The first request for assistance from the new Classen tax increment financing district is set to be presented Tuesday for an $81.4 million apartment development to be built in Midtown across from Elemental Coffee.
SSLM Development is requesting $10,775,000 from the Classen Corridor Revitalization TIF Review Committee , which was created in March by the Oklahoma City Council in conjunction with the introduction of bus rapid transit.
The partners of SSLM are Richard McKown and Kara Lewallen, whose past developments include Level and Mosaic in Deep Deuce, and Cooper Scott, who joined the partnership after managing the group’s properties.
The property, located between NW 8, NW 9, Hudson and Walker Avenues, consists of two older homes deemed dilapidated by the owners and a halfway house that was closed by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections in 2017 after repeated security breaches and the slaying of one of its residents.
“We’ve been going after this site since 2015,” Lewallen said. “We had it under contract in 2015 and it didn’t feel right at the time. We went through the process of doing due diligence and it fell through. We were going to have to go through the process of moving the halfway house, and that was part of the hesitance.”