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

[rebound]

Yea not so much what I am thinking about     I am thinking about a stroll with lots of people around, interesting architecture, imaginative window displays, unique shops, bookstores, clothing stores, etc. to explore, wonderful dining experiences, have an occasional snack/desert or drink at an outdoor cafe, explore a museum or bunch of galleries, historic points of interest, flea markets, food markets and stalls, the occasional live performance art, outdoor sculptures, fountains, etc.  The kind of thing you typically think of in an urban environment.

Not sure about the flea markets and food markets, but otherwise isn't that what is developing with the combined Brady/Blue Dome/Deco areas?  All that is walkable, and it would be full day (or close) to cover it all.

[Conan71]

Yea not so much what I am thinking about     I am thinking about a stroll with lots of people around, interesting architecture, imaginative window displays, unique shops, bookstores, clothing stores, etc. to explore, wonderful dining experiences, have an occasional snack/desert or drink at an outdoor cafe, explore a museum or bunch of galleries, historic points of interest, flea markets, food markets and stalls, the occasional live performance art, outdoor sculptures, fountains, etc.  The kind of thing you typically think of in an urban environment.

Being from Tulsa, I thought that's what Manhattan or London were for. 

Utica Square attempted to capture that feel, all that's missing is the unique architecture.  Downtown will be there sooner rather than later based on recent development.

I still recall as a young child, riding in my mother's car to downtown Tulsa and hearing the Petula Clark song "Downtown" on the radio and thinking there was something exciting about hitting the central part of the city.  We would shop at Renbergs, get a coney, and walk amongst others getting from place-to-place on the sidewalks.

[TheArtist]

Not sure about the flea markets and food markets, but otherwise isn't that what is developing with the combined Brady/Blue Dome/Deco areas?  All that is walkable, and it would be full day (or close) to cover it all.

It's "walkable" but not all pedestrian friendly. 71st around Memorial is "walkable" but not pedestrian friendly.  Hopefully the Brady/Blue Dome/Deco areas will someday be somewhat connected with pedestrian friendly development.  The great thing that's happening now is that many developers get the "mixed use" ground level interest thing.  But not all do and all it takes is one or two bad developments to put in those gaps and gut any hope of having those areas be truly connected.  Here's keeping our fingers crossed, since we are not likely to put in any pedestrian friendly zoning in our downtown, that's about all we can do.

Btw, one evening last fall I did do the leisure walk to see the sights and such from my shop at 6th and Boston to the Blue Dome, then to the Brady and back.  Still a lot of quite large gaps and some of them already "built in" with parking garages, large blank walls, etc.  Also, still not even a basic concentration of shops anywhere to make it worthwhile to go downtown to shop.  Us shops still rely on events, downtown workers at lunch time, and visitors/sightseers in the evening.  But again we are getting there and fortunately the "in" thing right now is to develop more pedestrian friendly stuff (Unlike the 80's, just about everything you see that was built downtown during that time was a pedestrian disaster, what was up with that? Even the "pedestrian mall" did not have pedestrian zoning?  Those cities that put in pedestrian/urban zoning in their downtown mall type areas saw them flourish, those that did not, saw them fail. A 5 year old could have told you that. Guess there weren't any planners in our city during that time with the intellect of a 5 year old.)

[TheArtist]

Interesting article from St Louis that touched on several points that I and others often talk about pertaining to development in Tulsa's core.

Investing (with zoning and or transit, infrastructure and "amenities" projects, educational/research projects, etc. ) in certain areas or corridors to encourage high quality urban, pedestrian/transit friendly development with the result that these areas then have a high enough concentration of high quality development to then create a snowball effect of energy and development radiating out from them. Success breeding success.  (Our tendency is to "scattershot" projects over a wide area without much concentration and precious little synergy resulting)

Protecting old building stock which is now attractive to new development.

Urban living is becoming more and more attractive to more and more people. We are on the trailing edge of this trend having a city that still has most, by far, of it's area set up as car oriented zoning along with even a downtown that has NO pedestrian/transit friendly zoning!?



Exerts from the article- my bold

St. Louis and some inner suburbs lost population during the last decade, but countering that trend is the robust corridor that begins at the Arch and runs eight miles west.

Yet this is where St. Louisans fill offices, run companies, conduct medical research, visit museums, attend plays and concerts, dine, study, go to court, ride mass transit and launch startups. They live in grand old homes, vintage or modern high-rises, lofts and modest houses.

In short, it's where St. Louis succeeds as a city. And it's growing, led by a boom in life-science research and health care. As elsewhere, St. Louis is benefiting from the changing perception that cities are good places to live.

The 2010 census shows that the corridor's population approached 60,000, an increase of more than 10 percent since 2000.

Sarah Coffin, associate professor of public policy studies at SLU, and other urban experts said the corridor's growing vitality will continue to attract new residents who prefer to walk more and drive less.

"People's tastes are changing about how they want to live and where they want to live," Coffin said.

She and others said the presence of Ikea, which plans to open a store at Forest Park and Vandeventer avenues in 2015, will show that the corridor can lure a retail heavyweight.

"Ikea will change the tenor of the entire area," Coffin said. "Before Ikea, (city officials) would say yes to any developer for almost anything. Now they can ask developers for streetscape improvements and other amenities. We used to be happy to have table scraps."  (Sound familiar?)

Zack Boyers, chief executive of St. Louis-based U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., said the corridor's future is bright because its anchor institutions are investing in themselves. A result is a "virtuous cycle" of more residents, workers, commercial activity and investment, he said.

                                                                    PULL OF TRANSIT

Like many older U.S. cities, St. Louis developed along its streetcar lines. The streetcars are gone, but the MetroLink system traverses the east-west corridor with rail transit. The Central West End station, the system's busiest, serves the BJC and Washington University School of Medicine complex, which is in the midst of a $1 billion construction spree.
The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis is pushing a plan to increase the area's rail transit options with a streetcar line between downtown and the Central West End. Boyers, chairman of the partnership's board, said the streetcar would be an important new connector.

"The idea of a streetcar and fixed rail is not only important transit but is also a signal to developers that this is where we're going to focus," he said.

Peter Pollock, an urban planner and fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in Cambridge, Mass., said the presence of mass transit encourages development in the St. Louis corridor.

"As assets of access and transit and all these fantastic activities happen along this corridor, it's no surprise that additional players would want to be in the corridor," he said.

He pointed out that a similar corridor exists in Cleveland, where a nearly seven-mile bus rapid transit line on Euclid Avenue links downtown to University Circle, a hub of medical facilities and arts institutions. Cleveland officials have said that since the bus line began service in 2008, the formerly run-down Euclid corridor has experienced $3.3 billion in new construction and $2.5 billion in building rehabs.

CORE10 relocated from Clayton in 2010. Stephens said most of the firm's clients saw it as merely a move from one side of Forest Park to the other, adding that the rejuvenated park is the linchpin that connects the city to points west.

He said the Central West End's "fantastic building stock" is a factor in the residential growth, enhanced by the stability of BJC and the St. Louis County government center in Clayton.

Webber, who spent 22 years at the University of Chicago before moving to St. Louis in 2008, said the concentration of business, education and culture centers along St. Louis' central spine forms the region's identity and provides much of its employment.

"For many of the major attractions, the last decade has been a time of strength," he said. "If you compare St. Louis to other cities, they're quite geographically disparate but they have the effect of driving demand. And the progress of the Cortex development in the past two years has been remarkable."

'TERRIFIC BUILDINGS'

Parts of the Central West End provide hard-to-top urban vibes, added Webber, who directs the university's building projects.
"Walking down Euclid (Avenue) in the Central West End compares very favorably with the urban experiences of about anywhere in the country," he said.

Successful cities do more than attract couples with kids, Webber added. They are magnets for young, creative, college-educated people who crave a wide variety of things to do.

"What core cities sell to residents and visitors is density — the opportunities and experiences of density," he said. "Cities can't compete with backyards and barbecues. What they can compete on is restaurants and music venues."

And coffee.

Blueprint Coffee, recently opened in the Delmar Loop, draws the crowd that will pay several dollars for lattes and other hand-crafted coffee drinks.

Mazi Razani, 26, who formerly managed a coffee bar near Washington University and is now one of Blueprint's owners, fits the demographic of young, college-educated businesspeople drawn to city living. He resides in the corridor neighborhood of Skinker-DeBaliviere and says he is a committed urbanist.

"I don't know if I would have made it out in Chesterfield," he said. "Seeing the high rises makes me feel like I'm in a city."

Jeff Winzerling, co-developer of a project to fit 50 apartments in a 1940s factory west of SLU,

In Grand Center, for example, the Centene Center for Arts and Education was an early 20th-century showpiece for the Knights of Columbus. On Lindell Boulevard, the Moolah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, built in 1912, is now a movie theater, a bowling alley and apartments.

"What we're seeing now is that the terrific buildings left behind are attractive to a new generation of development," Winzerling said.

Underway now is a burst of new construction or building rehabilitation just south of the park and west of SLU.
Experts said that central corridor development is promoting overdue growth elsewhere, particularly south to the Botanical Heights and Shaw neighborhoods and through the Forest Park Southeast area to the Grove entertainment district.

"We're finally creating a lot of opportunity in housing choices and job choices for people," Coffin said.

"The idea of building off success instead of leaving it as an isolated instance is taking shape," he said.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/anchors-and-transit-spur-growth-of-st-louis-corridor/article_f095688e-11b9-5819-9bc7-14292595c47a.html  

[jacobi]

If you could get Tulsa to annex further south we could incorporate New Orleans.


...of course the mid-towners would say "Ew, South Tulsa?  Way too jazzy."

It's not the jazz.  It's too close to Texas.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AquaMan]

Reminds me of Will Rogers. "Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it."

Its not conservatism per se that holds Tulsa back. That's just an outward manifestation of a city that in large part does not embrace progressive thought. The construct of "thats the way we've always done it and it works just fine" (conservative outlook) by the building/developing/investment community does not harmonize well with the "lets develop in the customized, logical, sustainable way that people want to live in different areas of the city" (progressive outlook).

The former is characterized by dropping old buildings and building new ones that often look old but are designed for suburban, car dominated lifestyles. The latter characterized by mostly failed efforts to adopt different zoning practices, entice mass transit, protect history and catch up with the outside world. So, the local foundations step in to lube the process by taking the taxpayer and developers out of the picture. We don't mind progress so much if someone else is paying for it.

The result fits the community. A very small group of educated, well heeled sophisticated consumers who get their museums, arts and protected lifestyles while the city at large languishes.

My cynicism is raging lately. Forgive me if I offend.

[Rookie Okie]

Reminds me of Will Rogers. "Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it."

Its not conservatism per se that holds Tulsa back. That's just an outward manifestation of a city that in large part does not embrace progressive thought. The construct of "thats the way we've always done it and it works just fine" (conservative outlook) by the building/developing/investment community does not harmonize well with the "lets develop in the customized, logical, sustainable way that people want to live in different areas of the city" (progressive outlook).

The former is characterized by dropping old buildings and building new ones that often look old but are designed for suburban, car dominated lifestyles. The latter characterized by mostly failed efforts to adopt different zoning practices, entice mass transit, protect history and catch up with the outside world. So, the local foundations step in to lube the process by taking the taxpayer and developers out of the picture. We don't mind progress so much if someone else is paying for it.

The result fits the community. A very small group of educated, well heeled sophisticated consumers who get their museums, arts and protected lifestyles while the city at large languishes.

My cynicism is raging lately. Forgive me if I offend.

Very well put, and could also be used to characterize so many other cities.

[Conan71]

My cynicism is raging lately. Forgive me if I offend.

Your offensiveness is your most endearing quality, Aqua. 

[AquaMan]

Well, thank you...I think. It may very well be my dominant quality.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The result fits the community. A very small group of educated, well heeled sophisticated consumers who get their museums, arts and protected lifestyles while the city at large languishes.

My cynicism is raging lately. Forgive me if I offend.

It's not cynicism - it's realism.

[TylerBGoode]

Reminds me of Will Rogers. "Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it."

Its not conservatism per se that holds Tulsa back. That's just an outward manifestation of a city that in large part does not embrace progressive thought. The construct of "thats the way we've always done it and it works just fine" (conservative outlook) by the building/developing/investment community does not harmonize well with the "lets develop in the customized, logical, sustainable way that people want to live in different areas of the city" (progressive outlook).

The former is characterized by dropping old buildings and building new ones that often look old but are designed for suburban, car dominated lifestyles. The latter characterized by mostly failed efforts to adopt different zoning practices, entice mass transit, protect history and catch up with the outside world. So, the local foundations step in to lube the process by taking the taxpayer and developers out of the picture. We don't mind progress so much if someone else is paying for it.

The result fits the community. A very small group of educated, well heeled sophisticated consumers who get their museums, arts and protected lifestyles while the city at large languishes.

My cynicism is raging lately. Forgive me if I offend.

Very well put.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

New entrepreneur/shared workspace office opens next to Topeca's roastery on Admiral, just north of the Pearl District (not sure if still the Pearl area or not):

Savage Space provides resources for entrepreneurs, freelancers
Office for those who work at home to collaborate and create

Caleb Hutton and Cody David sought an alternative to making a living at home, a place where creativity and interaction could thrive.
So, in October, they founded Savage Space, a co-working space at 1213 E. Admiral Blvd.
"We thought there were probably other people out there like us who probably work from home and have ideas," said Hutton, a writer-artist who does freelance marketing. "You wake up at home, and you're thinking about the laundry. You're thinking about the dishes. You're thinking about everything.
"When you actually have a place to go, that dynamic changes. ... You have somebody around that you know is creating alongside you that kind of pushes you and motivates you."
Joining 36 Degrees North and Kitchen 66, Savage Space was among three new hubs for entrepreneurs that opened in the city in 2016, according to The State of Entrepreneurship in Tulsa, a 30-page report released Nov. 17 by the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation.
Minutes from downtown, Savage Space is easy to miss if one's not paying attention. It sits in a former automotive shop below and beside Interstate 244, with no sign — it is waiting to be erected — to catch the eye of passers-by.
"We would have loved to have been in the epicenter of one of the districts," said David, a bass guitarist for FM Pilots, a local pop-alternative band. "But price-wise and overhead-wise, we didn't have huge financial backing. It was just Caleb and I trying to do this ourselves."
The pair leased the 1,500-square-foot space in July and renovated it with the help of contractors who were willing to trade services.
"It was mostly older guys who are entrepreneurs, themselves, who had established small businesses," David said. "They would say, 'I was in your spot at one point in my life, so I want to see that you guys do good.'"
Savage Space, which has monthly and daily rentals, offers internet access, lockable storage and mail service, as well as six dedicated desks, three open tables and a kitchen area. Besides being a hub for self-starters, the business also plans to play host to book signings and art and music shows.
"There are a lot of talented, creative, entrepreneurial and artistic people scattered around the city," Hutton said. "For us at Savage, we wanted to be a home where they can come together.
"We want to create a community of people who are not competing with each other, but they are trying to get to the same place and they are not alone."

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/smallbusiness/savage-space-provides-resources-for-entrepreneurs-freelancers/article_36020b5a-b88f-53bd-8e76-62fdebdf4e34.html

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

I heard a certain brewery is looking to build in the Pearl District. Would be a great addition to the area. Lots of interesting things in the area but still lots of room for improvement along Peoria. It has been a slow revitalization of the area, but good to see the large amount of development in East Village which should speed up the development of the Pearl.

[johrasephoenix]

I think the challenge with the Pearl District is the dead zone between the activity in the Pearl (6th St, KW Main Street, etc) and the activity downtown (starting at say, Hodges Bend).  Peoria, the interstate, and all that industrial space prevent the Pearl and downtown from bleeding together and becoming more than their individual parts.  The area up by Topeca is also totally isolated by the giant highway interchange that separates it from downtown (the same interchange that also kills any activity in the far northeast part of downtown).  Hopefully that will change as downtown keeps getting built out. 

That said, if we got 3-5 more Williams sized corporate citizens with the legions of young professionals they would hire I'm sure we could spruce up the Pearl, Owen Park, Crosbie Heights, etc in no time.  There's not much a little bit of economic juice in the engine can't help.

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

I think the challenge with the Pearl District is the dead zone between the activity in the Pearl (6th St, KW Main Street, etc) and the activity downtown (starting at say, Hodges Bend).  Peoria, the interstate, and all that industrial space prevent the Pearl and downtown from bleeding together and becoming more than their individual parts.  The area up by Topeca is also totally isolated by the giant highway interchange that separates it from downtown (the same interchange that also kills any activity in the far northeast part of downtown).  Hopefully that will change as downtown keeps getting built out.  

And when it comes to breaking up the connection between the Pearl/KW/11th and downtown, it has to be said that Oaklawn Cemetery is very inconveniently located. Talk about dead space! (I'm sorry.) But seriously, the raised IDL may created a great big barrier into downtown, but Tracy Park, Oaklawn, and Centennial Park sure don't help either. At least two of those could conceivably be replaced one day. You'll never see a cemetery get dug up and developed.