New Hampton Inn Hotel - One Place Downtown Development

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Just what kind of shopping does everyone think of when talking about a downtown?  Seriously. Does it necessarily include buying?

I remember enjoying going to downtown Philadelphia several times with my dad and uncle to the surplus electronic stores in the late 50s and mid 60s. (Dad was an amateur radio guy.)  That was before the proliferation of places like Radio Shack.  Radio Inc in Tulsa had some interesting displays inside.  I bought my first brand new car at Chick Norton Buick downtown in 1981.  I don't think car dealerships need to be downtown.

I am not much of a trinket buyer.  I nearly detest shopping for clothes.  I am not a coffee drinker and the coffee shop culture never really did appeal to me. Adult beverages are too expensive to go out drink often not to mention that I have to drive home.  The experience is also mostly boring for me too.  Most restaurant food is more expensive than I care to pay for except occasionally (a few times a year) and it's too salty too.

I like wandering through Steve's Wholesale (tools) and Wholesale Tool. In my younger days, a trip to the auto salvage yard was fun.  I could still wander through the yard looking for things like a dash clock or AM-FM radio that was optional in my car that my car didn't have.  (I eventually found them for my first two cars.)  It's fun to look about at High Gravity.

[Conan71]

Just what kind of shopping does everyone think of when talking about a downtown?  

Beer
Barbecue
Bicycles

Not necessarily in that order.  Is there anything else?

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Beer
Barbecue
Bicycles

Not necessarily in that order.  Is there anything else?

It's no secret that i like beer.  I just don't like paying as much for it as the bars typically charge.  I realize they are offering a lot more than my local liquor store but I am only willing to pay so much.  $3.50 for a Miller Lite is not bad price for a beer served to you in a comfortable place owned and run by some in business to do that.  It is, however, equivalent to $21.00 per 6-pack. I would be more inclined to buy a Chimay Tripel which carries the equivalent of $67.76 per 6-pack (although that is on draught).  I need to ration my money to buy some of that $5.00 to $6.00/gal avgas.  Even if there were a bar I could walk to, I wouldn't do that very often.

[SXSW]

I guess it makes sense for the 3rd & Cheyenne corner to be developed so they can use 3rd & Denver for construction site trailers and laydown.  I am curious though if there is actually a firm plan for the residential on the quarter block left on the Denver side.  I'm hoping for sonething midrise like this newer residential building in our fellow Arkansas River city of Little Rock:


Whatever is built there will likely need its own parking since the offices and hotel will be using the existing garage at the base of the Cimarex Tower.  So you'll probably have a couple floors of garage (since underground parking is generally cost prohibitive in Tulsa at $25-30,000/space) with the residential floors above.  Retail space at the corner and along Denver with resident/garage entrance on 3rd.  At one time the hotel and apartments were going to share a pool but I don't know if that is still the plan.

[AquaMan]

Greensburg, PA has a downtown that is vibrant and feels like the mall that should be.  I'm a fan of KC's old mall as well.  And Silverton, CO.  They feel old country.  Greensburg does an amazing Christmas thing with horse drawn sleighs, lots of lights.  Having spent time in Europe maybe I am just wanting that.

Downtown Tulsa as a shopping destination: part outlet mall, part artist outlet.

That could go for so many small towns.  Shawnee is my birthplace.  City is dead.  Mall along I40 sucks.  I always imagined that if the downtown was offered to artist it could be a birthplace of something great.  I imagine running some fiber optics in first so the artist can have a lively trade with the worlds and create interest with entrepreneurs.  Living quarters would be on the second floor and on the street level would be working shops, craftsmen.  And coffee shops, food, etc...  Else: downtown Shawnee and many other small town main streets are poop. 

I like the idea of downtown being dominated by creativity and local flavour. Our old downtown would have appealed to many today. Clarke's Clothes, Renberg's, some high end women's dress shops whose names (Spiegel's?) I forget, Brown-Dunkin, Globe Clothiers, Woolworth's, Bishop's, The Incognito, Bill's T records, The Ramekin, Crown Drug, Skagg's, Froug's Department store, Saied's music, the Orpheum and Rialto theaters, to name a few. Notice what almost all had in common? They were locally owned and operated. That's what differentiates a downtown from the suburban areas where franchise foods and shopping have mostly one thing in common....conformity and universality.

If its just the suburban offerings located downtown I'm out.

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If its just the suburban offerings located downtown I'm out.

I agree with that concept.  To get me downtown, you will need to offer something different than I can get in my local suburbia.  The folks living downtown will need basic stuff though.  A truly urban (no gas pumps?) QT might have a place downtown.  Starting a new, locally owned department store might be tough but whatever goes in could replicate in form and function of days gone by.

[AquaMan]

Good post. QT should be reading it. They could provide electric terminals for the soon to arrive electric cars and CNG pumps for commercial vehicles. That gets PSO and ONG to help subsidize them.

Another good piece of advice? Get rid of those hideous, cold, blue Christmas decorations currently hanging off light poles and replace them with something that crosses the streets with Crimson and Cream. GET CREATIVE and use the amazing backdrops of the buildings to make it worthwhile for light tours!

[Red Arrow]

Good post. QT should be reading it. They could provide electric terminals for the soon to arrive electric cars and CNG pumps for commercial vehicles. That gets PSO and ONG to help subsidize them.

Actually, Mr Suburbia here was thinking more of something that Artist would be proud of.  Up to the sidewalk, windows by the sidewalk, forget about cars, several stories with offices or something 2nd story and above.

There is no reason for downtown to emulate suburbia.  We have plenty of it around here.  It's my choice for living but downtown needs to be different to attract me to do anything there. Why should I drive 15 miles to downtown for the same stuff I can get within 5 miles?  (Rhetorical question.)

[Conan71]

Good post. QT should be reading it. They could provide electric terminals for the soon to arrive electric cars and CNG pumps for commercial vehicles. That gets PSO and ONG to help subsidize them.

Another good piece of advice? Get rid of those hideous, cold, blue Christmas decorations currently hanging off light poles and replace them with something that crosses the streets with Crimson and Cream Orange & Black. GET CREATIVE and use the amazing backdrops of the buildings to make it worthwhile for light tours!

FIFY

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FIFY

Any chance you went to or are an OSU fan?   

Didn't you say at least one of your kids is going to OU?

[TheArtist]

 It's not so much what stores are downtown, but how they are placed downtown, aka pedestrian friendly.  The rest will take care of itself.  But over and above that basic concern one would then expect there to be some unique retail downtown, whether that be local or chain, some of which it would of course be nice to have destination type retail.  I would love to see an H&M, and a Z Gallerie as some of the chain type stores.  A movie theater would be great as well of course.  When I was in London many of the "High Streets" or shopping streets had what we would call the same ol same ol chains, but interspersed along with them were the unique local stores and more unique urban fare, chain type stores.  It was the whole mix in a pedestrian friendly setting that made the difference. Small local grocers and the bigger chains on the same street, small unique local restaurants, right across from a chain restaurant, etc. etc. The key again imho is having the "infrastructure" available.  There are many areas of downtown where retail of any sort can't happen without extreme measures.  Large chunks of parking garages with no ground floor space available.  Buildings with no ready way to get ground floor retail in because there aren't adequate entrances/access (especially those abominations built in the 80s for some reason) and or that are surrounded by other pedestrian unfriendly development.  It's so odd that we don't zone for a "High Street" like they do in the UK or for a pedestrian friendly street like they do in other cities like Denver for instance. We just leave it up to chance and cross our fingers hoping we will get a future that will not screw us over lol.  Developers don't like kind of uncertainty either.  No wonder some people in the city so want a large developer to come in.  They probably think that is the only way we can get a critical mass of something desirable downtown (only to be so often let down as the initial plans don't pan out as hoped then are left saying "well it's better than an empty parking lot").  Why are we so lame and gutless here these days when once we would have seen what the future could hold and gone above and beyond to create something truly wonderful.   

[SXSW]

I would say the main retail strip downtown is by your store along Boston in the Deco district.  It has been pretty amazing to watch this happen the past couple years.  Someday soon I think we'll see more of local retail district centered on Boston and Main between 3rd and 6th.  A movie theater would do well in the Blue Dome. 

One Place doesn't need lots of retail but its location next to the BOK Center could support a few restaurants amd a coffee shop.  The hotel at 2nd & Cheyenne is supposed to have a bar.  The Aloft nearby has a bar.  The key is having a few places to linger within walking distance.

[Conan71]

Any chance you went to or are an OSU fan?   

Didn't you say at least one of your kids is going to OU?

One daughter is an OU Alum and the other graduates from there next December.  My parents were both OU grads.  Somehow that gene skipped this generation. 

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One daughter is an OU Alum and the other graduates from there next December.  My parents were both OU grads.  Somehow that gene skipped this generation. 

So you are a defective defector student.

[MyDogHunts]

With the thought that whatever goes downtown, it should conform; what occured to me was a slimmed down version of WalMart.  Right, makes you cringe.  But a store structured like an old time Penny's or the SAKS that aesthetically fits in and offers visitors the feel of an earlier era.  Similarly, why doesn't QT construct in the fashion of RT.66 along RT.66.  Everyone aware of POPS in Arcadia?  I think RT.66 is undersold here in Tulsa.  And I am all for local ownership but who could pull-off a downtown department store?  A WalMart Lite/Nostalgic.