South Tulsa is under served

[carltonplace]

It's Tulsa now just moving South...why the hate?

No hate here. South Tulsa is a sales tax machine.

I just think that you should own what you build, if you are making a kite don't say it is a balloon. 

[AquaMan]

On a related note........Downtown Tulsa doesn't have enough parking lots.

[HazMatCFO]

The more I can shop south of the Creek, the better. 71st street is a nightmare and anything farther north is a hassle to get to.

[guido911]

or so says this joke of "news" story

http://www.newson6.com/story/24735421/south-tulsa-retail-development-aims

Here's another joke of a news story along the same lines...

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/downtown/elliot-nelson-s-downtown-dream-for-mcnellie-s-pub-helps/article_ea84dd00-3a27-520e-b87d-7a73e9eac56e.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

Just more of the same old development for the sake of development....this will be another one of those flash in the pan strip center things that will be here today, gone tomorrow....   can anyone in town spell "Riverwalk"....?

[guido911]

Just more of the same old development for the sake of development....this will be another one of those flash in the pan strip center things that will be here today, gone tomorrow....   can anyone in town spell "Riverwalk"....?

If you are talking about this business development out by Bixby, have you seen up close what his going on there? I can tell you that the Fitness monstrosity is always busy, and will likely feed into that mall area.

[TheArtist]

  I get how one poster lamented that for the kind of traffic we have in south Tulsa, that the kind of shopping options available are pitiful.  The other day while heading back to Tulsa from Dallas we were hungry and decided to pull off at the next exit that looked like it had a couple of restaurants available to choose from.  Saw what looked to be a shopping center of some sort.  Once we pulled in we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually a small, mixed use, live/work/play type development with winding streets full of pedestrian friendly shops with living above, , a small "town square" type area, little stone creeks and waterfalls, trees, sculpture, very nice restaurants and outdoor cafe's, parking garages tucked back behind and closer to the highway, etc.  Not one of the larger ones I have seen but well done with varied and unique architecture some brick, some stone, some wood etc, etc. and nicer arguably than anything we have in Tulsa, including Utica Square.  And it was just a random "shopping" center type thing there, no big deal really.

I know Tulsa is a small city but I do not think we are doing as well as some of our leaders would have us believe.  And they are also the same ones that do not think we need to do anything different to change.  Along the same lines I am still surprised that we do not have the amount of new urban infill/living going into our downtown that a metro of our size might be expected to have.  Our growth seems quite lackluster in both quality and "volume".

[Conan71]

Realistically, there's far more announced projects getting completed since 2008 than ones not being developed.  The last large-scale development I can even think of being shuttered is the mixed use development which was supposed to happen on the west bank of the river south of the Creek Turnpike and that was a result of the national economy and financing vehicles imploding in 2008.

As local residents of the metro area, I believe we all suffer from "parental myopia".  In other words it's like being the parent of a teen ager.  Your sense of growth of your child is very gradual, whereas friends or grandparents who visit every six or twelve months see growth phases as being much more dramatic.

Tulsa has seen huge growth in the last ten years in urban and suburban areas and really without as rapid of population growth as the larger cities we look up to.  It may not seem apparent because we live amongst it and the landscape evolves slowly.

The subject of Austin, Texas came up over dinner last night.  Their population is growing rapidly and the real estate market is very hot right now.  Lots of commercial, retail, and residential development.  However, the downside is, they can't keep up with infrastructure needs at the rate they are growing and traffic congestion in ATX is becoming as much an issue as it is in Houston or Dallas.

I personally prefer Tulsa's slower rate of growth and hope we never have an "explosion" like ATX is experiencing now nor like the front range of Colorado experienced 10-15 years ago.

[heironymouspasparagus]

If you are talking about this business development out by Bixby, have you seen up close what his going on there? I can tell you that the Fitness monstrosity is always busy, and will likely feed into that mall area.

Everything is always busy down there.  We used to go to Top That on Mem from time to time (has been over a year now) and then just cruise on south.  Occasionally would stop at another little pizza place a few miles further that used to be pretty good.  Haven't been there in a while, either.

Has been over a month since we drove all the way down Memorial, and at the time it was just a bunch of commotion for commotion sake.  Lots of activity, but nothing really interesting.  (Usually I can get interested in watching what many would consider mundane if there is some apparent reason for the activity, but this was just movement....)  Life along that corridor would bore me to death...probably literally!

[TheArtist]

Realistically, there's far more announced projects getting completed since 2008 than ones not being developed.  The last large-scale development I can even think of being shuttered is the mixed use development which was supposed to happen on the west bank of the river south of the Creek Turnpike and that was a result of the national economy and financing vehicles imploding in 2008.

As local residents of the metro area, I believe we all suffer from "parental myopia".  In other words it's like being the parent of a teen ager.  Your sense of growth of your child is very gradual, whereas friends or grandparents who visit every six or twelve months see growth phases as being much more dramatic.

Tulsa has seen huge growth in the last ten years in urban and suburban areas and really without as rapid of population growth as the larger cities we look up to.  It may not seem apparent because we live amongst it and the landscape evolves slowly.

The subject of Austin, Texas came up over dinner last night.  Their population is growing rapidly and the real estate market is very hot right now.  Lots of commercial, retail, and residential development.  However, the downside is, they can't keep up with infrastructure needs at the rate they are growing and traffic congestion in ATX is becoming as much an issue as it is in Houston or Dallas.

I personally prefer Tulsa's slower rate of growth and hope we never have an "explosion" like ATX is experiencing now nor like the front range of Colorado experienced 10-15 years ago.

Would you say your businesses growth (or should I say, your income) is more or less dependent on local growth than either my retail store or mural businesses?

[Conan71]

Would you say your businesses growth (or should I say, your income) is more or less dependent on local growth than either my retail store or mural businesses?

Really it doesn't depend on local growth at all.  We do a lot of service work in the Tulsa area on existing boiler systems and sell quite a bit of equipment for upgrades and replacement for buildings which have been here for years.  With the exception of some niche markets that we do packaged systems for  like microbreweries, new construction is not an area we chase heavily as it's lower margin than pursuing equipment component sales to local energy-related companies who are selling equipment all over the world.  In fact, I can't remember the last new commercial development project we sold a boiler for in the Tulsa market.  As well, we buy and sell used equipment globally.

My income is more closely tied to national economic trends and energy prices than anything.  I do realize there are many businesses like your own which depend on growth of the consumer base to succeed and grow. 

In my mind, steady and measured growth is far more preferable than a huge explosion in a short amount of time.  Especially since Tulsa is so slow to respond to infrastructure needs to keep up with development.  Look how many two lane arterial roads we still have in well-developed areas of south Tulsa.

[TheArtist]

Really it doesn't depend on local growth at all.  We do a lot of service work in the Tulsa area on existing boiler systems and sell quite a bit of equipment for upgrades and replacement for buildings which have been here for years.  With the exception of some niche markets that we do packaged systems for  like microbreweries, new construction is not an area we chase heavily as it's lower margin than pursuing equipment component sales to local energy-related companies who are selling equipment all over the world.  In fact, I can't remember the last new commercial development project we sold a boiler for in the Tulsa market.  As well, we buy and sell used equipment globally.

My income is more closely tied to national economic trends and energy prices than anything.  I do realize there are many businesses like your own which depend on growth of the consumer base to succeed and grow.  

In my mind, steady and measured growth is far more preferable than a huge explosion in a short amount of time.  Especially since Tulsa is so slow to respond to infrastructure needs to keep up with development.  Look how many two lane arterial roads we still have in well-developed areas of south Tulsa.

I would think though that a decent rate of growth would fluctuate in the 3-5% range, with the occasional slowdown and uptick here and there from that.  For quite a while now Tulsa has been fluctuating in the 0-2% growth range which I find worrisome.  In that scenario it wouldn't take much to slide us into a negative growth territory and get into downward rut or spiral we would find terribly hard to pull ourselves out of.  But our leadership seems to think this rate of growth is ok and does not want to do anything to ramp up our growth rate a little bit to help us weather the times when we will slow down from where we are now (we are not doing anything to improve it, just waiting for the winds of change to take their course and crossing our fingers hoping it will be good and not bad, not how I like to live).  

As for Tulsa's slow response to infrastructure needs and roads.  We have far more lane miles per the population, than is needed by almost double and tax receipts seem to regularly be lower than expected.  Again as I have mentioned before, the city hired a company which assessed our growth potential and what would happen if we continued "per usual" (slower growth 1-2% and possibly eventual decline) versus making the recommended changes (and curving our average growth up a few notches).  So far their predictions have been spot on. There was another post on here a short time ago that linked to a population growth map of Tulsa.  Most of the areas as one would expect were holding steady and in decline.  There were a few spots of growth that are the obvious ones, South Tulsa and the Tulsa Hills area (that firm the city hired mentioned that the Tulsa Hills area would buy Tulsa about 15 years more "suburban style" growth") and then there were a few spots in east Tulsa which were also growing in the areas that have a heavy Hispanic population.  But again, most areas were steady or in decline.  Where are we going to be once the South Tulsa area and Tulsa Hills area begins to fill out?  I doubt that even the 0-2% over all growth we have now will be able to be maintained.  

The mayor is betting on the Gilcrease Expressway idea and trying to open up that section for more suburban style development over working to switch our city into a mode that would promote good urban infill development.  Exactly the opposite of what the firm the city hired said would be wise to do.  The trends all over the country are for more and more people and cities to be upping the urban infill type growth.  We are still betting on suburban style growth, and putting ALL our eggs, our future, into that basket.  I don't really think we will be able to compete with the suburbs in the suburban growth offerings once we have filled out the South Tulsa & Tulsa Hills areas, and I don't think we should want to.  I think it's time we began planning to be a city that competes with other cities. I think we should at least permit good urban development and stop making it illegal.  And I think it would be quite helpful if we had some areas zoned to be high quality urban/pedestrian/cycle friendly ones.  We have the potential if we do, with the good bones we still have, to use that as a means to ramp up our growth 1 0r 2% above what we are doing now.  It's a relatively simple and inexpensive thing to do compared to other ideas people might throw out don't you think?  The other ideas people have are; lower crime, improve schools, some "grand big idea" things like islands in the river, etc.  all of which would be a heck of a lot more difficult to do, especially if the cities already slow growth slows down any further.      

[Red Arrow]

We have far more lane miles per the population, than is needed by almost double

Unfortunately the lane miles and population are in different parts of town.

[Gaspar]

The Whole Foods development on 91st has become a booming success so far.  People just hang out there all the time.  The family, the dog, and I took a walk the other evening from our house at 87th, and when we arrived there were several other families with their dogs sitting around, enjoying meals on the outside patios of Whole Foods, and the other businesses.  Seemed everyone had the same idea.

I think this will continue to spur development in that area.  South Tulsa really needed that. 

[TulsaGuy]

 

As for Tulsa's slow response to infrastructure needs and roads.  We have far more lane miles per the population, than is needed by almost double and tax receipts seem to regularly be lower than expected.  Again as I have mentioned before, the city hired a company which assessed our growth potential and what would happen if we continued "per usual" (slower growth 1-2% and possibly eventual decline) versus making the recommended changes (and curving our average growth up a few notches).  

TheArtist - Do you know where I could find the data on the lane miles per population you referenced?  Also, you mentioned the recommended changes from the company the city hired, do you know what those are or could you point me in the direction of those recommendations? 

Thanks for your help