Bartlesville - That town to the north.

[erfalf]

Nothing really noteworthy is happening (that hasn't already been mentioned), however that does not stop the paper from writing the obligatory article on all that is going on downtown. The rather lengthy article only really mentions two projects. The Noble Lofts which have been mentioned here before are still under construction. I expect it to take some time as this building was in poor shape, and that is being quit generous. It will add 11 more living units in the CBD and 4 small retail spaces (which is more desirable at the moment. 2nd street is pretty dead most of every day except for Frank & Lola's. They have done some landscaping/lighting upgrades recently, so hopefully this is the beginning of reactivating this area. The biggest problem will be the half block parking lot behind the Arvest building. Kind of a buzzkill for the area.

It also mentioned Memorial Hospital. This is mentioned virtually every time a write up like this is done. It has been "in the works" since 2011 (at least). I have major doubts anything gets done..Ever. It's catty corner from my office and at the very least the upkeep on the grounds has improved.

Elsewhere

"5 for 5 So dubbed because it is 5 projects for $5 million. They include:

 1. Pathfinder Extension & Way finding
 2. Centennial Park Improvements – similar in my mind to Guthrie Green. Activity space and stage, in addition to dedicated spaces for food trucks.
 3. Johnstone Park Upgrades & Skate Park
 4. Community Center/Price Tower Green Space & Amphitheater – Close street between two faciliaites (which is hardly used anyway) and adding performance spaces/arts areas. Creating an "Arts District".
 5. Frank Phillips Park Splash Pad/Ice Rink – The example given was in Bentonville just north of 21C. This would replace the pavilion currently used for Farmers Markets.

Guthrie Green is actually referenced in the presentation. Tinyurl.com/bville5for5. Funding for this will depend on funding received to renovate/expand the YMCA. Which in my opinion needed it 30 years ago. But that's another story. It always amazes me that towns like Ponca City and Enid can do large public projects, yet Bartlesville is always "out of money". Bartlesville shares a similar trait with Tulsa in my opinion. Rarely can we get our government to do anything, but there are many many individuals that go above and beyond with their time and money to make this place a great place to live.

A sad note, Frank & Lola's has discontinued it's live music offerings. The promoter Cris Cunningham has taken an out of state job. Paul Benjamin Band played the final show on Feb 27th.

Another sad...ABB has laid off a handful of people. Rather unexpectedly. The oil crunch is really starting to hit home now.

In suburban news, there is rumblings of a rather large development next to Lowe's at Silver Lake and Adams called Silver Lake Village. Your basic strip mall type stuff. I think they are trying to attract an Academy Sports to anchor this. It will also include market rate apartments to the south of Lowe's as well as a bit of park space/frisbee golf course. TIFs are in the works of course.   I'll believe this when I see it. In the short time I have been here, I have seen several large projects announce and then just disappear.



Also, on the south side of town on Washington, Atwoods is constructing a new larger location. I had no idea Atwoods was in an expanding mode until they did so recently in Ponca City and here (that I am aware of at least).

Considering the economy, it seems things are going quit good. Fingers crossed.

[cannon_fodder]

Thanks for the update!

[erfalf]

New Leaf has begun marketing The Noble Lofts. Studio for $700 & 1 bedrooms starting at $900. Wow. That's pretty high for this area. I can't speak to the quality but I thought the lofts down the street were going for around $600, but they are much small I think. Considerably more than the Price Lofts that are also very new and relatively similarly sized. Seems $1,000 is some sort of mythical barrier for rent in Bartlesville. I have a hard time figuring too many people are going to bite at that level as you can rent an entire house for less in nice parts of town.

http://newleafdev.com/projects/view/7/the-noble-lofts

[shavethewhales]

^It's a bit high, but I'd definitely go for it if I was a young professional working for Phillips.

I'm blown away by these huge projects that are suddenly converging on Bartlesville. The centennial park project is a game changer for the city, and I love how Pathfinder is tied into it. Pathfinder is such a huge resource for Bartlesville.

I'm just amazed that so many major developers are working in Bartlesville, even with Oil being down, and that the city is starting to look around and compare itself to other cities in the region instead of keeping it's head stuck in the sand. They've come a long way since I lived there as a kid, which wasn't all that long ago.

[davideinstein]

^It's a bit high, but I'd definitely go for it if I was a young professional working for Phillips.

I'm blown away by these huge projects that are suddenly converging on Bartlesville. The centennial park project is a game changer for the city, and I love how Pathfinder is tied into it. Pathfinder is such a huge resource for Bartlesville.

I'm just amazed that so many major developers are working in Bartlesville, even with Oil being down, and that the city is starting to look around and compare itself to other cities in the region instead of keeping it's head stuck in the sand. They've come a long way since I lived there as a kid, which wasn't all that long ago.

Phillips has done really well compared to other companies.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Phillips has done really well compared to other companies.

Conoco/Phillips/Union 76/Unocal

Conoco Inc. was an American oil company founded in 1875 as the Continental Oil and Transportation Co. Based in Ogden, Utah, the company was a coal, oil, kerosene, grease and candles distributor in the West. Marland Oil Co. (founded by exploration pioneer E. W. Marland) later acquired the assets (subject to liabilities) of Continental Oil Co., or DC, merged by Bryan M. Metler, David L. Kinney, and Justin J. Stockburn of Delta Constructors for a consideration of 2,317,266 shares of stock. On June 26, 1899, Marland Oil changed its name to Continental Oil Co. and moved its headquarters to Fargo, North Dakota. The acquisition gave Conoco the red bar-and-triangle logo previously used by Marland. Conoco used the logo between 1930 and 1970, when the current red capsule logo was adopted.

The Conoco headquarters were in Ponca City until 1949, when it moved to Houston, Texas. In 2002 Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Co., whose headquarters were in nearby Bartlesville, Oklahoma merged into ConocoPhillips

Numerous state corporation filings are identified "Continental Oil Co." and "Continental Oil Corp." and "Continental Oil Co. of Texas" as recorded with the Texas Secretary of State and Delaware Secretary of State. Merger of San Jacinto Petroleum Corp. and Continental Oil Corp. is recorded in 1964 with Delaware Secretary of State.

In 2005, ConocoPhillips began rebranding its (Union) 76 gas stations, which Phillips had acquired from Tosco Corp. before the merger with Conoco. The move prompted a petition campaign by fans hoping to save the historic 76 orange ball signage.[6]

In March 2006, ConocoPhillips bought Wilhelmshavener Raffineriegesellschaft mbH in Germany, and Burlington Resources in the United States.[7]

On May 10, 2006, Richard Armitage, former deputy-secretary of the U.S. State Department, was elected to the board of directors of the ConocoPhillips oil company.[8]

In 2007, the Chevron Corp. converted all of the Conoco gas stations in Mississippi to the Texaco brand.

In late 2009, the company announced asset sales to increase investor returns. Included are debt reduction and stock buy back. In March 2011 the program was enlarged up to $10 billion assets sales in the next two years.[9]

ConocoPhillips intends to implement a floating liquefied natural gas facility by 2016–2019, and has completed quantitative risk analysis of a design that will undergo pre-feed study in 2011.[10]

On July 14, 2011, ConocoPhillips announced its intent to separate the company's upstream and downstream businesses into two stand-alone, publicly traded corporations, with the intent of maximizing shareholder value.[11] On May 1, 2012, all midstream, downstream, marketing and chemical operations were separated into a new company named Phillips 66, headquartered in Houston.[12] As a result, ConocoPhillips continued its operations as an upstream (exploration and production) company.[13][14]

In April 2012, ConocoPhillips sold its Trainer Refinery to Monroe Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines.[15]

In January 2013, Conoco announced that it would sell its Rocky Mountain assets to Denbury Resources for $1.05 billion.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConocoPhillips

[erfalf]

^It's a bit high, but I'd definitely go for it if I was a young professional working for Phillips.

I'm blown away by these huge projects that are suddenly converging on Bartlesville. The centennial park project is a game changer for the city, and I love how Pathfinder is tied into it. Pathfinder is such a huge resource for Bartlesville.

I'm just amazed that so many major developers are working in Bartlesville, even with Oil being down, and that the city is starting to look around and compare itself to other cities in the region instead of keeping it's head stuck in the sand. They've come a long way since I lived there as a kid, which wasn't all that long ago.

I agree it is a bit surprising, however there have been similar "big announcements" before with no action. People are extremely skeptical around here. And our government appears to be nearly as incompetent as Tulsa's. When we see similar communities (Ponca City & Enid) doing rather large scale civic projects, and our local claims there is no money for anything, it is tough to swallow. In particular both of those communities have YMCA's that were constructed in the last decade. Bartlesville not so much, and it has flooded several times (and will continue to where it is at).

Personally, if all the five project come to fruition, I think the Frank Phillips park (ice skating) will be a much bigger deal in the end. But I wouldn't call any a game changer. Having some sort of assurance that Phillips or ConocoPhllips won't pull out entirely would be a game changer. Or landing another big manufacturer. But I don't see either of those two things happening. I think if there was more certainty you would see an unprecedented boom in Bartlesville given the economics of the community.

Phillips 66 fortunately seems to have weathered the storm better than it's sister company. ConocoPhillips has gone through at least two rounds of layoffs locally, while Phillips 66 has none (that I am aware of). Phillips also got the midstream assets which have been holding up relatively well to date.

I'm pretty partial to Bartlesville obviously. Hard not to when this is the view from my desk.

[erfalf]

Now that I have the photo thing down, I figured Bartlesville deserved a little updates...again.

The Noble Lofts - are going to transform that end of 2nd Street, and hopefully more will follow.

From the main street Facebook page:


Former First Methodist Church - The church moved out to the edge of town in one of those mega church tin building things. Supposedly there is interest in utilizing the building for something entirely different. New Leaf and Ross Group appear to be teaming up again with a local development group for the retail. The plans call for converting the eastern portion of the building (left part of image below, previously classroom/office space) into apartments and utilizing the rest for retail of some sort. Good proximity to all the large employers downtown and only about 2 or 3 blocks from all the restaurants/shopping. Having New Leaf and Ross Group again makes me think this actually may get done. I can't think of a time when a church was actually converted to something else (besides a performance hall).

http://examiner-enterprise.com/news/local-news/housing-retail-works-former-church

[TylerBGoode]

What kind of crowds do these games get? Just curious. Bartlesville has been able to snag this the last few years, so I figure there is a reason.

Crowds are pretty average. Day games are mostly dead. The title game draws the biggest crowd and yet it's still mostly fans/families that drive up and not necessarily local Bartians.

I think the main reasons we've been able to host for so many years is hospitality and volunteer hours and probably not attendance numbers. I hear quotes from coaches every year saying how well their team was treated while they were in town.

They say it has quite the economic impact for Bartlesville. The downtown restaurants are always full that weekend.

[erfalf]

Breaks ground today. It is not very urban in nature, but very necessary to the community and decidedly more "above tide" than its replacement. This will be the first major city civic project I have seen since moving to Bartlesville. The COUNTY detention facility not included. I don't know how long things like this should take, but the project was approved by voters nearly 4 years ago (2012). Seems like a heck of lead time to get to a point where they are just now breaking ground. They don't mention it in the link below but I believe their may have been a legal hold because the city wasn't going through the correct bidding process or something.


http://www.cityofbartlesville.org/public-safety-complex-groundbreaking-held-tuesday/



Replacing this:

[erfalf]

Walking to the bank, just had to catch a perspective of downtown that is not often used. Most all of the buildings in downtown Bartlesville are two and three story buildings. Those juxtaposed with the towers on the west side are always interesting. And how much nicer is this street with more trees? It is the large inventory of those smaller buildings however that has allowed downtown Bartlesville to thrive. Of course I say that and there are three loan sharks and a salon in this shot alone. The intersection in the foreground is in an area formerly known as Auto Alley. Nearly the length of Osage Avenue was lined with auto oriented business. The building on the left until recently still had the cut out for the gas pumps in front of the building.

[erfalf]

CJ "Pete" Silas Boys & Girls Club Campaign Unveiled

A NEW BOYS & GIRLS CLUB FOR BARTLESVILLE

The Boys & Girls Club of Bartlesville has unveiled the design for the C. J. "Pete" Silas Boys & Girls Club facility. Capital campaign leaders announced they are within one million dollars of their seven million dollar goal to complete the project, which includes a 30,000 square foot building and artificial turf multi purpose playing field. The Club plans to break ground on the new construction as early as this fall with hopes of beginning operations with the 2017 -2018 school year. The ultimate goal is to serve more kids, more often, with greater impact.

The state of the art facility will include: a dedicated Teen Center, learning centers, gymnasium, technology and STEM lab, arts and music spaces and an expanded kitchen to better accommodate the nutrition program. The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation will partner with the Club construct the playing field.

Capital Campaign Co Chair, Glenn Cox said the fundraising efforts have met with an overwhelmingly positive response, demonstrating recognition of the need for the new facility. "We are pleased to announce that through the generosity and commitment of the Boys & Girls Clubs Board and Staff, members of the Campaign Cabinet and a number of lead donors, to date we have secured approximately $5 million toward this exciting project."

Cox added that the Club also received a $1 million challenge grant from the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation. "When we meet this challenge, which we will do in the coming weeks, this will bring our campaign fundraising total to $6 million.  We will now reach out to the community as a whole to raise $1 million more to bring this campaign to a successful conclusion."

Potential donors and those wishing to learn more about the project should contact Resource Development Director, Annah Fischer, or a member of the campaign committee. Committee members include: Co Chair Mike May, Charlie and Corky Bowerman, Julie Daniels, Curtis DeLapp, Dean Lowe and John Mihm. The late Sherry Cox was also a member of the committee.

The new Club will be built at the corner of 5th and Seminole behind the existing building. That building will then be demolished to provide parking and entrance driveway. The City of Bartlesville conveyed two additional parcels to the Club in order to place the expanded facility and playing field in ideal locations.

The building is being designed by Ambler Architects and McAnaw Construction is the project manager. The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation is involved in the design and construction of the playing field. Board member Gary Waugh chairs the Club Building Committee.

The Boys and Girls Club of Bartlesville is Oklahoma's oldest Club. H. C. Price and other business leaders started the club in 1954. It became affiliated with the United Fund, now known as the United Way, in 1955. The Boys & Girls Club of Bartlesville is charted by Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

[erfalf]

Amber Hall wins statewide award


By Nathan Thompson
nthompson@examiner-enterprise.com
OKLAHOMA CITY — Downtown Bartlesville's Ambler Hall was awarded the Best Interior Design award during the Oklahoma Main Street banquet on Tuesday at the Embassy Suites in downtown Oklahoma City.

The announcement of the award for Ambler Hall was one of 21 statewide competitive awards given out by Main Street Oklahoma during the banquet.

"Each year brings another wonderful collection of creative entries that continue to amaze and impress us with their uniqueness," said Linda Barnett, director of the Oklahoma Main Street program. "These award winners give us a chance to highlight many outstanding programs, projects, people and services that our Main Street communities offer their residents and visitors, alike. We are thankful for all of their efforts to make each of their commercial districts a wonderful place to live, work and play."

Ambler Hall, located near Fifth Street and Dewey Avenue in downtown Bartlesville, has been designed as a state-of-the art, 100 seat chamber music hall for the OK Mozart International Music Festival.

Built in the 1920s, Ambler Hall was a retail space that was designed as a long and narrow room with high ceilings, concrete floors and plaster walls. Main Street Bartlesville said the space had been used as a storage facility immediately prior to the renovation.

Under the direction of Bartlesville architectural firm Ambler Architects, a budget of only $150,000 transformed the space into a beautiful un-amplified, acoustical masterpiece for musical performances. David Marsh, a Dallas-based acoustical consultant assisted in producing the finished product.

The project was submitted for the award by Main Street Bartlesville for the recognition on a statewide level.

Amber Hall opened in 2015, and is named after Lewis Ambler, in recognition of his generous gift of the three-story building in which the Hall sits and through the support of three generations of Amblers. Main Street Bartlesville said Scott Ambler, the architect, donated his professional time and expertise to the redesign of a challenging space for acoustics and musical entertainment and Chris Ambler manages the performances.

The facility was funded, in part, by private donations, a grant from the Ted and Melody Lyon Foundation of Bartlesville and Bartlesville Redevelopment Trust Authority.

- See more at: http://examiner-enterprise.com/news/local-news/ambler-hall-wins-statewide-award#sthash.6BveYirC.dpuf





Now if they could only focus a little into making this...



look like this...

[erfalf]

And just an update shot of the Noble Lofts



and for some perspective.



Are the new streetlights acceptable? I am certainly no expert. You can see one in the center of the shot above.

[erfalf]

So the Noble Lofts are now more or less completed. As far as I know, there are two commercial tenants, leaving two still available. Not surprising considering it's location. It's about the equivalent of 3rd street in Tulsa. Not a main thoroughfare, and it dead ends on both ends. Auto traffic will always be low on this street. The two tenants are:

Wishful Thinking - Paint Your Own Pottery Studio opened on July 27 as the first tenant. I hear they are doing quit well since opening. It's a bit of a novelty for Bartlesville. There has been another store in town for a few years now, but I don't think it was really in the majority of people's consciousness (in other words, it's on the west side of town).
https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=Pottery+Bartlesville+2nd+street

Kingdom Nutrition opened August 18th. This is the third one of these types of stores that I have seen sprout up in Bartlesville in as many months. I guess I didn't realize this was a thing. Good luck to them for sure.
https://www.facebook.com/KingdomNutrition1/

On the residential side, it sounds (according the Examiner) that they are not filling up particularly fast. This to me is surprising. The units appear to be of exceptional quality and finish. Yes, pricey, but that didn't seem to stop the other downtown units from creating waiting lists. It's a block from the COP campus.





Hopefully this has not soured Ross group on Bartlesville. Their next project involves converting an education building at the old Methodist Church into apartment units (the 4 story building on the left of the street view below).

https://goo.gl/maps/VMzp17m7s132