Couple's Project Might Be Spark Owasso Needs For Downtown Renaissance

Downtown Owasso is getting a facelift.

The city rolled out a plan to revitalize Main Street, and the first big step in that plan will take place tomorrow morning.

“This used to be a Ben Franklin’s shop,” Reneé Mowery said.

Reneé and Steve Mowery hold Owasso close to their hearts.

They both grew up and fell in love here.

"Reneé and I are lifelong residents of Owasso, and in fact, we actually met down here when I worked at the drug store in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s,” he said.

The Mowerys own the retail space on First and Main, which, until recently, was home to the Owasso Beauty College, the 360 Sports Bike Shop and the Sports Cards store.

They love owning this chunk of downtown, which is why, on Monday morning, they're tearing it down.

All to build something new.

A place to hang out, grab a nice meal, maybe even listen to live music on the weekends.

What the Mowerys envision here is two separate two-story buildings with stores and restaurants on the bottom and loft apartments on top.

"They're going to see some pretty drastic improvements,” Chelsea Leo with the City of Owasso said.

Levo is the city's economic development director.

She says the Mowerys are the first private developers to take part in Downtown Owasso's transformation, something the city's been working on for years.

And something many Owassoans asked for...in a quality-of-life survey.

"It's brought people who live in this area to downtown Owasso, which, in the past, a lot of people didn't know existed,” Levo said. “People would say, 'Well, where's Main Street in Owasso?'"

The Mowerys say they hope to have the building done within a year.

"We just wanna open to new ideas and new things that maybe Owasso has to go to Tulsa for and isn't accustomed to, that we want to bring here to downtown,” Mowery said.

The city says several other developers are interested in downtown Owasso as well.