The Collective (11th and Harvard Coffee/cafe/bar)

[cannon_fodder]

I too heard the rent was the killer.   Apparently they tried to buy the building and were flat out rejected.  The business was growing and they were making a profit, but the rent was raised and started to suck it all up.

Since 2003:

Hardwoods owner 1
Hardwoods owner 2
Hardwoods owner 3 (this was called something else for a short time)
Ballerz
The Collective

One bar closed across the street in 2003-04.  So the 3 remaining bars (Hardwoods, the Buck, and whatever that other one is that clearly says prep students not welcome) split the customer base.  The Buck always does well as a dive bar.  The other one is branded as a quasi biker bar.  Leaving the Hardwoods location as a "normal" bar.

Hardwoods as a sports bar was usually fairly busy.  On game day you could sell as many cans as you could pass out at $5 each.  On a normal day it was OK (the incarnations as a sports bar went DOWNHILL fast - no sports package, no liquor license).   

I went to the collective a few dozen times since it opened.  It was never dead.  Often fairly busy.  On weekends with music it got packed.  Over lunch it was steady.  Game days they had pretty good traffic.  Football days they sold a ton of beer.  The atmosphere seemed perfect for a TU crowd.  Artsy, calm coffee bar that has alcohol and live music.  A nice patio to sit at on spring days or summer evenings.

I was just in there for lunch on Thursday too.  Glad I had one more go before it closed up.

I'll assume the consistent factor here was the owner insisting on overcharging for rent.  So for the 6th time in as many years the building sits empty.  That has to help him a ton.

Tulsa—
We must inform you that as of Monday, April 6th, The Collective is closing indefinitely. We have been struggling against the downturn in the economy for a few months now. With expenses escalating, and an extremely high rent payment, we were unable to continue serving you. After extended negotiations with our Landlord in an attempt to purchase the building, we could not come to an amenable agreement that benefited both parties. We hope you enjoyed your patronage here, and we hope that we were able to bring some comfort and happiness into your lives. We will continue to try to serve Tulsa in the capacities that we can in the future.  Comments and concerns can be sent to thecollectivetulsa@gmail.com. As always we will try to respond promptly and honestly.
    It is important to say that our closing is not due to a lack of support from this community. Word of mouth, news outlets and return customers helped us to be more successful than most businesses starting out. We thank you for your continued patronage. Everyone would like to think that they made a positive change on their environment. We would like to think that The Collective created a community atmosphere and arts-based business that hadn't previously existed in this location. Thank you for making this possible for us, and thank you for the opportunity to serve you. We are deeply saddened by this turn of events, and if nothing else, please continue to support locally owned, Tulsa friendly businesses for they are the lifeblood of our community.

http://www.thecollectivetulsa.com/Welcome.html



On the off topic TU rant in general . . .

I moved to Tulsa in 2003.  The Northern Frontage of 11th street was ugly, in disrepair, and underutilized.  People bashed TU as being a school "you could drive by on 11th and not even realize it's there."

While I liked Starship as an interesting music store and place to get rolling papers, I like Wendy's as much as the next guy, and thought Metro was a fun place to eat - only one of them chose to take their buyout money and relocate.  The rest pocketed the cash and walked away.  And the one that relocated was probably the only one the University was actually happy to chase out of the neighborhood. 

Now you definitely can not drive by and fail to notice that there is a school there.  But the horror of a University growing at the expense of a diner, a fast food joint, an abandon bar and a head shop is too much (btw, they paid out the nose for that land).

I won't bother talking about the knock downs that came before in Kendall Whittier.  Frankly, the portion of Kendall Whittier that is closest to TU would be lucky to be knocked down and rebuilt as part of campus.  My son went to daycare at Kendall Whittier and the apartments are horribly run down, the houses haven't seen a coat of paint in 2 decades - it's not a great thing to point at really either. 

Similarly,  anyone that thinks TU is a trending towards being a driving campus is utterly clueless.  While I agree that it is interspersed with many campus roads and faculty lots - the trend has been away from parking lots.  The campus apartments, new alumni center, Case Center, Mosque, grand entrance and the new engineering center as well as the planned performing arts center take away parking.  I'm not aware of any significant parking that is to be added in its place.  The Don Rey has about 20% of the parking it "needs" and the football stadium less than that.

More importantly, why do you think they build so many apartment buildings?  They are trying to get away from being a commuter school.  For a campus of it's size in a semi-urban setting (this isn't downtown Chicago or DC), it's about as pedestrian as it gets I'm afraid.    And I hope they continue to improve.

But for some reason, to about 50% of Tulsan's improving the University of Tulsa means having it just go away.  Maybe someone needs to explain that to me.   I understand it is frustrating to have them growing into neighborhoods, but on the balance isn't growth of the highest rated University in the State that happens to be IN TULSA a good thing?

(and, fwiw, the Collective team specifically said they are not closing due to lack of patronage)

[SXSW]

I think we just lament the fact that TU, in an effort to become a more residential campus, has gone the suburban-looking apartment route to achieve that goal.  TU has plenty of money and could've done something much nicer that better integrates the school into the neighborhood.  Take for instance Case Western University in Cleveland.  It's located in a semi-urban neighborhood a few miles from downtown like TU.  Instead of building bland apartments they built an urban complex with an adjacent parking garage that fronts a busy street through campus and surrounds an athletic field.  Something like this would've been much better for TU's 11th street frontage around its new oval (albeit in TU sandstone and not brick)..

[cannon_fodder]

While I would be happy to have TU build a more urban landscape - they build what the students wanted and what the surrounding area was not providing.  For whatever reason, kids want to live in apartment buildings in neighborhoods.  So that's what they got.

Also, Case Western is a bit different.  They have 2.5 times more kids and are landlocked.  Buying up land to build a less dense alternative for on campus housing was not really an option:
http://maps.google.com/maps?source=ig&hl=en&q=Case+Western+University&ie=UTF8&ll=41.503146,-81.606885&spn=0.005448,0.009656&t=h&z=17

I would love it if TU was in an area like Case Western.  Unfortunately there are no real walking areas in Tulsa.  The museums are really spread out and at drive-to only destinations.  The aquarium and zoo are both drive to only.  Frankly, there are very few destinations in Tulsa that you can park and do several things.  Case Western is in a very interesting part of Cleveland.

Again, I hope TU continues to improve it's academic rankings and can grow it's student base at the same time.  I'd like to see more dense residential areas grow up around the campus.  Either with the University as a driving force or local developers.   I lament the implication that the area (or Tulsa in general) is somehow worse of for having the University.

[Gold]

I
Since 2003:

Hardwoods owner 1
Hardwoods owner 2
Hardwoods owner 3 (this was called something else for a short time)
Ballerz
The Collective

Going back another year or two, before there was the Hardwood, I believe originally owned by the Rogers family, there was a place called Big Brothers that tried to due a 24 hr diner thing with a bar.  I have no recollection of what was there before 2001; I just remember driving by on day and noticing a remodel.  Big Brothers was pretty average and started the general trend of bad bars there.

The first Hardwood was a great college bar.  They had something crazy like like $4.00 pitchers of Boulevard (somehow they listed it is a domestic).  We did some serious damage there before the TU-Kansas game back in '02 or so.  The place usually had good live music and the food wasn't bad.  It did some serious business.

Hardwood changed hands several times, finally being run by folks who would do anything to make a buck, including selling to underage kids on drown nights.  The last guy to own Hardwood was so unbelievably sketchy.

Generally, the problem with that bar is that it struggles in the summer months when TU students are gone.  I remember some total weirdos there during the week.  Maybe I'm one of them?  

At some point, there was a shooting there (don't think it involved TU students, but the other miscreants the place attacted) and that sort of signaled the end.  TU students either go downtown or to the Buc.  And at some point, TU was running a shuttle to Brookside and downtown to cut down on drinking and driving.  Not sure if that program continued.

After Hardwood, there was the totally awful sports bar that had all the HDTVs; they were famous in the TU sports fan world for promising to air a TU-BYU game (no one else in town had it), then never managing to get it on the air.  I remember getting a call from the famous Bill Babb asking whether they had pulled it off.  Instead, we got to watch a bouncer fight a belligerent OU fan with a mullet.

Like I hinted at above, I don't think the layout is conducive to the purpose that facility has most often been used for, a sports bar for college students.  It's too easy to trip on a step and too hard to get to the bar if it's crowded.  The design is probably really tough for wait staff to maneuver.  I'm usually not much of a design guy, but I've thought of these issues while waiting for unusually long times over the years.

The Collective was very much a step in the right direction and it's a shame to see it go.

Of course, if you really want to have the TU bar discussion, you can't leave out JR's.    Now that was a college bar.  It was a total dive, but had a line outside the door to get in.  Of course, they had some issues with selling to people they weren't supposed to sell to, so the story goes.

* * *

As for the apartments issue, I hear the complaint about the design.  The 11th street apartments were not the first on campus with that design.  I imagine TU just wanted them to match the others around campus.  While some on here look down at them, and I'll admit I question them some, the addition of apartments has been, as far I have heard, a huge part of TU's growth over the last decade.  Students prefer to live in them and I imagine the school makes a pretty healthy margin on them compared to the dorms.  Also, I have heard just as many people say they like the design, notably fans of visiting schools playing in athletic events at TU.  John Calipari even once said he wouldn't mind living in them.  The apartments certainly aren't any less aesthetically valuable that the exterminator, dry cleaner, head shop, fast food place, abandoned college bar, and silly 50's themed diner (that wasn't good) before.

[sgrizzle]

Ballerz

This was the best name! Changing the "S" to a "Z?" Who thinks of that? That Z is what really made it awesome.

/sarcasm

[Conan71]

They have basically no parking on the property The Collective was on and have to rely on the neighborhood street or the parking lot of the Hurricane Center or whatever that center is called with Ella's, Ed's, and the laundromat.  If all close parking is taken, people will have a tendency to keep on driving. 

With TURobY's post, it makes me curious if it's just easier for some TU students to pile in a car and drive to Brookside, Cherry St., Utica Square, or Blue Dome than to walk 1/4 mile to an establishment across the street.  Not implying that TU students are lazy at all...just seems odd that when there's a cozy, hip place with reasonable food and bar prices right there, why go a few miles to get somewhere else?  I have to admit to being guilty of that myself considering I live between 1/4 and 1/2 mile from there and was not a regular patron, then again I'm not a regular at Ed's or the Buc either.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in either of those places in the four years I've lived in the 'hood.

Why is that when we gripe about wanting walkable neighborhoods we don't seem to take advantage of it?

[TURobY]

With TURobY's post, it makes me curious if it's just easier for some TU students to pile in a car and drive to Brookside, Cherry St., Utica Square, or Blue Dome than to walk 1/4 mile to an establishment across the street.  Not implying that TU students are lazy at all...just seems odd that when there's a cozy, hip place with reasonable food and bar prices right there, why go a few miles to get somewhere else?

Remember, The Collective was relatively new. The students didn't have much choice before but to visit other areas of town. Shades of Brown has had a few years to develop a relationship with the students, thus their loyalty. Other students are comfortable with Starbucks because they had a Starbucks in their town. Still others just aren't interested in the "coffeehouse/cafe" concept.

From previous posts, it sounds like students were starting to shift there, which is a good sign that The Collective was on the right path. But, as I've said, it will take time because most of the students already have their places that they are loyal to.

I still think that that location would be better served as retail than restaurant/bar. Something similar to Dwelling Spaces would be nice...

[SXSW]

One of the things I liked about this place was it's one of the few establishments along 11th by TU that fronts the sidewalk with an outdoor seating area.  It is unfortunate the owner sounds like a real prick.  Hopefully they move their establishment to another area.  The Pearl needs a place like this for sure.

[Conan71]

Remember, The Collective was relatively new. The students didn't have much choice before but to visit other areas of town. Shades of Brown has had a few years to develop a relationship with the students, thus their loyalty. Other students are comfortable with Starbucks because they had a Starbucks in their town. Still others just aren't interested in the "coffeehouse/cafe" concept.

From previous posts, it sounds like students were starting to shift there, which is a good sign that The Collective was on the right path. But, as I've said, it will take time because most of the students already have their places that they are loyal to.

I still think that that location would be better served as retail than restaurant/bar. Something similar to Dwelling Spaces would be nice...

That all sounds really plausible.  I think it's great students would be that loyal to concepts they discover and maintain that for four years.  Sounds as if the Collective owners really needed to have at least a couple of years capital saved to make that fly...well that and not having a bastard for a landlord would have been nice.  Unless I'm mistaken, looks as if the gas station next to this property finally shut down.  I'm curious if the landlord knows something we don't and that's why he wouldn't sell and wouldn't make a concession on rent to keep a tennant in there.

No disrespect intended to the operators of The Collective, but just curious if maybe they were off on their projections and business model and thought they could sustain the overhead and rent and simply mis-calculated the demand and staked too much hope on TU students being their bread & butter.  The Tulsa economy really isn't anywhere close to being a disaster so I don't buy the "economy sucks" claim for it's failure, er indefinite shut-down.  Honestly, if it weren't for TulsaNow and living near there, I don't know that I would have even been aware it existed.

[orion]

Heard a rather interesting story about the property from a business owner who has been in the area a long long time that the present owner of the Collective/Hardwood building bought it for 60K (I dont know how long ago) so pretty good return on that property especially the number of unsuccesful business forays over the years there..so it is just a cash cow for him..However before the present guy owned the property it was at one time there was a cigar maker there, any old timers remember that? I sure don't

[waterboy]

I actually had body work done on my MG there in early 2000. Its had a checkered history for sure.

[Conan71]

I believe that was Moulder-Oldham Company for years.  They were a janitorial supply.  I remember it still being there in the early 1990's, not sure when they retired.

[FOTD]

Rule of thumb for restaurants...

rent=5% of gross....

otherwise, tough biness

[Enid]

What's up with that landlord?  I've noticed lots of vacancies on 15th street lately.  I loved the Collective and wish they could move closed to Urban Garden.  The Kennel Shop across the street from me has closed, wished it would work for them but its too small.  Its kinda depressing to look across the street and se :(e the Kennel Shop closed now.  T

[Conan71]

What's up with that landlord?  I've noticed lots of vacancies on 15th street lately.  I loved the Collective and wish they could move closed to Urban Garden.  The Kennel Shop across the street from me has closed, wished it would work for them but its too small.  Its kinda depressing to look across the street and se :(e the Kennel Shop closed now.  T

I didn't even know there was a kennel shop across from you and I only live a block away.  Constructive criticism to all small neighborhood-based merchants: don't assume all the neighbors know your business is there just from signage.  Don't be afraid to take flyers door-to-door, the vast majority of residents don't mind and would love to see worthwhile businesses that add to a neighborhood thrive.