As the downtown Mayo Building readies for its 100th birthday, Oklahoma City-based development company Wiggin Properties, LLC is preparing to introduce the property into the residential housing market for the first time.

"We are beginning demolition of the offices immediately," said Emily Rohleder, the Mayo Building property manager and Wiggin Properties employee, "which will be a few months of just cleaning and taking walls and ceilings out." The ten-story structure, 420 S. Main Street, was built in 1910 and expanded in 1917. The property has been used historically as office space.

"We are at a point where we are at a 15-18 month project, building from the top down," she said. "So we will have people living there before the project is complete."

Rohleder said the Mayo's first tenants could be welcomed as soon as Fall 2008, but that the rates for the property have yet to be determined.

"The rent is a moving target and will depend on the projected final cost of the rehabilitation project," she said.

The complete rehabilitation of the building, according to Rohleder, which was originally quoted at $11 million and later revised upward to $15.1 million, could now cost more than $20 million.

"Costs have risen dramatically in the past year," Rohleder said. "With the changes we are required to make to keep the building historically accurate, it could cost as much as twice our original target." Regardless, Wiggin Properties plans to continue with the project, which is to receive $3 million in Vision 2025 funds.

The restored Mayo Building, which was originally planned to house 94 individual units, will instead contain 67 one- and two-bedroom apartments, ranging in size from 697 SF to 2,000 SF, said Rohleder. Updated plans call for 130,000 SF of rentable space with eight units per floor on the third through the tenth floors.  The second floor will house a common area for residents and office space for building management.

The remainder of the ground floor space and parts of the basement will serve as the home to a "health club" according to Rohleder, although she could not name the individual club that planned to locate there.  She could neither confirm nor deny rumors that the Downtown YMCA would relocate to the building when forced to abandon its Denver Avenue location.

According to Rohleder, the renovated Mayo will retain much of its historic look, including the rehabilitation of the building's elevator doors and stairwells.

"The historical entrance (off of Main Street) and lobby will remain the same, with the elevated ceilings and plaster," she said, "all the way down to the original crown molding and iron grates on the radiators."

Rohleder said that many of the challenges to the complete and speedy restoration of the historical building have come through Wiggin Properties' decision to apply for inclusion on the National Historical Register.

"We have been delayed because we are restoring it to historical standards, and we have had to get everything approved by the State Historical Society and National Parks Service," she said. "It has been submitted, then commented upon, then improved."

"There have been so many errors in restoration over the years," she continued. "If you look at the building, you can see that the rooms have been restored every 10 years or so and very little of the original remains."

Changes in office trends have also had an effect on the promptness of the renovation.

"The norm of office was not the same in 1930 as it was in 1908," she said. "Behind the current walls there is very little that is of historical significance - there is a lot of ''70's shag and paneling."

"We want to keep the building, as a whole, as a refreshed and restored historical landmark, but behind the historical facade, we want modern apartments.  We want the best of both worlds."

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