Last Updated on January 21, 2024, 8:19 AM | Published: January 20, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Strong Neighborhoods Initiative by the City of Oklahoma City has announced their official purchase of the long-abandoned Dewey Elementary School building and the land on which the building currently sits, to develop a community park for the Capitol View neighborhood.
The Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, or SNI, uses funding provided by the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development to help improve and revitalize neighborhoods alongside community residents themselves, with neighborhood input and requests forming the basis of SNI projects.
The Capitol View neighborhood – comprising areas between N Lincoln Blvd and N Kelley Ave, bound by NE 23rd Street to the south and NE 36th Street to the north – has been a part of the SNI program since 2018. Program leaders say that a new community park was one of the top requests from residents from the very beginning.
“This was one of the first things they asked for six years ago,” said Shannon Entz, senior planner with the SNI program. “This means a lot to them. It’s more than just a park and a green space for kids to play in. They really want a peaceful place for the community to gather.”
Free Press was at that initial meeting six years ago and reported:
Six years in the making
Though requests have been coming since the beginning of SNI’s investment in Capitol View for the long-empty Dewey Elementary at 3500 N Lindsay Ave to be demolished for a new community park, Entz explained why it’s only now becoming a reality.
“We’ve been ready and willing all along to buy it,” she said, “but the … length of time it took was mainly because of the school district trying to make a decision for themselves and what they wanted to do with that property.”
The Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) District owns each of their school buildings and has long been mulling the benefits of either renovating the Dewey building for their own uses or simply selling the property.
”There were just different directions, and they couldn’t decide which direction they wanted to go with it,” said Entz. “They went through a couple different superintendents and did two studies over that six years to determine if they wanted to use the building for something else.”
After finally deciding recently to sell the building and surrounding property to the SNI program, they agreed to a final price of $350,000, including nearly $3,000 in closing costs alone.
As OKCPS owned the building outright, that $350,000 total can now be added to the district’s budget and resources.
“The way we look at it, it’s sort of a win-win,” Entz said, “because that money can go back into city schools.”
Final project
After six years of working with Capitol View, SNI plans for this park to be the final project in the neighborhood, with the revitalization efforts of the program having been a clear and resounding success.
“In more than a decade of SNI, Capitol View has had the highest rate of individual participation of all of our neighborhoods,” said Entz. “They’ve had 37 homes rehabbed and 162 residents that have had hazardous trees removed. Those are high numbers. Those are all individuals that have taken the time to submit applications for work to be done on their homes, and that takes a lot of trust and a lot of work on the neighborhood’s part.”
That neighborhood work and participation has already begun paying off.
The SNI program measures success in part by the amount of private investment coming into the area, with the hope that private dollars begin to outpace city funding in community investment and enrichment.
That’s what they’ve seen now in Capitol View.
“In this last fiscal year for 2023, the city spent about $3 million in the neighborhood,” Entz said. “But the private side had spent about $5.2 million.”
For today’s residents and future generations
Ultimately, the intention behind all SNI projects is to help a neighborhood’s existing homeowners to build equity and to be able to age in place in a revitalized community, rather than to spur negative gentrification or unsustainable growth and corporate investment.
Entz is adamant that this future park on the former Dewey Elementary land will be a benefit for the Capitol View residents of today, and a place for their own future generations to be proud.
“Too often revitalization happens to a neighborhood rather than with a neighborhood,” she said. “They understand that this can potentially be a catalyst for further economic development, but more than anything, they want it for them and for their children and grandchildren and their legacies in the community.”
For Entz and many in the community, this park will also be part of the legacy of one of Capitol View’s own who pushed for years to help make it reality.
“The previous neighborhood president, Dr. Kevin McPherson, unfortunately passed away the day after City Council approved the purchase of this land,” Entz said. “He waited on this, and he truly worked hard over the last six years, and I saw him recently kind of resigned to the fact that it probably wasn’t going to happen. So I just hope that he knew the council did approve it and that we’re moving forward.”
The park project on the newly purchased land surrounding Dewey Elementary is eyed to break ground this December, with a projected completion by summer of 2025.
To learn more about Oklahoma City’s Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, visit okc.gov.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
