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TULSA, Oklahoma – The Brady Arts District is getting another restaurant, and, to many, the name will ring a bell. It’s going to be located in one of the larger historic renovations going on downtown. Fans of the popular food truck, Lone Wolf, will be excited to hear the owners – Philip Phillips and his wife Danielle – just signed a lease and are set to open a new sit-down restaurant and bar.

The news comes just four months after they opened a midtown takeout location.

“We are family kids, and sometimes it’s really hard to take on those big projects. So we knew we wanted to start off with food trucks so we could really test what Lone Wolf could do and what people, how they would be receptive,” Phillips said.

To say Tulsa has been receptive is a bit of an understatement. The pair have doubled their numbers each year and even made it on a national television show with Lone Wolf.

The restaurant will join other tenants that include a bookstore, chocolate shop and record store in the soon-to-be renovated Archer Building – a $30 million project spearheaded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Phillips said, “Building a place for our kids to have somewhere to go, the thought of having something that cool and that hip is pretty amazing.”

Projects like this take time, but Phillips said they hope to have the restaurant open in spring or summer of next year.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044

Link to the original story.

 

The George Kaiser Family Foundation is about to embark on another major conversion of an underused building in the Brady District.

This time the target is the white warehouse on the north side of Archer Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Detroit Avenue. The $25 million to $30 million renovation of the 72,000-square-foot building will create 14 artist apartments, 35 artist work spaces and eight to 10 retail spaces on the first floor.

Most of the retail spaces have already been rented out, and Stanton Doyle, senior program officer with the foundation, said the tenants include Magic City Books, a bookstore to be operated by the new Tulsa Literary Coalition; Glacier Chocolate and Holy Mountain Records.

Doyle said it’s too soon to identify the rest, although the foundation said the foundation’s aim is to bring new experiences to the area.

“We’re hoping to find local, unique businesses that fill a niche in downtown,” he said.

The foundation wants to continue to reactivate local buildings that are underused, but the Archer development was also motivated by massive interest in the foundation’s new Tulsa Artist Fellowship program, which was started last year, Doyle said.

The foundation’s original goal was to choose 12 fellows and put them into apartments within the foundation’s Universal Ford and Hotel Fox development.

“When we put out the call for applications last year, we got 350 applicants,” Doyle said. “We’ve got a lot of demand for the housing and artist space, and we’re hoping to keep up.”

The apartments and studio spaces in the Archer building will allow the foundation to expand Tulsa Artist Fellowship next year, which is currently accepting applications.

Doyle said that in addition to the existing 12 fellows, Tulsa Artist Fellowship hopes to add between five and 15 visual artists and between five and 15 writers, all of whom will get housing, workspace and a stipend. The foundation will need even more living space than the Archer building can provide.

Conversion of the building will be underway soon, with the apartments targeted for a January 2017 finish date and the retail spaces finished a few months later, he said.

Chris Lilly, head of Lilly Architects, said the firm plans a historic renovation of the building — but that doesn’t mean it’ll look the same as it does now.

“It’s misleading to what the building looked like historically,” he said. “All the original openings have been filled up with masonry, and it’s been painted over.”

The conversion will uncover the plugged openings and remove the paint, and Doyle said they’re hoping to keep any old logos or signs they uncover. The interior will also keep original features such as the concrete support columns.

Lilly said the Archer building was originally constructed in 1926, and expanded multiple times since then. Over the years it’s been used as warehouse space for a range of companies, most recently storage by the building’s current owner, Bank of Oklahoma.

Doyle said the foundation is leasing the building from BOK.

Construction on the foundation’s $16 million Hotel Fox and Universal Ford conversion is wrapping up, with only a few upstairs offices and the Prairie Artisan Ales brew pub left to finish. Doyle estimated the brew pub will open up by April.

That development includes Antoinette Baking Co., The Tavern, a rumored speakeasy, the new entrepreneurial incubator 36 Degrees North, 31 apartments and office space.

The foundation also renovated the Mathews Warehouse and Tulsa Paper Co. building in the Brady District for the Woody Guthrie Center and Philbrook Downtown, among other tenants.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044

Link to the original story.

 

A newly formed nonprofit organization, the Tulsa Literary Coalition, plans to bring the art of literature to the Brady Arts District and beyond.

The coalition will open Magic City Books, an independent book store, on the corner of Archer Street and Detroit Avenue. The store will occupy the anchor position in a building owned by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Renovation of the building, to be led by Lilly Architects, will begin soon, with the store itself opening in late 2016 or early 2017.

The completed store will also include a newsstand, a cafe offering light fare, along with coffees, teas, wines and beer, and a meeting room.

The coalition will sponsor book discussion groups, literary panel discussions dealing with social and cultural issues, writing workshops and other programs.

Proceeds from Magic City Books will go to fund the Tulsa Literary Coalition, which plans to present and host a variety of literary-related events throughout the city.

The idea for the Tulsa Literary Coalition and Magic City Books is one Cindy Hulsey, director of adult services at the Tulsa City-County Library, and Jeff Martin, founder of BookSmart Tulsa had been discussing for some time.

“We just thought that the time was right,” said Hulsey, who will leave the library in April to be executive director of the Tulsa Literary Coalition. “Then we were given this incredible opportunity through the George Kaiser Family Foundation for the building. They were eager to see a bookstore open in the Brady district. It just seemed as if all the stars were aligning for this to happen.”

Hulsey said the idea of linking the bookstore with the nonprofit was a way of making both entities self-sustainable.

Martin, who also serves as president of the Tulsa Literary Coalition’s board of directors, said Magic City Books will have a “curated inventory” of titles.

“We’re not big enough to have every title available on our shelves,” he said. “This store is a return to the community neighborhood bookstore, where you can really hand-sell books and have the sort of personal interaction that people are wanting.”

Tulsa has not had an independent book store — one offering new books as opposed to used — since Steve’s Sundry, Books and Magazines closed in December 2013.

However, Tulsa has earned a reputation as a “literary city,” due in large to the efforts of BookSmart Tulsa and the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers, which Teresa Miller led until October 2015.

These organizations brought to Tulsa a number of leading authors, ranging from David Sedaris to Sir Salman Rushdie and Pat Conroy to Neil Gaiman.

Sedaris and Rushdie are members of the coalition’s advisory board, along with Miller, Jonathan Franzen, Ann Patchett, Blake Bailey, Nancy Pearl, Lane Smith and Daniel H. Wilson.

Martin said BookSmart Tulsa will remain a separate entity, although it will host many of its events at Magic City Books.

“Our larger events will be done at venues around the city as before,” Martin said.

Hulsey said one of the coalition’s long-term goals is to establish a literary festival that will be held in the Brady Arts District.

“We will be wanting to bring in a lot of community partners because we want this project to be big,” she said.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044

Link to original story.

 

All told, it’s taken three years of careful planning and hard construction to get the Hotel Fox and Universal Ford buildings back into shape, said Anne Pollard James, property manager for the buildings.

But now, those efforts are paying off.

“It’s been exciting to see this building spring up and get populated,” James said.

The new entrepreneurial incubator 36 Degrees North is about to mark its grand opening Monday, although it’s just one component among restaurants, apartments and other office space.

The George Kaiser Family Foundation acquired the buildings along Main Street between M.B. Brady and Cameron streets, and the $16 million conversion began January of last year.

Although traditional businesses make up much of the conversion, some of it has been set aside to support the area’s artistic and young entrepreneur communities, James said.

The most visible portion of that is the 11,500-square-foot, sprawling business hub of 36 Degrees North, which takes up much of the Universal Ford building’s first floor. Dustin Curzon, executive director of the program, said it’s quickly reached its initial goals even before it opened.

“It’s been amazing,” he said. “We wanted 100 members, and I think we’ll hit that number on Monday.”

Open to all workers looking for advice, work space or both, 36 Degrees North features flexible spaces for workers to occasionally drop in, hold a specific desk or occupy a small office in exchange for a monthly fee, Curzon said.

Among the first companies now operating out of 36 Degrees North are four local employees of Mozilla, a developer of software including the Firefox web browser; Mother Road Travel, a new shuttle bus service that takes people between Tulsa and Oklahoma City; Shipzen, a Tulsa and Los Angeles-based maker of warehouse logistics software; and Resolute PR.

Curzon said the space was designed to provide private spaces, including a Skype room and space for breastfeeding, as well as collaboration in its lounge areas and conference rooms — one of which was carved out of a former freight elevator.

“A lot of the people here have worked out of coffee shops, and they’ve been telling me they appreciate being around other people,” he said. “They had no idea there were people doing these kinds of work in Tulsa.”

The space will also host regular workshops on various aspects of running a business, and various professionals from outside areas, including Silicon Valley, have offered to become mentors, Curzon said.

“We want to connect Tulsa to the greater economic community around the world,” he said.

Both buildings also have apartments built above them — 23 above the Ford building and eight above the Fox. James said some of these have been reserved for the Kaiser Foundation’s Teach for America and Tulsa Artists Fellowship programs, but all of them have been rented out.

“We’ve got some people living here who work downstairs,” she said. “That’s a short commute.”

One of the tenants is Nathan Young, a multimedia artist who focuses on Native American imagery. Although the Tulsa Artists Fellowship gave him the option to fulfill his residency in his hometown of Tahlequah, he said he gladly moved into a studio apartment in the Ford Building.

“I wanted to be here with all the other artists,” he said. “The art studios nearby are amazing.”

The apartments range from 500 to 900 square feet, and rent for between $1.15 and $1.20 per square foot. James said the goal was to make the spaces affordable.

The Ford apartments retain the wide banks of windows from the original construction, along with exposed wires and the original raw concrete columns. By contrast, the Fox apartments have more discrete windows and wood trim for a more traditional feel.

Of the three restaurants, Antoinette Baking Co. became the first tenant of the development in October when the bakery moved from its Brookside location.

Molly Martin, the co-founder of the bakery, said the move allowed them to triple the size of their kitchen and include more mixers and a walk-in kitchen. They’ve also been able to increase Antoinette’s already-considerable following.

“There’s been a great energy, and we’ve gotten a lot of new customers,” she said.

Upscale eatery The Tavern, part of the McNellie’s Group of restaurants, was a tenant before the conversion and temporarily moved to 305 E. Archer St. as renovations progressed.

While much of the new Tavern will be familiar to long-time diners, it now has an additional 5,000 square feet for an expanded kitchen, private dining rooms, and a wine cellar.

And although McNellie’s Group employees decline to publicly acknowledge it, rumors persist of a new speakeasy-style lounge with a piano in the space behind Antoinette.

The last of the three restaurants, the Prairie Artisan Ales brewpub, is still slated to open in February, James said. The pub is the brainchild of R Bar developers Paul Sorrentino, Josh Royal, and Bill Grant.

The beer taps, which will include 20 different kinds of beer made in-house and five guest taps for local beers will circle around a giant wine barrel. The space will retain the white floor tile from when the building was originally constructed 110 years ago.

Finally, an array of established businesses will have offices with a shared common space above the Fox building, including Art Alliance Tulsa, Lilly Architecture — the architecture firm behind the Ford and Fox renovation, and James’ own office, Pollard & Associates Realtors.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044

Link to the original story.

 

What makes Oklahoma special? We think it’s got to be the people. And we meet some amazing people in our stories. Here’s another example.

Tulsa’s Fox Hotel is one of the city’s oldest buildings—built a century ago—now faded, with bricked up windows. Nearby, the original Ford Model-T dealership languished as a warehouse. Where some saw tired, outdated structures, architect Chris Lilly saw what they could become. Lilly specializes in renovation and preservation. Because blueprints of the old buildings no longer exist, Lilly invented a method of using a scanner to get a 3D image of old buildings, much like an MRI. The scan reveals details of the structure, so it can be renovated better than ever. An entire block of the Brady Arts District is being transformed into apartments, a brewery, and bakery, because of Chris Lilly’s vision.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044

Link to the original story.

 

“Mixed use” doesn’t do justice to what the George Kaiser Family Foundation plans to put in two Brady District buildings they’ve just begun renovating.

An all-star lineup of restaurateurs, including Elliot Nelson, head of the McNellie’s Group; Josh Royal, owner of R Bar; and Molly Martin, owner of Antoinette Baking Co.; will open new or expanded locations in the Fox Hotel and Universal Ford buildings on the east side of Main Street between Brady and Cameron streets.

On top of that, the buildings will feature 31 new apartments that will be rented out to participants in Teach for America and the foundation’s new Tulsa Artists Fellowship, 5,000 square feet of office space for small start-up companies, and the main workspace for a new entrepreneurial hub.

Stanton Doyle, senior program officer with the foundation, said work has already begun on the $16 million conversion.

The Kaiser Foundation, which had previously built 12 apartments for Teach for America above the Living Arts of Tulsa building and another eight above the building on the west side of Main between Brady and Cameron, believes strongly in bringing more activity to the Brady District, Doyle said. “We think it’s important more people live downtown in the arts district, so we believe we need to activate the buildings to keep pushing toward the critical mass,” he said.
Nelson will use the renovation to expand his existing Tavern on Brady restaurant, he said. The new 5,000 square feet will add more seating, private dining rooms, storage, an expanded kitchen, and a wine cellar that will augment the restaurant’s wine offerings.

Additionally, Nelson will create a speakeasy lounge connected to the north with an entrance facing the alley between the buildings, he said.

“We’ll build a piano into the bar, so it’ll have a lounge feel,” Nelson said.

The original Tavern space will also be renovated. Nelson said the restaurant will remain open during the renovation, which is scheduled to wrap up in November.

Martin’s contribution will be an additional location of Antoinette Baking Co. in the Fox building, which has its original Tulsa location at 3305 S. Peoria Ave. When finished in October, it will feature a similar bakery and pie nights as the first location, only with lunch specials, brunch, expanded bread baking, and more.

“We’ll be getting a liquor license, so we can offer adult beverages like spiked milkshakes,” she said.

The new, 4,000-square-foot Antoinette location will face Main Street, with Nelson’s speakeasy lounge behind it.

Royal, in collaboration with Pauly Sorrentino, plans to be principles with a new 5,000-square-foot restaurant and brewpub within the Universal Ford building, Doyle said.

The yet-to-be-named brewpub will be opened in conjunction with Tulsa’s Prairie Artisan Ales, which will brew new beer on-site. But Prairie won’t be the only group brewing there.

“On a regular basis, we’re going to invite any Oklahoma brewer to brew with us,” Sorrentino said. “We’re not about competition; we want to embrace brewing.”

Though plans are to brew beer at 3.2 percent alcohol by weight, he said they’re closely watching the progress of Senate Bill 424, which was introduced earlier this week by state Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa. The legislation would allow breweries to sell any beer they produce on-premises, no matter the alcohol volume.

“We’ll be ready to do whatever the law says by the time we open,” he said.

Sorrentino, who has partnered with others on the Old School Bagel Cafe and the Boston Avenue Grill, said they’ll reveal what kind of food they’ll serve closer to the brew pub’s fall opening.

Doyle said the apartments will range from 400 to 1,000 square feet. The apartments above the Fox building will house the studio apartments, with the larger ones above Universal Ford.

“We wanted smaller footprints to keep them affordable,” he said.

Rents on the apartments are estimated to be $1.15 per square foot, though that price will include some utilities. All 31 apartments will share a laundry facility within Fox Hotel.

Some of the apartments are another feature of the Foundation’s Tulsa Artist Fellowship Program, which will award five to 15 artists with merit-based grants of up to $40,000 per person and include housing, workspace, and a stipend.

Teach for America is a nonprofit based in New York, New York, that seeks to encourage college students to teach.

Though much of the lower floors will be taken up by the restaurants, 11,500 square feet in the Universal Ford building behind the brewpub will become an entrepreneurial hub and resource center, in partnership with the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation.

Finally, 5,000 square feet above the existing Tavern on Brady will be converted into a number of office spaces. Doyle said they’ll be relatively small suites with shared conference rooms meant for start-up companies.

Doyle said the office conversion will be less of an intrusion on the Tavern’s ongoing business than more apartments, though the foundation had an additional motivation for offices.

“It helps keep the building active during the day when the people who live there are out,” he said. “We want to keep activity going at all hours.”

Chris Lilly, architect for the conversion, said they’re working toward retaining as much of the original look as possible on the inside and outside.

“It’s representative of the historic main street that used to be downtown.”

Though three existing businesses to the east of the Tavern facing Brady are technically part of the Fox Hotel building, they won’t be affected by construction. These businesses include Chrysalis Salon and Spa, Gitwit Creative and Tulsa Artists Coalition’s TAC Gallery.

 

Lilly Architects, Tulsa OK

Commercial / Residential Architecture, and Interior Design

Phone: (918) 582-5044