Driving through the old Maywood Addition of historic downtown Oklahoma City, it looks like little more than a few abandoned buildings – a shadow of what used to be. The area now known as Maywood Park actually sits on what was once the Military, Leslie, Blakeney’s and Irving School addition.

Developers of the project, Anthony McDermid, Bert Belanger, Pat Garrett, Ron and Jason Bradshaw call themselves the Triangle Development Partners. Together, they plan to revitalize the Maywood Park area in about three years time.

In a roundtable discussion, the partners discussed where they would like to see the project go:

“What we’re trying to create here is a downtown neighborhood, which right now, we don’t have in Oklahoma City. McDermid said. “It’s the beginning of a vital, sustainable community that offers a comprehensive living experience for the ages.”

“We are trying to take the best of cities across America and around the world and create a really cool place here,” Belanger added.

And how do they plan to create that kind of cool place? The Brownstones at Maywood Park are a good start, but just a start. Each of the partners are connected to other projects, including other housing developments like the Central Avenue Villas, which are scheduled to be finished by December of this year. Commercial and mixed-use developments are scheduled to begin around the same time.

“We believe that we are stewards of this piece of property and we feel we have been charged to create an enduring legacy in Oklahoma City,” McDermid said.

“We have a master plan, but the needs are going to drive the plan,” Garrett said. “The zoning for this project was designed to evolve with the changing markets. So a storefront can become a condominium or an office space if it needs to be,”

There are a number of residential and commercial/mixed-use developments going into the Triangle Development area, including Maywood Park. The partners have made an effort to create a real “Oklahoma product,” not just a duplicate of Dallas or Kansas City.

“We have Oklahoma roots,” Bradshaw said. “We want to continue the heritage and honor the original developers of Oklahoma City. Shartel, Colcord, Classen… They had urbanism down.”

“We realized we were all looking at the same area and had similar ideas for developing it,” McDermid said. “We decided it was better to be collaborators instead of competitors, to bring together our varying talents and create a better project. And of course, we couldn’t have done this without the help of the city.”

Oklahoma City has pumped $7 million into the 36 linear block area. The city, county, and Chamber of Commerce have worked with the developers in an effort to revive downtown through TIFF financing.