Shophomes offer living above micro-retail
Bringing a product type unique to the Oklahoma City market in newly built housing, the Spoke Street Shophomes provide an opportunity to live, work, and play all in one place. These 10 live-work townhomes deliver micro-retail and attainable housing for an entrepreneurial subset of buyers in the new urbanist Wheeler District, just south of downtown.
The Spoke Street Shophomes and their developer, Dryline, recently won a 2023 Urban Guild Award for excellence in mixed-use design.
In each three-story house, the ground floor can be used for retail, office, marketplace, workshop, and more, while the upper floors serve as a living space. Just a few doors down from a brewery and a taco shop, the Shophomes are in the heart of the Wheeler District, the redevelopment of a former airport.
This grouping of mixed-use comprises the growing town center in the District, which was launched five years ago and is planned to eventually provide 2,000 living spaces in a large new OKC neighborhood.
A Mixed-Use Merit award was given to The Thomas Building in Birmingham, Alabama, by Nequette Architecture & Design. The 4-story restoration of an 1889 mercantile building includes a new floor at top. The base of the building is ground floor retail, with nine residential units and 1.5 floors of office space above.
A revitalization of Westminster Street in Providence, Rhode Island, by Union Studio, also won a Mixed-Use Merit Award. We recently wrote about this project in Public Square.
Editor's note: This article addresses CNU’s Strategic Plan goal of working to change codes and regulations blocking walkable urbanism.
