U-Haul Says City's Offer For Parking Lot Is Short By Millions

A plan to make Bricktown more accessible from the new Oklahoma City Boulevard has hit a road block.

City officials want to acquire the parking lot behind the U-Haul store to make Oklahoma Avenue a straight shot to Reno from OKC Boulevard.

Recently, OKC completed work to allow drivers to go around the U-Haul parking lot and into the Harkin’s Theater parking lot. It originally hoped U-Haul could use the parking lot to the west of the store and retro-fit its building by changing the store entrance to the westside as well.

The City says it negotiated with U-Haul for two years.

“Unfortunately we have been unable to reach a settlement, so we are proceeding with condemnation,” says OKC Dir. of Public Works Eric Wenger.

In a letter sent to Public Works today, U-Haul’s District VP Brett Hogan says "construction for what the city is asking will approach five million dollars. In response, the city offered us just over one million."

Meantime, U-Haul is gathering signatures on Change-dot-Org.

The city says the eminent domain process will last several months.