"The Pearl" an area that will go down in History as a turning point in Tulsa

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

That is great news! I hope they wow the board with a great realistic plan. I've seen the potential in remodeling those. It was a shame someone previously wanted to just knock them down and build a huge apartment complex (why not do that in one of the empty lots nearby?).

Group M has done some great work like the Eleventh Street Lofts and Campbell Hotel.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

That is great news! I hope they wow the board with a great realistic plan. I've seen the potential in remodeling those. It was a shame someone previously wanted to just knock them down and build a huge apartment complex (why not do that in one of the empty lots nearby?).

Group M has done some great work like the Eleventh Street Lofts and Campbell Hotel.

Group M continues to help the Pearl District revitalization with the Meadow Gold Lofts

Also, they went with the larger expansion at the townhomes at Central Park:
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21159.msg329142#msg329142

There's also the "Black Pearl" which is right next to there on Peoria:
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21466.0

I saw an invite for a Grand Opening at the "Pearl Building" at 1209 E 3rd Street on Sunday 3/10 from 2-5pm. Looks really nice.

Also, now there are quite a few Breweries with taprooms open in the Pearl like Nothings Left, Willow Families, Dead Armadillo, Marshall (Great new tap room and huge patio about to open), Cabin Boys. Then there's the Distillery and Cidery right by Cabin Boys and Marshall. Heirloom is sort of in the same Whittier/Pearl area too.
American Solera is working on saving the old steel industrial building right at 6th and Utica.

It is neat to see the influx of various investments in the area. Hillcrest is doing its thing which we may not like for walkability, but has eliminated many eye sores and replaced them with a concentration of medical services.

The entire Pearl District, downtown and Cherry Street (north part) are included in the Opportunity Zones, so I expect investment to increase significantly compared to what it would've been otherwise. Savvy investors will buy up places, fix them up and hold on for 10 years to get all that rent and then tax-free gains!

There's a cajun restaurant being put in on 3rd near Trenton by the people who bought Church Studios and many more buildings around there (https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/swamp-house-restaurant-and-live-music-venue-planned-for-pearl/article_d215ef8d-fb33-5749-926e-b459df8ad7ac.html). They have already renovated several urban buildings right there and it is starting to look really good.

Someone bought the buildings around 3rd and Yorktown including the old Lock Supply building and fixed those up to look very nice.

There are just what I could compile based on memory and what others have posted places. Overall a lot going on in the district!

[SXSW]

The Pearl is definitely one of the most rapidly-changing neighborhoods in the city.  It's great to see it finally realizing its potential as the missing link between connecting TU to downtown as well as the Peoria and Utica corridors along Route 66.

[AdamsHall]

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/government-and-politics/planned-pearl-district-detention-pond-likely-to-be-subject-to/article_00d56c11-e8a3-5b65-9667-4e4c58d53de6.html

2nd detention pond appears to be gaining some traction with the proposed 3rd pond location also being identified.

[T. Jamison]

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/city-puts-hold-on-eminent-domain-for-pearl-district-retention/article_98b7b251-8aa3-5acc-a1a4-3e974559d3e4.html

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/city-puts-hold-on-eminent-domain-for-pearl-district-retention/article_98b7b251-8aa3-5acc-a1a4-3e974559d3e4.html

Has anyone been following these recent developments? What do you think about it?

I saw a post discussing the many areas around downtown facing eminent domain:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tulsa/comments/doay96/tulsa_has_an_eminent_domain_problem/



And another one: https://www.reddit.com/r/tulsa/comments/dlii4e/eminent_domain_update_tulsa_world_swing_and_miss/


Specifically, it sounds like the issues are (starting less specific, then going into this most recent case):

• * City shows goals to revitalize certain areas with plans for economic redevelopment
• * The city decides to "condemn" and area unofficially (slowly starting the process of buying/bull-dozing), then the neighborhood follows suit and property values plummet, city speeds up, and only a few houses remain which the city can buy up on the cheap
• * City finally uses eminent domain to condemn last few houses with claim that it is purely for flood control, contrary to all documentation from last 20 years stating it was an economic redevelopment project (which would be illegal per Oklahoma State Constitution).
• *Properties that benefit from west Pearl pond are not in a flood zone and are not even eligible for flood insurance (no history of flooding)
• * Demolishing and purchasing 45 properties to bump the City of Tulsa's own "flood zone" up 1 level for 49 properties (but that "flood zone" conflicts with all other official flood zone maps such as FEMA or the standard National Flood Insurance Program) and almost all of the benefit value claimed will be a single building: Spirit Bank.
• * Down the road, the current homeowners cannot afford an equivalent house with the money provided. The city sells the new water-front properties to the highest bidder for economic redevelopment (or a developer gets them at a discount like 71st and Riverside).

The city has plans for most all of the neighborhoods around downtown. After the community showed strong opposition to the Crutchfield/Crosby Heights and West Pearl Pond plans, they were paused. That is important because that is about where the West Pearl Pond has been for 20 years... Just unknown timeline for a project with plans which are reportedly "60% complete" that offers dubious flood control, but guarantees a large number of prime water-front properties, ripe for economic redevelopment.

I'm wondering what folks on here think of this. Besides the other benefits of the houses (Paul Harvey's childhood home), there's quite a few nice renovated places around there. They claim this is for the "greater good". Why does the city position itself to redevelop at the cost of lower/middle class to benefit larger corporations that can take on this kind of economic redevelopment project. It looks like the "greater good" is helping Spirit Bank and corporations.

[hello]

I think it's vile. These people took a chance on these neighborhoods that the city left behind and now that their potential is useful to big corporations the city now "cares".

[buffalodan]

So this isn't really related at all to most of the things, but I hated the reddit thread where people talked about doing the low impact development stuff for decreasing the flooding issue. Either the flooding issue is real, in which case you really can't fix it with LID principals. Or the flooding isn't a real issue in which case LID just makes water quality better.

I do think that they have done a poor job of explaining the benefits or reasons for the project, and love forcing developments that happened because of a flood issues to implement LID. But they aren't as related as I think the redditors assume.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

So this isn't really related at all to most of the things, but I hated the reddit thread where people talked about doing the low impact development stuff for decreasing the flooding issue. Either the flooding issue is real, in which case you really can't fix it with LID principals. Or the flooding isn't a real issue in which case LID just makes water quality better.

I do think that they have done a poor job of explaining the benefits or reasons for the project, and love forcing developments that happened because of a flood issues to implement LID. But they aren't as related as I think the redditors assume.

It sounds like that is just yet another alternative idea for dealing with a sudden build up of water in a flash flood, to prevent it in the first place. There's a bunch of much cheaper options for water runoff to go, namely expanding the existing pond (which would be far cheaper than $30 MILLION that the new pond is estimated to cost). City of Tulsa said they assume 100% urbanization and that is the only model in which the properties to gain from this pond would have any (negligible) benefit.

The burden of proof that those properties do in fact flood is on the City of Tulsa (that proof has not been shown). So as far as we know, there is no flood risk. We are talking $30 million of taxpayers' money! Imagine taking the equivalent of about 200 houses' entire value and shredding that up to get this detention pond. This is a massive price for a pond that at best will potentially help 49 properties on extremely rare events, but is guaranteed to destroy 45 properties permanently.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Canals.  Water buffers by definition.