Another Downtown Demo?

[carltonplace]

^ I want to laugh but I'm afraid it will come true if I act like it's just a joke.

[dbacks fan]

quote:Originally posted by wavoka

quote:Originally posted by Townsend

quote:Originally posted by wavoka

quote:Originally posted by mrB



Well, it did come down! After sitting idle for about a month, without any more demo being done, it came all the way down today!

Anybody heard plans for the site? Same corp. owns almost the whole square block!

Motel 6 and a Denny's.

Are you jackin' with us?

No, it is part of the new "Suburbanize Downtown" campaign by the TDA.

Just wait till you see the plans for the Cracker Barrel in the former BOK Drive Thru location. It will knock your socks off!!!

Yes, after a great triumph with the BOk Center, another giant step towards mediocrity. Next door to the Hampton Inn will be a Ruby Tuesday.

[Townsend]

quote:Originally posted by wavoka

Just wait till you see the plans for the Cracker Barrel in the former BOK Drive Thru location. It will knock your socks off!!!

Thanks, I laughed.  

Crazy thing though, a Cracker Barrel would bring people to that location.  I know people driving in from BA and other outer Tulsa populations to dine at the 31st location.  

I'm not saying I want that but it could be worse as far as a people draw.

[joiei]

A lot of people are comfortable eating at chain restaurants.  Plus the chains have the real estate divisions who can bargin for better prices of property to put up new units.

[inteller]

if I'm looking at the right parcel, its total appraisal is only 127k....the building must be a dump.

[MichaelBates]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

*warning, little substantive info was actually found.

The lot is owned by Embark Corporation, 2121 S. Columbia Ave. , STE 650 (shared office address with a non-profit and twenty first properties, Inc. from what I can tell.  Occasionally Embark and 21st Transfer files).  The tax information on it is to Embark Inc. c/o Dan Schusterman (some serious political contributions, DOB:  01/29/1927, I won't post his home phone or address but man, the internet is just scary sometimes - but no business phone listed).  

Embark has been around Tulsa for 30+ years (PAUL D WILSON is their registered agent, I assume he works for Twenty First Properties).  They have a good amount of dealings with the city (tax free deeds, lien releases, etc. - normal for anyone with significant holdings I suppose).  A lien on part of this tract from the city has been cleared.

Legally the tract is:
N40 Lot 1 N40 E50 Lot 2 block 178, Originally township of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

All this trying to get a phone number to just call and ask if they had plans for that lot.  The number for 21st Properties is 743-4300, but I don't want to call since they are not officially involved.  No number for Embark, but I didn't fork over the $5 for a full SOS search.  Corporations without readily available phone numbers bother me.

Tulsa County Land Management Information System
Assessor and Treasurer Records
Secretary of State business services
OSCN

yay for public records... crap, there went my lunch break.

/completely amateur quick and dirty search.   Mostly by block 178 of the original township.  So I stand to be corrected.

Paul Wilson is the president of Twenty First Properties. Calling Twenty First about plans for the site would be perfectly appropriate; it appears that Embark and Twenty First are joined at the hip. The related companies have been buying up property around the "Gateway" to downtown for well over a decade and a half.

quote:


For the last few years, Twenty First Properties Inc.  has been raising mild interest by buying up strategic downtown tracts.  The local real estate investment firm has focused on what roughly is defined as the southwest quadrant of the central business district. The company already owns a significant chunk of the land in this sector.

When the investment firm closed a deal this summer on the "Bowen Corner" tract, a lounge-liquor store site on the southeast corner of 11th Street and Denver Avenue, the real estate community speculated about new development. Rumors even surfaced about some major demolition plans for the area.

Well, this past week, the demolition work began and Twenty First Properties President Paul Wilson came forward to explain what the heck they're up to.

Nothing in the way of development, Wilson said - at least not right now.

As another gesture to the long-term investment posture the company has consistently maintained, Twenty First Properties is putting into motion a concept it calls the "Gateway Project."

The name doesn't refer to any specific structure. Instead, it is the moniker given to an idea built around the fact Denver Avenue is a "gateway" for the 28,000 people who commute into the downtown area daily.

"We call it a private urban renewal plan," Wilson said.  Cosmetically, the project involves razing vacant or blighted buildings, and replacing them with landscaped greens. In a more abstract manner, Wilson said the plan essentially will prepare the site for development.

"There is no catalyst other than to stabilize this area for some point in the future," Wilson emphasized.

Wilson's company has a personal interest at stake in the area because of its ownership of slightly more than half the land in the 20-acre sector.

For its part of the plan, Twenty First Properties, or one of its four affiliated companies, has begun a demolition series that, when completed, will remove eight properties in the immediate vicinity of 11th Street and Denver Avenue.  The project plan also calls for municipal participation in the form of grant-funded assistance in clearing the demolished area; and street improvements that include repaving and enlarging the intersection to make it less dangerous.

Wilson said the street improvements are on the city's "wish list" and that Twenty First Properties would transfer land for additional right-of-way to accommodate a wider turning radius and left-hand turning lanes.

That's from an article dated September 27, 1992. They knocked down the Lorraine Apts., which was on the NE corner of 11th & Denver and the Bowen Lounge on the SE corner, both of which were attractive buildings that might have been rehabbed. They also tore down a motel closer to 11th & Carson. Since then: nothing.

I just hope they don't tear down the Herod Apartment building. It has an oddly cool name and facade.

[Renaissance]

We need a demolition review board downtown.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

We need a demolition review board downtown.

2nd

[MichaelBates]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

We need a demolition review board downtown.

We do, and that was one of the CORE Proposals. Paul Wilson was one of the loudest voices in opposition to those proposals, along with Downtown Tulsa Unlamented. Shortly thereafter, Mayor Taylor put the CORE Recommendations on ice.

[Renaissance]

It would be nice if Tulsa could produce reform-minded leaders who aren't anti-downtown.  Seems like the only folks willing to make noise are the same folks who think downtown Tulsa is at 71st and Memorial.  If somebody like G.T. Bynum were willing to call out the blatant pandering and influence peddling that occurs in Tulsa's municipal government, there would be a large number of people willing to get behind him.

[carltonplace]

What did they mean by long term? This article was written in 1992..16 years ago.

This part kills me:

"We call it a private urban renewal plan," Wilson said. Cosmetically, the project involves razing vacant or blighted buildings, and replacing them with landscaped greens. In a more abstract manner, Wilson said the plan essentially will prepare the site for development.


So, they have no plans for this area except to buy properties and tear them down. They have no timeline other than "some day" and their idea of "landscaped greens" is empty asphalt parking lots or overgrown dump sites.

I think it is time to make some noise about this.

[perspicuity85]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

It would be nice if Tulsa could produce reform-minded leaders who aren't anti-downtown.  Seems like the only folks willing to make noise are the same folks who think downtown Tulsa is at 71st and Memorial.  If somebody like G.T. Bynum were willing to call out the blatant pandering and influence peddling that occurs in Tulsa's municipal government, there would be a large number of people willing to get behind him.

I'll 2nd that.
I get so sick of hearing people compare 71st & Memorial with similar areas in Dallas or other largely suburban cities.  It seems many Tulsans are intent on using sprawling low-density areas as a measuring stick for success.  I really wish more people in Tulsa would realize what real urban development actually is, and stop counting up the number of Applebee's we have and comparing them to other cities.

[PonderInc]

I've been at the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference all week.  Over and over, I keep hearing the same thing from people from all over the nation:

"Wow, Tulsa has some amazing architecture...but what happened to your downtown?"

One of the speakers at the opening session, Robert Wilson, commented on Tulsa's downtown.  He talked about the astonishing architecture that survives, adjacent to the "utter devestation" of all that was destroyed for surface parking.  He said it was like "Tulsa's own Potsdam"...except it didn't take Allied bombers to destroy the city...we did it to ourselves!