Work to extend Fifth Street downtown may begin as early as April

Source: Tulsa World, Okla.迷你倉Dec. 11--Work to extend Fifth Street across the Civic Center Plaza in front of the former City Hall building may finally begin next year.Engineering Services Director Paul Zachary said last week that the city has done an initial review of construction plans submitted by the owners of the building, who have turned it into an Aloft Hotel, and could have the project out for bid as early as January."If they bring their stuff in in January, probably the earliest the contractor would get started would be in April," Zachary said.Construction is expected to take nine months to a year, Zachary said."We are having to move people out of their parking spaces," he said. "The sequencing of moving those covered parking places and moving people around is going to be a real challenge."The Aloft hotel project included a partnership with the city to reopen Fifth Street from Denver to Frisco avenues, the street that stretches through the current parking area along the east side of the Tulsa Convention Center.The entrance to the hotel, which opened earlier this year, is on the south side of the former City Hall building at the plaza level.The plan is to ultimately open Fifth Street into a two-lane, one-way street to the west, which crosses the plaza about halfway before ramping down to Frisco Avenue.As part of its agreement with the city, hotel developer TOCH is responsible for the design work on the project.The city has identified $5 million in surplus money from the 2008 Fix Our Streets bond package to fund the street project.Construction of the project has been a long time coming. Designers for TOCH have been working omini storage final bid documents for more than two years."It has been a very long process, definitely longer than any of us anticipated, but I think it is coming along well," said Paul Rose, a principal with Phillips Slaughter Rose, the company doing the design work on the project.Rose said the design work has been complicated because the Civic Center Plaza project affects many entities -- including the Cox Business Center, the downtown library, the Tulsa County Courthouse and many others -- all with individual needs.Designers have also had to deal with the fact that the parking lots below the plaza have to be reinforced to allow for construction above.But when it's done, Rose said, the plaza will capture the modern, clean look it had when first constructed in the early 1960s."It provides fire truck access to the Aloft hotel, which was a desire of the city, and also kind of frees up the traffic pattern (in the area)," Rose said.TOCH is made up of Brickhugger LLC and investors Neal Bhow, Lee Levinson and Bruce Taylor. Brickhugger principals John and Tori Snyder, along with their daughter, Amatucci, redeveloped the historic Mayo Hotel and the Detroit Lofts.The Snyders also are turning the former downtown YMCA building into a mixed-use structure that is expected to include hundreds of apartments.The 11-story former City Hall building and the detached City Council Chamber building were built in 1969.TOCH LLC purchased it for $1.3 million.Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) Visit Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) at .tulsaworld.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage