome view of downtown. The large windows and sliding glass door (which lead to a small balcony you could stand on) let in a lot of light and wonderful cityscapes. You can’t see the best views from this angle, but you can get an idea from the photo I took looking out the window of the shower in the master bathroom. Continued