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City Lending a Hand as Developer Looks for Grocer to Anchor Downtown Project

Flaherty and Collins

For more than a month, the Reasor’s name has been off a development slated for a Performing Arts Center parking lot at Third Street and Cincinnati Avenue.

Indiana-based Flaherty and Collins is quietly getting some help recruiting a first-class grocer as its anchor tenant for the downtown project known as The Annex. Mayor G.T. Bynum's Office of Economic Development is involved.

"What we've been doing at the City of Tulsa is providing the developer and any of the prospects that they're visiting with any of the market analysis or data that we have at the City of Tulsa that can help them make their assessment and decision," Bynum said.

Reasor's was at the table when The Annex was pitched, but the local grocer said last month it believed its 15th Street store could keep up with demand from downtown residential growth.

The PAC Trust’s $5.5 million sales contract with Flaherty and Collins requires a first-class grocer in the space.

"The developer has the responsibility to negotiate with any number of first-class grocery stores," Bynum said. "Reasor's could be one of them, but there's any number of other ones that could be it."

It’s possible a grocer new to the Tulsa market could be chosen, but the PAC Trust must approve Flaherty and Collins' choice. The firm has 300 days at most — a 180 day inspection period and up to four 30 day extensions it must pay $25,000 each for — from the sale contract's effective date to sign a lease agreement with a first-class grocery store.

"If there is no grocery store, then the trust would not approve the final sale of the parking lot," said PAC Director Mark Frie.

Some trust members speculate Reasor’s pulled its name as a negotiating tactic.

Plans for The Annex call for a 35,000 square foot grocery store, 7,000 square feet of additional retail space, 240 apartments and 636 parking spaces in a multistory garage.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.