CORE..Tulsa : a related Contemporary Arts topic...

[Rico]

Well, it appears the Tulsa Preservation Commission and another Group are begining to make some headway in the direction of Preserving what is left of Downtown..

This from an email my friend in Seminole sent me.
The Tulsa Preservation Commission hopes to stem the demolition of older buildings in downtown Tulsa.
The Tulsa Preservation Commission is pushing for a policy change that would prevent the further loss of downtown buildings.

The Current Opportunities to Reinvent and Energize Downtown Tulsa slide show, which was presented to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission last week, illustrates the large number of historic buildings that have been razed and replaced with surface parking lots over the years.

The presentation is being given to various groups, and an ad hoc committee is expected to make recommendations later this year to the Planning Commission and the City Council.

The recommendations could include a moratorium on the demolition of downtown buildings, which has occurred in cities like Denver, or a zoning change that would prevent the construction of more surface parking lots. Implementing historic overlay zoning is also being considered.

Historic Downtown Tulsa was listed among Preservation Oklahoma's Most Endangered Historic Places earlier this year.

Julie Miner, economist for the city's Urban Development Department, said broad input is being sought.

"We're concerned about the lack of public policy governing the downtown district and the result is the loss of urban fabric and historic context," she told the Planning Commission last week.

The Cimarron Ballroom, which was the site of the only existing live recording of Patsy Cline, was razed in 1973 and replaced by a parking lot at Fourth Street and Denver Avenue.

Showing pictures of a downtown once bustling with restaurants like Bishop's at Fifth and Main streets and the Brown Dunkin department store at Fourth and Main, Miner noted the loss of foot traffic and vitality.

"In addition to just losing buildings and creating parking lots, we've lost fabric, we've lost history, we've lost architecture and the character and the commerce that that creates, and today urban sprawl is a concern, so downtown obviously offers an alternative to urban sprawl when it's dense and vibrant."

Many buildings that were demolished after being determined functionally obsolete could have been adapted to a new use, Miner said.

"That's important because once they're gone, they're gone forever and we can't get them back," she said. "We get calls from developers several times a week looking for small buildings to rehabilitate and there is very little building stock left of small, manageable buildings."

Miner said she started getting calls to see if anything could be done when the Tulsa World decided to demolish the Skelly Building. Soon after, Trinity Episcopal Church began razing the Tulsa Auto Hotel.

Jim Turner, an architect and vice chairman of the Preservation Commission, said that adapting an old building to a new use is comparable in cost to any new construction project. The city already has building codes in place for existing buildings that allow some leeway in meeting code on older buildings.

The fact that the commercial vacancy rate is high downtown doesn't help.

"Economic factors go into making a parking lot more viable to a landlord than renovating a building," he said.

CORE Tulsa's presentation praises projects that have used old buildings:

   * Central High School, built in 1916, is now the Public Service Company of Oklahoma.

   * The Warehouse Market, built in 1929, was saved from the wrecking ball and is a fully occupied retail center.

   * The previously blighted Hotel Ambassador is now a 55-room boutique hotel.

   * A public/private partnership helped transform the blighted Tulsa Tribune building into the Tribune Lofts.

   * The James E. McNellie's Public House is a pub operating out of a 1910 commercial building on Tulsa's original town site.

   * Nine floors in the Philtower building are being converted into residential lofts.

Planning Commission chairwoman Stacey Bayles has a positive outlook about downtown's future, which includes Vision 2025 downtown projects and a California investment company's plans to revitalize five of downtown Tulsa's oldest buildings.

"I would hope we could maximize whatever leverage we have to public improvements and public dollars from a vertical office park to a mixed-use environment that includes business and residents and really recreates downtown as a neighborhood as well as the central business district," she said. "I see it as a community for the 21st century."


The slideshow they refer to in this article I have seen and it is quite sad....

I had to find the the following pics on my computer.. They both were part of the CORE Tulsa Presentation at McNellies earlier this year..

as I have said quite sad...


Past..




Present..