Local developer Scot Matteson and his Centurion Partners LLC has high hopes for a 2.7 million-square-foot, $1.6 billion mixed-use project it has envisioned in downtown Oklahoma City.
The most striking part of the development, dubbed Boardwalk at Bricktown, is a proposed 1,907-foot tower, which, if complete, would be the tallest building in the U.S.
The project’s other three buildings—which will each stand about 350 feet tall, and between 22 and 23 stories each—have already received approvals from Oklahoma City’s city council.
A zoning approval for the main tower, running 126 stories, was given a preliminary ok by the city’s planning commission last week; the developer notes that Oklahoma City doesn’t have a cap on building heights.
Oklahoma City’s city center, where its NBA team has its arena, is the region’s most intense development area, and is one “envisioned as a regional center for commerce and tourism,” the developer’s application to the city notes.
“Urban experience, interaction, creativity and knowledge exchange, and economic dynamism are guiding objectives that necessitate high intensity and extremely close proximity among businesses, residents, destinations, and amenities,” it said.
Orange-based AO, the largest architecture firm in Orange County, has headed up the designs for the project; other notables involved in the development include general contractor Hensel Phelps, engineering firms Siemens and Thornton Tomasetti, and law firm Greenberg Traurig.
Matteson Capital, an affiliate of Newport Beach’s Centurion Partners, is one of three development partners in the project, along with Thinkbox and Legends Capital Management, according to city filings.
The next step in the approval process is expected in June, when the Boardwalk at Bricktown development is taken up by Oklahoma City’s city council.
Hotels, Residences
If the 1,907-foot tower isn’t approved by the city, Centurion aims to proceed with the project’s original, already-entitled plan: four 350-foot towers.
Two of those towers will be hotels, including a 480-key Dream hotel. Also in the plans for Boardwalk at Bricktown are 1,907 residential units and 110,000 square feet of retail.
City filings indicate that the 126-story tower would hold 904 luxury residences, alongside a 352-room Hyatt hotel, as well as 99 Hyatt-branded residences.
The development is central to Oklahoma City’s entertainment hub, complete with Paycom Center—a concert venue and home court to NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder—and the recently built Oklahoma City Convention Center.
A 10,000-seat soccer stadium is also in the works near the project.
Boardwalk is “the hole in Oklahoma City’s [entertainment] donut,” Centurion founder and Managing Partner Matteson said.
Boardwalk at Bricktown would be architecture firm AO’s largest project yet.
“We want to create a really good destination for Oklahoma City,” AO Managing Partner Rob Budetti told the Business Journal. “This is going to be the catalyst that brings Oklahoma City to the forefront.”
Currently, “Oklahoma City is one of the top three fastest-growing cities in the U.S.,” Matteson added, noting the area’s wealth of job creation. “A lot of companies are relocating there because its cost of living is better.”
Moreover, the area is “very pro-business” and “friendly towards development,” Matteson said.
Building Challenges
While Boardwalk is walkable from Oklahoma City’s largest entertainment destinations, the project’s location in Tornado Alley—a twister-prone region spanning from Texas to South Dakota—poses engineering challenges for Centurion, AO and its other development partners.
A few blocks down from Boardwalk’s site, however, is an 850-foot tower, the 50-story Devon Tower.
New York-based engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti has worked on three of the 10 tallest towers in the U.S., officials said.
Financing
The vast majority of Boardwalk’s financing hails from an undisclosed investor. Legends Capital Management, a fund owned by Matteson, is contributing around $10 million to $50 million to the development.
Almost all of Boardwalk’s restaurant space, which surrounds a man-made lagoon, is pre-leased, according to Matteson.
Construction on the project is slated to begin late summer or early fall, assuming the project gets the city’s approval.
Matteson expects Boardwalk to deliver 18 to 24 months after the project breaks ground.
Miami Project
Centurion has been part of other high-rise developments, including a tower in San Diego, and has also owned low-rise projects in Orange County.
While Boardwalk is in its early stages, another one of Centurion’s most ambitious projects, Miami Worldcenter, is advancing toward the finish line.
That $20 billion development—which spans 25 acres across Park West, an older, run-down business district in Miami—includes over 300,000 square feet of retail, over 2,100 residential units and three office towers.
The entire project, which Centurion has partially built and has portioned off to other developers, totals about 17 million square feet.
Over a decade in the making, about half of Miami Worldcenter is currently under construction, according to Matteson.