Modern Tulsa

Cecilia and Will Wilkins of W3 Real Estate were hired to market the building for Carl Morony of California.

Morony also owns the Sinclair Building at the southeast corner of Fifth and Main streets.

The Wilkinses also are marketing that building.

The Tulsa Club, 115 E. Fifth St., is a Bruce Goff-designed building that is structurally sound but needs a lot of work, Will Wilkins told the Tulsa World.

The building is tied up in litigation that includes city code violations, a city lien for unpaid downtown assessment fees and unrelated judgments to other parties.

Morony tried to redevelop the building into lofts by vying for Vision 2025 funds, but he lost out to another developer, Wilkins said.

“Now that the downtown is going through a revitalization, this is an opportune time to find a developer that can find a unique use for the building, work with the Historical Preservation Commission and rehabilitate it,” he said.

When Morony bought the building at a tax sale, it had been gutted and was in poor condition, Wilkins said. No work has been done on it since.

“Carl made an investment so that sometime down the line when downtown Tulsa revitalized, he would be able to capitalize on that investment,” Wilkins said.

The Tulsa Club was one of 60 vacant buildings with code violations that the city targeted in 2007.

Vacant for more than a decade, the building has fire, electrical and plumbing code violations as well as safety and health issues.

Wilkins said Morony’s attempt to get Vision 2025 funds for renovations “speaks volumes to what he wants to see the building become.”

“It certainly hasn’t worked out that way, and we hate that it has gotten to the point that it has,” he said. “But now Cecilia and I want to facilitate action that makes something good happen for the building and the downtown area.”

Morony’s lawyer, Jasen Corns, said the city knows that the property is for sale.

“If the city genuinely wanted the building improved and rehabilitated, it would stay out of the owner’s business in his efforts to sell it,” he said.

“We believe certain city officials already have an end game in mind for this property and they are basically just manipulating the process to get the result they want.”

The city declared the property a public nuisance in November 2007 and ordered that its problems be corrected, with civil penalties of $1,000 a day for noncompliance.

The city has filed for a foreclosure on the property for an unpaid $331,815 default judgment for failure to remediate the building-code issues.

Morony has asked a judge to vacate that judgment. If the judge rules in favor of Morony or if he pays the judgment, the foreclosure action will dissolve.

The city also placed a lien on the property for 10 years of unpaid assessment fees linked to the Business Improvement District. The total owed is about $22,000.

Two other judgments against the property by separate parties total about $50,000.

Wilkins said he is actively showing the property to several prospective buyers, both locally and out of state, and some have expressed serious interest.

All are aware of the legal status of the property, he said.

Many Tulsans in the 1970s and early 1980s visited the building’s extensive museum of art and cultural artifacts from around the world, collected by ministry founder T.L. Osborn and his wife, the late Daisy Osborn, on their missionary travels.

Sam Osborn, general manager of the ministry and a nephew of T.L. Osborn, said his uncle pioneered mass evangelism crusades in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe that drew crowds of several hundred thousand people to huge outdoor rallies. At that time, it was said of Osborn that he had preached in person to more people than anyone else in the history of Christianity, Sam Osborn said. Since then, others have conducted similar crusades.

The World Museum Art Center occupied 50,000 square feet of the building, with more than 5,000 pieces from more than 100 nations. The collection included more than 250 Renaissance bronze sculptures, about 100 marble sculptures and more than 150 old masters paintings, including one that was 22 feet tall.

Three shrunken human heads from South America, part of the primitive art collection, were a hit with the many school children who toured the museum.

When the ministry decided to close the museum in the early 1980s, Christie’s of New York and London was brought in to auction off the finer pieces. Sam Osborn worked with the world-famous auction house.

“They said they couldn’t believe this collection existed west of the Mississippi,” he said.

The original building was built debt-free in 1962 and 1963 when 140 people each gave $1,000 for the project.

In 1963, the ministry moved from 1029 N. Utica Ave. to the new building, which was later expanded several times.

In 1994, the Osborns gave the building to Victory Christian Center, which used it for Victory Bible Institute and provided space for the Osborn ministry to continue there.

In early fall the Osborn ministry moved to new headquarters at 555 S. Memorial Drive, the former home of Vatterott College, and Victory Bible Institute moved to a building at 81st Street and Delaware Avenue, where it was formerly located.

Kenna Mitchell of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation said a contract for the demolition likely will be approved in March, and the work could begin in a few months.