How can northeast OKC grow while preserving its legacy? Lessons learned from Black Wall Street

The fourth annual PlaceKeepers Minority Developers Conference will be headed to Tulsa in mid-July to learn from the city's Black Wall Street revitalization efforts on how to honor culture and increase community buy-in.

The convention, organized every year by the nonprofit Northeast OKC Renaissance , is scheduled for July 12 at MetroTech Springlake Campus in Oklahoma City's eastside. Then, on July 13, the conference will travel to Tulsa, where organizers and attendees will tour various real estate development projects and hear the perspectives of different leaders from the area.

DeAndre Martin, community development director for Northeast OKC Renaissance, said the conference this year will be focused on seeing firsthand how Tulsa residents have been redeveloping Black neighborhoods after the Greenwood District's prosperous Black Wall Street enclave was destroyed in an infamous race massacre more than a century ago . The hope, he said, is that attendees and stakeholders can bring what they learn about reinvestment back to Deep Deuce and smaller-scale projects in their Oklahoma City communities.

"We see there’s a number of communities who have been left out of the real estate conversation," Martin said. "Oklahoma City is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country right now. Historically, we’ve been one of the most affordable, but as we continue to grow with all of the exciting developments that are coming, we want to make sure that we’re tapping into all of those communities who haven’t had those connections traditionally to real estate."

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The PlaceKeepers program, which started in 2021, serves as a training ground for aspiring developers, city planners, faith-based leaders, local political leaders and curious stakeholders on how to build connections and foster responsible development in their communities that can both retain current residents and attract new neighbors.

"Placekeeping" is defined by organizers as a way of providing education and resources to residents on how to redevelop their community while also preserving the current culture and creating generational wealth. The theme for the two-day conference, "Community Catalysts," will include plenary and breakout sessions to further explore cooperative economics, ethical design and community responsibility.

Conference tickets are on sale for $75, which Martin said was to make sure "it's very attainable to our constituents and the people that we serve." The event's first day, set to begin by 8:30 a.m. in Oklahoma City, will include sessions with The Promise Homes Company, which will provide financial literacy help on lease-to-own strategies for community members interested in property ownership.

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Speakers at the Springlake campus on July 12 will include Roderick Hardamon , a leader in redevelopment and affordable housing approaches in Detroit, where the majority-Black population was harshly impacted over the past two decades by the Great Recession and the city's bankruptcy crisis.

"Their revitalization has meant a lot of effort, and he’s taken the charge to make sure the community’s not left behind in the wealth-building opportunities," Martin explained. "He’s created a community investment fund where community members can invest, instead of traditional institutional capital, and so we'll be hearing a little bit from him about what and how he’s been able to create with that model."

The July 12 sessions also will highlight the work of several local leaders, including Scarlet Le-Cao, co-owner of Omega Investments and president of the Greater OKC Asian Chamber of Commerce, and Christina Beatty, project director for both the Freedom Center and the upcoming Clara Luper Civil Rights Center in Oklahoma City.

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For the Tulsa tours on July 13, attendees will be provided transportation from the pickup site at 9 a.m. in northeast Oklahoma City's Adventure District. Around 10:30 a.m., the cohort will begin touring Envision Comanche, an affordable housing district, and then have lunch in the Phoenix District, a new commercial zone, both in Tulsa's north side.

After lunch, the group will then tour both the Wilshire Trails neighborhood development and Kingdom Vision Homes, which was featured on the Oprah Winfrey-produced docuseries "Rebuilding Black Wall Street" hosted by Morris Chestnut. The tour will conclude at the Plaza Santa Cecilia shopping mall around 3:30 p.m. as the group heads back to Oklahoma City.

Martin said the conference is meant to show Oklahoma City residents how cultural preservation and real estate development can go hand in hand as communities continue to revitalize the areas in which they live.

"We firmly believe that the value of real estate is in the people," Martin said. "It’s the people who build the buildings out of the ground, but also the people who congregate it on a daily basis, who go around and evangelize it, as well.

"We get to see here on the Eastside, with some of the developments that we have, there are connection points where stories and memories are made and that culture is really preserved. And so we like to look at it through a deeper lens and see how the built environment affects people in the community — what things make them happy, what things make them sad, what gets them excited. That’s what we’re looking to do, and using real estate to do it."

Sponsors for this year's conference include The Alliance for Economic Development, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, Johnson and Associates, Citizens Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. People who are interested in attending the conference can go to https://www.neokcr.org/placekeepers for more information on ticket details and vendor opportunities.

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How can northeast OKC grow while preserving its legacy? Lessons learned from Black Wall Street