Downtown stadium in the East End....

[TulsaRufnex]

Let's see......

DECEMBER 14, 2011
Sparking Tulsa's East Village
New OU/TU med school and All Souls Unitarian come downtown
BY RAY PEARCEY
http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A45118

The first of the signal projects is the new OU/TU School of Community Medicine (SOCM). The project is one of the long-standing efforts of OU Tulsa Pres. Gerard Clancy, and has significant support from the Tulsa medical community and a host of local and national players. Fueled in large by George Kaiser Family Foundation donations and a $2.3 million acquisition outlay by partner University of Tulsa, the project will use the now shuttered 75,000 square foot Hartford building at 1st and Greenwood -- at the northern rim of the East Village.

ASUU, the largest Unitarian Universalist church in the world, will be moving to a site bounded by Kenosha and Frankfurt Aves. and 6th and 7th Sts. on a green field super block.

The new medical school and All Souls Unitarian will be situated on a punctuated axle that extends from seventh and Frankfurt all the way up to the Hartford building at 1st and Greenwood. Collectively the projects will almost surely spark a bevy of new housing, retail, entertainment and small business activity that might have taken many years to manifest absent these two keystone efforts.

So, from the info in this article... the anchors for development will be the med school located west of the Blue Dome district at 1st and Greenwood... and the new All Souls Unitarian Church which will occupy the superblock just north of Home Depot.





I'll take some more pictures in 18 months...  

[TheArtist]

  Wow, downtowns inside the IDL are supposed to be business districts?   Egads, didn't know anyone still held that view.  Thats one thing that helped to destroy downtown.  Last week actually was walking down Boston Ave by the Atlas Life Hotel and a young YP type guy was being helped out of a taxi with some suitcases and I only caught a bit of the conversation but the guy helping him said "well, this downtown is mostly office buildings" and the young guy looking around said "wow what a strange downtown".  In many a downtown these days the tide has turned so much that there is more living than work and entertainment! Downtowns should, in my own humble opinion, contain a healthy mix of business, arts and educational offerings, hotels and entertainment, living, and shopping.  The East End is already beginning to evolve into an urban neighborhood type area whether any of us on here likes it or not.  Plus, again, it seems like an obvious area to do just that considering what is happening in other parts of downtown and just past the IDL to the east with the Pearl District.  You could live in the East End then walk to work and shop in the "Deco/business District", see your arts,concerts and museums in the Brady Arts District, go clubbing and dining in the Blue Dome, and then go back to your quiet urban neighborhood near the parks in the East End, then on the opposite side of downtown you have your big arena and convention center, federal buildings, and big hotels and parking garages.  Can't really tell what will happen with the Church/TCC area over time.  All areas will of course have a mix of things, but some areas do tend to lean more towards one use or another.  

[DTowner]

"Just not downtown."   Why?

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I believe that if tax dollars are being used to fund/finance, then IMHO the East Village area inside the IDL should evolve into it's own entertainment/business district that all Tulsans can enjoy... not just a publicly subsidized neighborhood enclave... from my grade school learnin', I was taught that the area inside the IDL of any city was intended for use as a "central business district," and I am not highly impressed by those who'd turn that area into their own little "microhood" playground.  It'd be different if this particular area of downtown had blocks of old row houses or brownstones just waiting to be re-habbed, ala Baltimore or Chicago, or if these ideas were to be funded without taxpayer assistance, but neither is currently the case.  If there's sufficient demand for urban housing inside the IDL, why the need for tax dollars?  There's a reason why the few old apt. buildings inside the IDL turned into skidrow Towerview-style eyesores in the first place--- ignore those facts at your peril.

As for pro soccer, there is no magic formula that would guarantee success or failure based on whether or not youth soccer fields are positioned directly next door to a stadium.... for Tulsa, a stadium could be located at the fairgrounds and that big parking lot in the middle of the horsetrack could be used for massive tailgate parties rather than conversion into soccer fields.... or the franchise could attempt to share the Drillers' downtown location at Oneok Park for 14 regular season home games while the team/operating group partners with the city to use and promote the new tournament ready soccer fields by Mohawk Park... or if the youth soccer fields were privately-owned by a certain individual, it may make financial sense for that stadium to be located in an area the owner controls, like what's going on in San Antonio....  http://www.morganswonderland.com/#  http://www.starsoccersa.com/    

Now I'm really confused.  You say that the East End should not be a subsidized playground for the few, but then you advocate a publically funded single purpose soccer stadium.  You are advocating for the exact thing you claim to oppose.  As noted in many posts, almost none of the projects currently planned for the East End are subsidized.  Others have addressed your other points. 

[swake]

I'll take some more pictures in 18 months...  

The Land Legacy park is planned to stretch from 1st and Greenwood where the medical school is going down to 6th and Harford where All Souls is going. There's a lot already planned in between along the path of the park. At 3rd and Greenwood Urban8 is supposed to start construction soon and Elliott Nelson is planning the Hartford Commons residential building right next door. At 4th to 5th and Frankfort halfway up the other side of the Park the city has sold the old TFD Headquarters to Tulsa Opera for their new home. Right across the street is the Bill White Chevy residential conversion being done with city housing money.

Scoff all you want but the people and entities behind all of this are Kaiser, OU, TU, the city, the collective congregation of All Souls and Elliott Nelson. This is very different from the past projects proposed by people with no money and no track records of success. This time there is all sorts of political power, plenty of experience and lots of money.

[TulsaRufnex]

Now I'm really confused.  You say that the East End should not be a subsidized playground for the few, but then you advocate a publically funded single purpose soccer stadium.  You are advocating for the exact thing you claim to oppose.  As noted in many posts, almost none of the projects currently planned for the East End are subsidized.  Others have addressed your other points.

The soccer stadium would have been used for high school football, concerts, etc... using your logic, the downtown ballpark is a publicly funded single purpose stadium.

Are the "3-4 housing developments" mentioned by Swake being subsidized by state and local funds or not?
What I read a few weeks ago was that these developments would be in jeopardy if they didn't get state funds usually reserved for areas deemed historical.

I live in a historical area.  The East Village is NOT a historical area.
Crosbie Heights, Owen Park, and Brady Heights are historical neighborhoods.
The East End is not.

Cutting tax credits could hurt Oklahoma preservation ... - Tulsa World  2/16/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120216_16_A1_CUTLIN982414

Janet Pearson: State tax-cut effort raising more concerns | Tulsa World  3/25/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20120325_211_G1_CUTLIN572450&PrintComments=1

[swake]

The soccer stadium would have been used for high school football, concerts, etc... using your logic, the downtown ballpark was a publicly funded single purpose stadium.

Are the "3-4 housing developments" mentioned by Swake being subsidized by state and local funds or not?
What I read a few weeks ago was that these developments would be in jeopardy if they didn't get state funds usually reserved for areas deemed historical.

I live in a historical area.  The East Village is NOT a historical area.
Crosbie Heights, Owen Park, and Brady Heights are historical neighborhoods.
The East End is not.

Cutting tax credits could hurt Oklahoma preservation ... - Tulsa World  2/16/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120216_16_A1_CUTLIN982414

Janet Pearson: State tax-cut effort raising more concerns | Tulsa World  3/25/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20120325_211_G1_CUTLIN572450&PrintComments=1

To my knowledge the only one getting any kind of public money is the Bill White Chevy site, and that's just a loan.

[TheArtist]

The soccer stadium would have been used for high school football, concerts, etc... using your logic, the downtown ballpark is a publicly funded single purpose stadium.

Are the "3-4 housing developments" mentioned by Swake being subsidized by state and local funds or not?
What I read a few weeks ago was that these developments would be in jeopardy if they didn't get state funds usually reserved for areas deemed historical.

I live in a historical area.  The East Village is NOT a historical area.
Crosbie Heights, Owen Park, and Brady Heights are historical neighborhoods.
The East End is not.

Cutting tax credits could hurt Oklahoma preservation ... - Tulsa World  2/16/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120216_16_A1_CUTLIN982414

Janet Pearson: State tax-cut effort raising more concerns | Tulsa World  3/25/12
http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20120325_211_G1_CUTLIN572450&PrintComments=1

Why do you keep bringing up the historic area thing?  I don't think anyone really cares and there isn't much there to care about anyway (other than perhaps the Bill White Chevrolet building and the other ones on that block that I happen to like).  Most of whats going to happen there is new stuff going in.

[TulsaRufnex]

I believe historical designation should be reserved for historically significant buildings, and not used as an excuse to fund or prop up expensive rehabs of buildings with little/no historic value... http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/lawmakers-target-historic-tax-credit-programs

I'm not rooting for failure, but am healthily skeptical... when Artist gives the elitist cold shoulder (who says "Egads" anymore?) by deriding the idea that "downtowns inside the IDL are supposed to be business districts," he is missing my intended point that Tulsa's downtown, first and foremost, has been and will be a business area... who's to say, in the next twenty to thirty years, that today's conventional TulsaNow Forum wisdom of building walkable urban neighborhoods inside the IDL won't turn out to create it's own set of problems and blight.... btw, I wasn't the one who once described the IDL as a "noose" that's strangles a downtown, that would be Bing Thom (and I believe he was paid around $10mil for that advice)... http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa1059.htm

Tulsa's skyline is nice to look at from at distance.... but with buildings too tall to sustain long-term, paired up with patches of asphalt that make more financial sense as surface parking over new construction... hopefully that can and will change for the better...

Once again, who wins?  who loses?  who pays?  These aren't unreasonable questions.  Is there a TIF district being created?  As laudable as it is for All Souls Unitarian to want to re-locate downtown, I have yet to talk to anyone who thinks we have too few churches downtown.... Owen Park has some nice historic homes, but others are boarded up, some abandoned, and some can only be described as "slumlord material."  Take that problem and triple it for Crosbie Heights...

Swake, I find it hard to believe that "the only one getting any kind of public money is the Bill White Chevy site, and that's just a loan."
Especially after reading this:

On The Verge
Revitalization efforts have already transformed downtown Tulsa into a vibrant urban core, and much more is on the way.  April 2012
http://www.okmag.com/April-2012/On-The-Verge/

What is the secret to a successful revitalization? According to Elliot Nelson, owner of The McNellie's Group, whose successful restaurants and other venues have changed the landscape of the Blue Dome District, it's a combination of public and private partnership.

"Revitalization cannot solely be dependent on private dollars," Nelson says. "It has to be a partnership between the city and the private sector. We have come a long way, but we still have a ways to go to ensure continued growth."

[ZYX]

You seem to want everything done NOW. But, then, you don't want anything done downtown without something being done about Crosbie Heights and Owen Park. Things take time. Anything worth having is worth waiting for.

You've just become so overly pessimistic and at times rude that it's no fun to read what you have to bring to the table. Providing a counter argument is one thing, but you just keep coming back with the same stuff. Who has even said that the East End is historical?

[TulsaRufnex]

You seem to want everything done NOW. But, then, you don't want anything done downtown without something being done about Crosbie Heights and Owen Park. Things take time. Anything worth having is worth waiting for.

You've just become so overly pessimistic and at times rude that it's no fun to read what you have to bring to the table. Providing a counter argument is one thing, but you just keep coming back with the same stuff. Who has even said that the East End is historical?

This is what you said a couple of pages ago:
"However, I disagree with putting up "good enough." Yeah, I'd rather just wait til perfect comes around instead of putting up something that's just better than what's there now."
"I see a lot of potential in this area. I think sooner, rather than later, we will see a huge change come to this side of downtown."

This is what Swake has said:  "Two years from now the East End will look very different. There's really no room for a stadium already."

And this is what I said:  
"If I waited until "perfect" came along, I never would have moved back to Tulsa in the first place."

"So, are we going to play a shell game by subsidizing risk with taxpayer money in a sparse area whose mid-century auto repair buildings have less historical significance than my 1928 craftsman bungalow in Owen Park?..... really?"

"This thread was to point out that a downtown soccer stadium could have worked here...."

What's being proposed in the area, to my knowledge, is hardly what one would consider "perfect."

Is it rude to ask who stands to benefit from tax credits and special loans that subsidize the risk involved?
Because those questions have been asked on this same forum before, and people's motives and political alliances were scrutinized... I remember the general atmosphere of rudeness anytime something was proposed by former mayor Bill LaFortune...

Is it rude to suggest that the sports stadium/arena as anchor + mixed use retail/residential for this area would have been superior to spur development over yet another downtown church?
Because it wasn't that long ago, back when I was still living in Chicago, that posters on this same forum characterized this area as a potential neighborhood with valuable historic buildings that only needed revitalization-- acting like NIMBYs for an area in which they don't live....

Will the Bill White "lofts" be worth the expense?  And who's paying for the park?  Will this steal focus from efforts to revitalize the Pearl District?
You may not like me harping on the "historical," but that's been part of the salespitch from the very beginning...
Like this....



http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2011/04/apartment_conversion_under_way.html

Local businessman and investor Kevin Kelly bought the Blue Plate site from Reily in 2007 for $1.875 million. In early 2010, he sold it to Hernandez and HRI for $3.3 million.

Hernandez had taken the lead in trying to redevelop the building, winning City Planning Commission and City Council approval in late 2008 to turn it into 72 mixed-income apartments. She said then she hoped to start construction in mid-2009 and finish the conversion a year later.

But Hernandez, a former HRI executive, had trouble finding the financing she needed, and she eventually teamed up with her former company on a plan to focus the project on artists. HRI has extensive experience in developing artists' housing, such as the 37-unit Bywater Art Lofts on Dauphine Street.

About 70 percent of the apartments will be set aside for low-income tenants.

The city has provided $3.5 million of the total budget, with the rest coming from bonds, tax credits and bank loans.

The State Bond Commission briefly stalled the project in November when it failed to approve a plan for the state Office of Community Development to put up about $9 million, but a month later it authorized issuance of up to $15 million in Louisiana Housing Finance Agency bonds.

Although the approval Hernandez obtained from the city in 2008 was good for only two years, she said she has been granted an extension.

[AquaMan]

This thread is just confusing me. I do see the same old Tulsa mentalities at play here that have  kept the city stagnant and near declinine stage for my whole tenure here: "We need to give it time, two years, three years it will all look different", "We need to not just settle. Better to get quality development that may take longer etc.", and "Demand for affordable housing downtown is growing". Yet, after 30years we continue to offer nothing much more than expensive condo's, mass entertainment venues, churches, declining office buildings  and lots of parking lots. That is frustrating when other cities seem to be striking out into new directions, some failing, some succeeding, but learning and improving.

I know downtown is scads better than it was 20 years ago but the pace is agonizing and Tulsa outside of downtown is starting to visibly age. To me some reality coaching is necessary. The area north of 6th street from NOrdam to Bill White is not walkable by any means. It is vintage urban renewal looking. Its potential as housing to me is weak. I don't know its best use and you guys are deep into it but I am a potential resident and I don't see anything that appeals to me there. The Bill White building is interesting to look at but was built as a car dealership. It is not nice inside and has no real character left to it. Good luck with that one. We took better, more historical buildings than that, notably the Rail Depot and made them even less interesting. To me that area will be better used for other uses with some kind of anchor attraction.

I feel for the Owen Park and Crosbie areas. I also have some affection for the areas just east of downtown radiating out from Admiral and Peoria. These are areas that should be gentrifying, re-building with multi-family, parks, etc. They are within trolley distance from downtown, hospitals, and municipal functions. They should be developing along with or in front of East Village. Instead, I see burned out houses, empty lots, poor infrastructure and increasing graffiti.

If we're not careful and quick to embrace new ideas for these area we may find that the downtown window is closing.

[ZYX]

This thread is just confusing me. I do see the same old Tulsa mentalities at play here that have  kept the city stagnant and near declinine stage for my whole tenure here: "We need to give it time, two years, three years it will all look different", "We need to not just settle. Better to get quality development that may take longer etc.", and "Demand for affordable housing downtown is growing". Yet, after 30years we continue to offer nothing much more than expensive condo's, mass entertainment venues, churches, declining office buildings  and lots of parking lots. That is frustrating when other cities seem to be striking out into new directions, some failing, some succeeding, but learning and improving.

I know downtown is scads better than it was 20 years ago but the pace is agonizing and Tulsa outside of downtown is starting to visibly age. To me some reality coaching is necessary. The area north of 6th street from NOrdam to Bill White is not walkable by any means. It is vintage urban renewal looking. Its potential as housing to me is weak. I don't know its best use and you guys are deep into it but I am a potential resident and I don't see anything that appeals to me there. The Bill White building is interesting to look at but was built as a car dealership. It is not nice inside and has no real character left to it. Good luck with that one. We took better, more historical buildings than that, notably the Rail Depot and made them even less interesting. To me that area will be better used for other uses with some kind of anchor attraction.

I feel for the Owen Park and Crosbie areas. I also have some affection for the areas just east of downtown radiating out from Admiral and Peoria. These are areas that should be gentrifying, re-building with multi-family, parks, etc. They are within trolley distance from downtown, hospitals, and municipal functions. They should be developing along with or in front of East Village. Instead, I see burned out houses, empty lots, poor infrastructure and increasing graffiti.

If we're not careful and quick to embrace new ideas for these area we may find that the downtown window is closing.

I understand your sentiment, however, I just don't see how you can believe that the rebuilding of downtown is going at a slow pace. How much faster should it be? There are so many projects recently completed, under construction and planned. Saying that downtown will look much different in two to three years is not just blind speculation, it will look different. Saying that it won't is just ignoring the current momentum.

And what do you mean by "we may find that the downtown window is closing?" Do you think that the renewed interest in downtown is just a fad? I don't. I think this is going to become the new normal. We can't sustain our current growth pattern forever, and I think close quarter living is only going to become increasingly popular. That's not to say that suburbs will soon meet their demise, as they will always exist and do serve a valuable purpose, I just think that more and more people will continue to live closer to the city center, and that America's cities will start to much more closely resemble those of Europe.

[swake]

If we're not careful and quick to embrace new ideas for these area we may find that the downtown window is closing.

New Ideas like another stadium? We have two new ones already.

[Teatownclown]

Better pay mind to TTC posts and not the ones re churches

[AquaMan]

I understand your sentiment, however, I just don't see how you can believe that the rebuilding of downtown is going at a slow pace. How much faster should it be? There are so many projects recently completed, under construction and planned. Saying that downtown will look much different in two to three years is not just blind speculation, it will look different. Saying that it won't is just ignoring the current momentum.

True enough but I've been hearing this chant for decades. Its only the last few years that anything has happened and both the arena and the stadium were fraught with controversy. Maybe its just a mental impression that the controversy left. I'm not so impressed anymore with planned projects having seen so many floated out as trial balloons to sniff out investment money.

And what do you mean by "we may find that the downtown window is closing?" Do you think that the renewed interest in downtown is just a fad? I don't. I think this is going to become the new normal. We can't sustain our current growth pattern forever, and I think close quarter living is only going to become increasingly popular. That's not to say that suburbs will soon meet their demise, as they will always exist and do serve a valuable purpose, I just think that more and more people will continue to live closer to the city center, and that America's cities will start to much more closely resemble those of Europe.

Not a fad but not going to be the normal either. The real growth is going to be in the pre-expansion suburbs inside 44, Crosstown, 169 and maybe as far north as hwy 10. There is no real reason to live downtown for most people. It will remain a fun place to visit as long as the businesses survive but I think the cities you dream about have different personalities. There is no inherent reason for living near high rise office buildings unless the economics work for you. What is the % of employment that resides there? The lag in services, shopping, entertainment and food that the masses crave will hold them from committing. Then the higher cost of housing downtown will entice them into the nearby older neigborhoods looking for bargains that are still near the CBD.Bargains that they can modify to fit their lifestyle. Then mini-cbd's will pop up in places like Whittier Square or Crystal City. We already see that on 15th, Pearl, Promenade, Ranch Acres, 21st & Yale. Another good example is 18th and Boston (office buildings, bars, restaurants, banking, a newly planned shopping center surrounded by a mixed bag of income and education.) For downtown, that leaves the innovators, the avante gaurde,the creative class and the outliers to committ.

If we will open ourselves to ideas like real trolleys, forms based zoning etc. and build a strong base of these mini-cbd's around the downtown its place will be secured. Otherwise I fear the fickle finger of fate will waggle disapprovingly.