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Besides having some of the largest retail/office community developments under construction at one time, Turner & Company also will be building one of the biggest office buildings in the city in the next 14 months.
It’s all part of Derek Turner’s vision to help simplify people’s lives and give them more family time.
“Edmond’s such a great community,” Turner said Friday. “All the reasons people come here can be scaled down and put in 1-2 mile radiuses. They (residents) want the convenience of having places to work, places to shop, schools and churches (all within a short drive).
“People are trying to spend more time with family. The last thing they want to do is spend that amount of time in the car.”
And that philosophy is what has led to developments such as the Village Center III at Coffee Creek, which is at the corner of Kelly and Covell roads, near the U.S. Post Office branch there. The final plat of this development was approved by the Edmond City Council last week and includes a 13,600-square-foot retail building, a new Edmond Bank and Trust building that is 10,900 square feet and another 13,400-square-foot office building behind the previous two buildings. Two other large-scale buildings are proposed there in the future plus a dog spa business is already in operation there.
And while the Coffee Creek complex is a significant investment in the community, it cannot compete with the size and scale of the Stonebridge and Fisher Hall developments that mirror each other off Boulevard in south Edmond.
Stonebridge is a mixed-use development on the west side of Boulevard just south of 33rd Street and goes west almost to Broadway. This 120-acre site will be the future home of 10 office buildings that will feature offices for many types of physicians including an optometrist, dermatologist and a gynecologist as well as spaces for a law firm and the new state headquarters building for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Also inside this proposal will be 25 acres of single family housing ranging from 1,800-square-feet empty nester homes to $300,000 and up homes done in clusters for a varied community. In addition, a set of upscale apartments will be built by a Tulsa company on the property, of which a site plan will be considered Tuesday night by the Planning Commission.
The Stonebridge development, which has made a $6 million investment just along the frontage, is one of the largest Planned Unit Developments to ever go through the city approval process at one time. It is the site of a former small airport and the old hangar building was torn down last week, Turner said. The single family homes addition is called The Landings to remember that history.
Just east across Boulevard will be Fisher Hall North, a 60,396-square-foot office building at the back of a complex of five proposed retail/office buildings just south of the shopping center that is anchored by the Mardel’s Christian book store.
This 8.17-acre site is the first phase of development on this side of Boulevard just a 1/4 mile from the Edmond/Oklahoma City line. After the first of the year, Turner expects to close on an adjoining 7 acres to the south.
The significance of this is truly in the Fisher Hall building, which will overlook the existing lake inside the Third Community Park that is now under construction by the city. Not only will occupants have a peaceful view, they will be part of one of the most significant office undertakings in Edmond’s history.
Janet Yowell, executive director for the Edmond Economic Development Authority, said Friday that three companies could easily fit inside a 5,000-square-foot building, of which there are two planned for the frontage. So imagine how much can go inside a 60,000-square-foot building, she said, and then realize how many jobs that will create for the city’s economy.
“The potential for the number of jobs he’s going to create is enormous,” Yowell said. “It’s a new area for employment we haven’t seen before. It’s going to be an economic hub of its own over there.”
Besides Turner’s own company moving into the building, he has four other tenants who are making the investment with him and still has 35 percent of the building to lease.
“Half of the tenants are coming back from the Oklahoma City area (investing in Edmond),” Turner said.
In addition to his company, another real estate venture, a law firm and an accountant are expected to move into the building. There also is a bank planned for the corner of the project.
“We’re starting to see these companies who say ‘I’m in a 5,000-square-foot building today’ but they realize what they’ll need in three years,” Turner said.
For a comparison, Turner mentioned the Turtle Creek office complex his company built over several years and said it totals 75,000 square feet, which is only 15,000 square feet larger than Fisher Hall.
Dave and Marilyn Wantland attended the Economic Development Partners meeting at the EEDA on Friday morning where Turner made a presentation about this project to others in the Edmond real estate industry. Marilyn Wantland’s family, the Fishers, was the original owners of both the park land and the area where Turner is developing on the east side of Boulevard. The couple said they were pleased with the development, and particularly with keeping the family name as part of the project.
“I’m also complimentary of Turner & Co. for their foresight,” Dave Wantland said. “It’s going to be gorgeous.”
Turner told the crowd that his office kept calling it the Fisher/Hall project because another land owner there had been the Halls. As it came time to give the development a name, he said Fisher Hall in both its historical significance and in the meaning of the word hall as a building seemed to be just the right fit.
The design of the building is by Bockus Payne Associates, a local architecture firm who also designed the Spring Creek shopping center, which is cited as a benchmark for development in Edmond. The Fisher Hall building design is reminiscent of the Spring Creek style. Just the design work alone is a $300,000 investment, he said.
Turner also reminisced with the group how much Edmond has changed from when his parents bought land to the north of the Stonebridge development and built an office building there in 1972.
“People told them ‘you’re crazy. You can’t build that far out of town!’” Turner said. “They literally plowed up a wheat field and built that building.”
Today, this area of the city is the busiest intersection in Edmond from a traffic perspective.
But one of the development’s biggest selling points, he said, is its location. Many of his clients have a wide geographic area they cover with their businesses, he said. Because of the location and the roadways there, a person officing at Fisher Hall could be in downtown Tulsa within an hour and a half or in El Reno within 45 minutes. It’s the same reason Turner is moving to the site himself from 15th and Bryant because he has projects ranging from Deer Creek to the Oakdale area.
Besides contributing to Edmond’s growth, Turner’s company is changing in dramatic ways. He recently spun off two other companies to try to better manage his business. Oak Leaf Homes is the new name of the construction group that Turner is in partnership with Jim Green on whose specialty is building homes in the $275,000 and up range. Red Rock is a new partnership with Turner’s brother, Bryan, and friend Mark Lambert and will focus on specialty projects like the housing for the Touchmark development that is senior assisted living homes in northwest Edmond.
Also, the company recently hired Main Street, a local group that redesigned the group’s Web site. Turner & Company is on the Web at www.turnerandcompany.com.
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