Climbing gym planned for midtown Tulsa by 31st and Yale

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Climbing gym planned for midtown Tulsa
A local entrepreneur thinks Climb Tulsa will help match other cities across the country

A stretch of vacant land tucked next to the Broken Arrow Expressway is poised to become a climbing gym, adding a new amenity to midtown Tulsa and the mature neighborhoods near 31st Street and Yale Avenue.
Plans, according to city documents and the developer, are for a 17,000-square-foot climbing gym, 60 parking spaces and a small park with a water feature that will serve as a buffer to the neighborhood.
The man behind Climb Tulsa is entrepreneur Jason Burks, who believes that it's something that Tulsa needs to put it on par with cities across the country. Mayor-elect G.T. Bynum said in a letter to the City Council that the gym would be an asset to "the neighborhood and to Tulsa."
The idea took shape slowly, like the snow pack on top of a mountain. It all started when Burks accompanied a friend planting a cross on a slope where a relative died and fell in love with climbing.
Burks is a filmmaker by trade — he produced Bynum's campaign videos — and his work takes him across the country. He said that in each city he's in, he schedules some time to climb at gyms and noticed an explosion in the number and quality of the gyms. So, about a year ago, he started to think about opening his own.
The problem was the local small climbing gym, New Heights. Burks loved the community the small gym has fostered and didn't want to put it out of business. So he bought it about a year ago as a test run before opening a larger gym.
Next came finding the right piece of land. Burks said there was the natural inclination to look in the area around 71st Street and U.S. 169, but he wanted something different.
"It couldn't be way out in Broken Arrow in a field somewhere, couldn't be holed up in downtown where only people who like downtown could go," Burks said.
The land just off the BA at 4923 E. 32nd St. was different. It was accessible from the suburbs, but in what Burks describes as the "heart of Tulsa."
The neighborhood nearby was also a key factor, Burks said, both because of the population and because of the residential zoning, which Burks needed changed to build the gym.
"If that land had been zoned commercial, I would never have been able to afford it," said Burks.
He met with residents of the neighborhood over the course of the summer to head off any concerns they had about the project.
Joseph Steiner, head of Highland Park Homeowners Association, wrote in a letter that the two homeowners closest to the project had a favorable opinion and that the group appreciated Burks taking the initiative to talk to them.
On Wednesday, the City Council approved the application to rezone the land to commercial.
"A lot of times commercial construction doesn't benefit the people that live next door," Burks said. "If we're not making the neighbors happy, we're probably not making Tulsa happy."
Burks is partnering with Lee Sherman of Hahn Appliance for the climbing gym. CJC Architects will design the project, and it will be constructed by Red Dog Construction.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/consumer/climbing-gym-planned-for-midtown-tulsa/article_400de24d-2766-5e81-990a-05cf7cdf6f8f.html

[cannon_fodder]

Sounds like a great model of how to get things done. Welcome addition to the area and to Tulsa!

Hope they add some outdoor climbing walls, may as well, and if they are visible form the BA it would be great advertisement to see other people climbing.

[DTowner]

They should make the outside walls of the building climbing walls. 

[BKDotCom]

How do you access the site?
Off of 32nd St?

Google Maps

[Conan71]

Right behind existing commercial, very short run on 32nd St. for traffic, so it should be a minimal PITA factor for residents. 

IIRC, that was land which belonged to my ex-wife's great uncle who used to own a car lot down on 3rd St.  He was gunned down during a robbery at his car lot and this place went to seed and had to eventually be torn down.  It wasn't viewed as overly desirable as a housing lot being so close to the BA. 

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

This place is almost all the way up and looks like it will be a pretty neat climbing gym. Building looks decent for what it is. I hope it does well there.

[sgrizzle]

It really looks nothing like the rendering though.

[erfalf]

It really looks nothing like the rendering though.

What direction does the front of the building face. I always drive by what I think is the backside on the BA.

[sgrizzle]

What direction does the front of the building face. I always drive by what I think is the backside on the BA.

I thought it was facing west, which is the high side, the big sigh is on the north side by the BA, and the east side, which is the shortest side, has the parking lot.

So... NOT the south?