Downtown development recap

[TheArtist]

again, they know. It's purely financial.

But don't surface parking lots cost money?

[Townsend]

But don't surface parking lots cost money?

Well if they keep people from going downtown because they are fugly they will cost money.

How many blocks in a row can you see when you stand on one end of the sea o' parking lots now?

Maybe I'm being too negative.  Is TCC talking to the Bell family?  Oooooo, maybe the Bell family and the Murphy's.  Big-assed wooden wet-and-wild.

[SXSW]

I do think TCC will develop its lots and the buildings will be of high quality, like the Center for Creativity.  But it make take decades for that to happen.  Which is why OSU should move to that area and build it up which, like I said, would free up the Greenwood campus to be converted into research facilities (an area OSU wants to improve).  Have the undergrads and grad students at 9th & Boston with student housing in the vicinity, and build up the Greenwood campus as OSU's premier research campus with the ATRC already devoted to research and a second research building eventually planned across Elgin.  That is the only way I see those lots disappearing at a faster than glacial pace...

[jacobi]

It seems that the goal for getting rid of what is now graciously called "Cathedral Square" (aka giant wasteland of ever decreasing land values) is the rasing of the land values of those properties until such time that it is cost inefficiant to have surface lots.  They sell off their extras, build a parking garage and everybody goes home happy.  The problem is that TCC has dug itself into a hole.  Onlt developement in the surrounding areas will help.  I think that cathedral square is going to be the final push of downtown infill.  Uptown, cherry street, the pearl, the brady, and all the surrounding districts will have to be developed first, butressing the area and driving up the land values.  Only then will the 70's era dinosaurs behind the wanton destruction of downtown be vanquished.   

I'm glad to see that alot people have noticed TCC's disappearing buildings magic trick (they have been working on that part of their act for years).  Next they will knock down the avanti and the sunoco buildings.  Mark my words. (please let me be wrong)

[TheArtist]

 They don't need a freaking parking garage any more than they need that sea of surface parking.  You know, WE taxpayers, through TCC, would be the ones paying for the parking garage, WE are paying for the surface parking, on top of that WE are losing taxable land/buildings and redevelopment opportunities.  Aaaall that money we taxpayers spend for parking, surface or future garage, and are losing, now and in the future, could have gone to building up transit in downtown.  We could have been redeveloping that area, infilling that area, making it into an enjoyable, pedestrian friendly, walkable district thats making money, and that would also be helping to fund really good transit.

Instead of slowly, steadily, creating suburban and parking, we could have been creating urban and transit. We could have a trolley or buses going by and stopping at the campus every 5-7 minutes looping through all areas of downtown and connecting to the plentiful parking we already have strewn throughout the area and outside of downtown like the Fin-Tube site and West Bank that we hope to connect together via rail.

If TCC wants to purchase some land for future expansion, fine. But lease it and leave any businesses on the tax rolls and take that money, plus the money they would spend turning it into a parking lot and put it towards transit for the campus.

We can create a downtown thats to die for, that you can enjoyably spend a whole day in, that you won't feel any desire to drive from one part to the next in.  You can park on one side and enjoy walking or quickly take transit to another part of downtown, or park outside and transit in. And love it.

People will pay big money to fly all the way across the country to go to Disney World and walk down a beautiful little, old fashioned, main street.  And will take busses, rail and boats from their hotels to get there each day.  They will fly or drive for hours and days to get to Santa Fe to go to a pedestrian friendly downtown to see art galleries.  I look forward to the day when I can afford to get back to NYC and spend all day, all week, walking and walking, and will take all forms of transit into the city to do that.

If you create a really good, enjoyable, interesting, wonderful, high quality urban environment with good transit, people will beat a path to your door.  Paraking garages take money away from transit and detract from real density and will leave you like every other mediocre, half alive downtown. Tulsa could use that competitive edge, that "killer app" of having a small but super quality, superb urban environment.  It's got the potential to be fantastic, IF we use our heads and be brave.

[TURobY]

Next they will knock down the avanti and the sunoco buildings.

I don't think the Sun building is going anywhere soon. Our offices are in the Sun building, and they've been doing a lot of work recently to update the interior. Additionally, the property management company has been actively seeking new tenants, and has even gotten some of the Avanti tenants.

[jacobi]

Theartist, The nature of TCC's campuses is such that there will always be people who commute in from the suburbs to go there.  I would LOVE to see people use mass transit options (Heck I did the BA express bus for awhile).  But I think there will always be a large commuter element at TCC that uses cars.  Or at least for a very long time.  In fact, I feel that TCC Metro's enrollment would go down because of a decline or elimination of parking .  Oh I han hear the southies kvetching now "Oh, we can't go down there.  There isn't anywhere to park."  It seems like you and I are both very grand thinkers.  I always think on the scale of "world class cities", as you rightly put it.  I think that being a urban development cheerleader in tulsa has truned me into a begger.  Anything at all is better than nothing.  Maybe I need to get back to my radicalist roots...

TURroby,  That is good to hear.  I was being bombastic.  When I atended TCC the sun building seemed like it was so empty that it was on the edge of being demoed any day.  I'm glad that it has come under the wing of a good property manamgent company.

[rdj]

The Cameron family (American Fidelity, First Fidelity Bank, Tulsa Shock, OKC Thunder, etc) out of OKC owns the Sun Building.

I have seen several grand ideas for the building, it is sad none of them have come to fruition.

[TURobY]

It was pretty pathetic for years. I don't think they are doing anything grand with the building, just updating the interior to make it more attractive as new tenants move in.

[TheArtist]

Theartist, The nature of TCC's campuses is such that there will always be people who commute in from the suburbs to go there.  I would LOVE to see people use mass transit options (Heck I did the BA express bus for awhile).  But I think there will always be a large commuter element at TCC that uses cars.  Or at least for a very long time.  In fact, I feel that TCC Metro's enrollment would go down because of a decline or elimination of parking .  Oh I han hear the southies kvetching now "Oh, we can't go down there.  There isn't anywhere to park."  It seems like you and I are both very grand thinkers.  I always think on the scale of "world class cities", as you rightly put it.  I think that being a urban development cheerleader in tulsa has truned me into a begger.  Anything at all is better than nothing.  Maybe I need to get back to my radicalist roots...

TURroby,  That is good to hear.  I was being bombastic.  When I atended TCC the sun building seemed like it was so empty that it was on the edge of being demoed any day.  I'm glad that it has come under the wing of a good property manamgent company.

I have decided that it might be useful for someone in this town to champion  "urban perfection" and push for, what here would seem to be a completely radical idea.  Hopefully people will perhaps start to "get it" to, understand the other option to the point that the usual way of doing things might be moderated a bit.   I don't expect that I will get what I want, but I  hope to educate and make what we are getting look all the more horribly absurd and thus hopefully encourage something better.  

[DTowner]

Artist - your idealism is a positive force for change, but surface lots have proliferated downtown because owners make more money renting parking spaces than they can renting class C or worse office space.  The new assessment to pay for Oneok field only increases this economic advantage.  While residential conversion has soaked up some of the available space that was unrentable as office space, there is still a lot of vacant or near vacant buildings downtown that cannot be brought up to Class A or B space without a huge investment.  It is only when demand for more residential and more office/commercial uses up this surplus space that land values will really start to rise enough to make surface lots a less profitable use of downtown real estate.  That is going to take a lot more jobs locating downtown and a lot more people living downtown.  We are making slow progress, but all of the mass transit dreams in the world cannot change the fact that it is relatively fast and cheap to drive to and park downtown and that is not going to change in the near future.

[BKDotCom]

You crazy Tulsa Now people
Thinking of downtown as a Central Business District.
We have one of the greatest Central Parking Districts in the nation.
TCC is just trying to make the CPD even greater.

[AquaMan]

Don Quixote (Artist) meet The Donald (dtowner)!

I saw this at work about a decade ago. I contacted the owner of a small unique downtown property about buying the property to operate a small business. He could only see the value of the property expressed as how many cars he could lease/park on the property monthly. He had no concept of the small building as a typical business. Eventually a larger company presented him with an offer he couldn't refuse. Ironically, it is a car rental company.

edited to reflect correct spelling of Quixote. Not a word I use a lot.

Please note that I meant no disrespect with those monikers. It just seems to me that there is this constant natural battle between creativity and business and I thought you both represented them very well with your posts. Don't let me be a thread ender....again.

[DTowner]

Don Quixote (Artist) meet The Donald (dtowner)!

I saw this at work about a decade ago. I contacted the owner of a small unique downtown property about buying the property to operate a small business. He could only see the value of the property expressed as how many cars he could lease/park on the property monthly. He had no concept of the small building as a typical business. Eventually a larger company presented him with an offer he couldn't refuse. Ironically, it is a car rental company.

edited to reflect correct spelling of Quixote. Not a word I use a lot.

Please note that I meant no disrespect with those monikers. It just seems to me that there is this constant natural battle between creativity and business and I thought you both represented them very well with your posts. Don't let me be a thread ender....again.

Disrespect - The Donald is the best moniker anyone has ever given me!

[tulsa1603]

I don't think the Sun building is going anywhere soon. Our offices are in the Sun building, and they've been doing a lot of work recently to update the interior. Additionally, the property management company has been actively seeking new tenants, and has even gotten some of the Avanti tenants.

I believe that the Avanti building is now completely empty.  They were losing tenants like crazy, and only had one or two left, so they kicked them out and plan on mothballing it.  That's not very promising for it's future.