This Insane Oklahoma Condo is Listed for Over One Million Dollars

It's a vibrant destination for tourists and Oklahoma City residents now, but back in the mid-to-late 90s Bricktown was just a wild idea.

While they were building the ballpark, still mulling over the idea of a canal, politicians and developers were desperately trying to attract investors to buy into a vision that was hard to see at the time.

Who wants to hang out in an old, dilapidated bricked commercial complex?

This was before the 89er's moved downtown to become the Redhawks. Long before Sonic built the corporate headquarters or Johnny Morris took a chance on the Sooner State's first Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World... Bricktown was just the slum across the train tracks from The Myriad. A total no-go zone.

It might as well have been Chornobyl, but as we know now, it was a truly visionary dream that became reality.

One of the sales pitches that went out to every Oklahoman was the promise of real estate that could be infinitely more valuable one day.

I remember listening to the adults (parents/aunts/uncles/etc) talk about these wild "investment opportunities" at a summer family gathering in +/-1997-ish. Developers were selling condos in and around what (at the time) might eventually become Bricktown.

Since they hadn't broken ground on any of the buildings and everything was still presented as grassy lots, the asking price was an almost insurmountable $100,000.

As cheap as that sounds, this will put things into perspective.

In 1997, the average 2000 square foot 3-bed, 2-bath with attached garage home in Oklahoma was $78,000. The idea of a glorified apartment in Downtown OKC that costs more than a family of four home was beyond most people in Oklahoma.

I do remember my mom constantly telling my dad they should buy in... she had the vision, but it wasn't something they could afford on top of their mortgage and trailer park rental.

Twenty-something years later, it turns out that was a golden investment opportunity so many Oklahomans passed on. The condos around Bricktown can fetch as much as a million dollars in 2024.