The Board of Trustees for the Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity approved up to $22 million dollars in bonds Dec. 16. They expect construction on the mixed-use project to begin sometime around mid-year in 2022.
“We’re just going through the process of getting all of the money in place for the project,” said Kian Kamas, Executive Director of the Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity, “and then securing all of the permits to actually begin construction.”
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Construction of a mixed-use development project at the corner of Cincinnati and East 3rd street has been years in the making.
Preliminary artist renderings showcase what will eventually be a 240-apartment unit structure, a boutique hotel, and a 20-thousand square foot grocery store. There will also be parking spaces, and ten-thousand feet in retail/commercial space.
Kamas says the grocery store is the largest component of the project.
“It’s huge and it’ll really, I think, help maybe remove that final barrier, or block for people who are thinking gosh I’d really love to live in downtown or near downtown, but they’re worried about how they would access groceries.”
Downtown Tulsa’s last full-service grocery store, which was located at 11th and Denver, shut its doors in 2001. The new location is expected to cater to those who live and work downtown.
“It’s a combination of people that are shopping for groceries that live downtown, said Ryan Cronk, the developer, “but also people that want to stop in, pick up something on the way home from work.”
Cronk added, “It will also have a big lunch time crowd, so downtown stores are a very economical way to eat lunch, for a downtown population.”
He says it will have a salad bar and other reasonably priced prepared food.
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Cronk, whose firm, Flaherty & Collins Properties, is based in Indianapolis, tells us we will know what grocery store will come to Tulsa sometime in January.
Kamas tells FOX23 the total investment is a minimum of $73 million dollars. She adds that the Performing Arts Council Board of Trustees, which approved the sale of the site this fall, will still have to approve the final design of the project. And staff at city hall are working with the developer on final permits.
The addition of the grocery store and the hotel are also expected to bring more than one hundred jobs.