Simon Outlet Mall 61st & Hwy 75

[Cats Cats Cats]

Cherry Street generates more sales tax per acre than Tulsa Hills.  That is a known metric.

Does anyone here regularly commute south on 75 during afternoon rush?  It me took the better part of 7-8 minutes to get from 41st to 61st last Thursday night at 5pm.  The outdated design of the cloverleaf interchange over I-44 seems to create a real log jam now.

41st to 61st is a PITA during rush hour.  If you leave downtown at 4:30 it isn't really an issue.  Same for in the morning if you are going north since nobody is merging.  169 is the real monster at rush hour not 75.

[Hoss]

Cherry Street generates more sales tax per acre than Tulsa Hills.  That is a known metric.

Does anyone here regularly commute south on 75 during afternoon rush?  It me took the better part of 7-8 minutes to get from 41st to 61st last Thursday night at 5pm.  The outdated design of the cloverleaf interchange over I-44 seems to create a real log jam now.

It's not just there either...169 and the BA; 169 and 44.  So much velocity on those roads.  ODOT knows they're going to redo the interchange at the BA and 169 eventually.  They really need to consider it at 44 also.  169 is a deathtrap during rush hour.  Not that I can't drive it; I drove for several years in Houston and that is also dangerous.  But they also have zero cloverleaf interchanges so traffic isn't forced into a slow circle on a limited access highway.  This was good design 60 years ago during the standing up of the Interstate Highway System.  Not so much now, however with the traffic counts on 169 (2008 data I found showed that BA/169 interchange averaging about 126000 vehicles a day, no telling what it is 7 years later) it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

[Conan71]

Those who were at the District 2 meeting tonight didn't sound overly impressed.  Apparently no one with Simon spoke.  Lou Reynolds, their local attorney did the speaking and showed some artist renderings of the mall being completely hidden by dense woods.  Yeah, riiiiiiight.  Remember the "screening" of Tulsa Hills exposed retaining walls I shared?

Dog and pony show is open to the entire city tomorrow night 6:30pm at Southern Hills Marriott at 71st & Lewis.

[swake]

Cherry Street generates more sales tax per acre than Tulsa Hills.  That is a known metric.

Does anyone here regularly commute south on 75 during afternoon rush?  It me took the better part of 7-8 minutes to get from 41st to 61st last Thursday night at 5pm.  The outdated design of the cloverleaf interchange over I-44 seems to create a real log jam now.

The 81st street exit is a complete mess now, and only one store at The Walk at Tulsa Hills is open. It's going to get much, much worse.

[ZYX]

Getting on 75 at 81st is also becoming difficult. Really, the sudden influx of cars onto Highway 75 is incredible. It's amazing how fast it has become crowded.

[AngieB]

Cherry Street generates more sales tax per acre than Tulsa Hills.  That is a known metric.

Does anyone here regularly commute south on 75 during afternoon rush?  It me took the better part of 7-8 minutes to get from 41st to 61st last Thursday night at 5pm.  The outdated design of the cloverleaf interchange over I-44 seems to create a real log jam now.

Would have taken longer if you had tried to go south that same distance on Union. The city has completely effed up the intersection at 51st & Union with unneeded left turn lanes and a stop sign just past the I-44 overpass. Total clusterf...

And I would expect it to get much, much worse if the outlet mall comes to fruition. We already have a lot of extra traffic using Union now to get past the traffic jams on 75.

[rdj]

It's not just there either...169 and the BA; 169 and 44.  So much velocity on those roads.  ODOT knows they're going to redo the interchange at the BA and 169 eventually.  They really need to consider it at 44 also.  169 is a deathtrap during rush hour.  Not that I can't drive it; I drove for several years in Houston and that is also dangerous.  But they also have zero cloverleaf interchanges so traffic isn't forced into a slow circle on a limited access highway.  This was good design 60 years ago during the standing up of the Interstate Highway System.  Not so much now, however with the traffic counts on 169 (2008 data I found showed that BA/169 interchange averaging about 126000 vehicles a day, no telling what it is 7 years later) it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Just wait until the widening of HWY 169 between Tulsa & Owasso, including, the replacement of the bridges over Bird Creek, begins in a few months.

[AquaMan]

Growth hurts. Add to the mix of injuries that Riverside is soon to close for a couple of years because of utility line work for the Gathering place. That traffic is likely to divert to 75 and 44.

Ponder is our local "Cassandra". She knows what happens in development and why it is a Ponzi scheme, yet there is no changing the real estate development paradigm as long as it keeps working. Their motivations are real. The sad fact is that it is unnecessary growth. We aren't really growing much in population or real economic growth. We are merely in the midlife of restructuring the way the city divides up the pie. Same pie.

Suburban growth may be slowing in markets where youth populations are growing but here in status quo land where school districts, ethnic grouping and income disparity are the defining characteristics........

Six uses of the word growth and I was holding back some.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Just wait until the widening of HWY 169 between Tulsa & Owasso, including, the replacement of the bridges over Bird Creek, begins in a few months.

Oh, goody....another Oklahoma road project to bring a section of road up from the 20th century 1960's all the way to the 20th century 1980's!!  We are so blessed in this state to have such brilliant foresight...!!

This has to be a huge draw to companies considering places to locate!

[patric]

Ponder is our local "Cassandra". She knows what happens in development and why it is a Ponzi scheme, yet there is no changing the real estate development paradigm as long as it keeps working.

I love it AM!


Apologies for getting off track...

[dsjeffries]

The main thing that people need to understand is that suburban big box stores (and I include outlet malls in this category) are a bad return on investment for cities. We go broke on this stuff. The city has to extend and maintain roads, water/sewer, police, fire, etc to what is currently agricultural land. The result is supposed to be increased property taxes, sales taxes and jobs. The problem is that providing / maintaining services in suburban areas costs more than is recouped in taxes. Then, due to parking and other wasteful land use practices, only a small fraction of the property actually creates jobs and taxes. And the jobs that are created are low-paying and often part-time. In the short term, it's a Ponzi scheme (it seems to work as long as there's always new income coming in from more new developments, and the infrastructure is new enough that it doesn't require repairs. Sort of a time bomb waiting to go off.) Over time, the costs are far greater than the returns.

There are a couple great articles that explain the economics of this in terms of "yield per acre."

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/10/walmart_an_economic_cancer_on_our_cities/
http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/03/simple-math-can-save-cities-bankruptcy/1629/

Both articles cover the same concept in different ways. An economist compares two different properties: a six-story, mixed-use building near downtown vs a suburban Walmart, and compares them "apple to apple" based on "yield per acre." The Walmart (which occupied 34 acres) only contributed $50,800 in property and sales tax per acre, while the mixed-use building (which occupied less than a quarter of an acre) contributed $330,000 per acre. The Walmart contributed 6 jobs per acre, while the mixed-use building contributed 74 jobs per acre. It really helps you understand the efficiency of density and mixed-use buildings in places where all the space isn't wasted on one-story, single-use buildings where 2/3 of the land is covered in asphalt.

The proposed outlet mall is 48 acres. This is 2,102,206 SF in size. Of this, only 350,000 is considered "gross leasable space." So only 16% of this land will be busy generating (low-paying) jobs and tax dollars. The rest is mostly asphalt. In the meantime, they want the city to freeze the taxes at the current rate (as if it's still agricultural / unimproved space) and capture the difference to pay for "improvements" to make this thing work. So all those newly generated tax dollars won't be paying for schools we already have, or roads that you and I actually drive on, or maintenance of existing infrastructure. They will be spent making this boondoggle "pencil" for the developers, who know that it doesn't work without the city paying for all the big new roads, signalized intersections, water/sewer, police/fire, etc.

It's a scam and people need to say no.

Excellent points all around. I wish more people would speak in terms of yield per acre, but since it hurts the case being presented by suburban developers, we won't hear that language from them anytime soon.

Though the city can't mandate a minimum YPA or jobs per acre, the amount of parking allowed is a completely controllable factor that could help achieve better outcomes. This is a great example of the kinds of changes we need to push for in the zoning code update. We don't need to just reduce our parking minimum by an arbitrary percentage, we need to reduce it dramatically (or eliminate minimums all together) and establish a parking maximum. The current form of the zoning code update calls for a very slight reduction in parking minimums that really doesn't change much. In fact, a wise friend pointed out that parking minimums would actually increase for certain land use types.

When Tulsans participated in the PlaniTulsa process, we overwhelmingly favored a drastic change in the direction our city. The new zoning code draft just kicks the can down the road, and this outlet mall is a continuation of the same.

If we're serious about the desire to change our city, this is our chance to prove it.

So - we have two choices:
We can do the safe thing and approve more of the same suburban developments like this outlet mall (where 84% of the land is used for parking) because we're scared to lose tax dollars.
Or we can stand up and demand better for our city.

[Breadburner]

Simon needs to go away.....

[Conan71]

Simon had Lou Reynolds there on their behalf last night.  Their local PR rep didn't even bother trot out their latest set of renderings.

Either Simon doesn't have a clue about PR or this whole thing has been a charade to get a seat at the table with one of the other developments.  All they seem to have done so far is make enemies on the City Council, which ultimately decides the fate of this project.

It was good to see the participation last night from both the proponents and the critics of the development.  I'm glad to see people voicing their opinions on what we value in our city.

[ZYX]

Simon had Lou Reynolds there on their behalf last night.  Their local PR rep didn't even bother trot out their latest set of renderings.

Either Simon doesn't have a clue about PR or this whole thing has been a charade to get a seat at the table with one of the other developments.  All they seem to have done so far is make enemies on the City Council, which ultimately decides the fate of this project.

It was good to see the participation last night from both the proponents and the critics of the development.  I'm glad to see people voicing their opinions on what we value in our city.

It's strange. Local media has run many stories over the past few weeks about the opposition to this development, but I have yet to see anything from Simon that makes an argument for their development. Is their strategy to pretend that there is no opposition, and hope that helps media attention die down?

[BKDotCom]

Is their strategy to pretend that there is no opposition, and hope that helps media attention die down?

Yes / media attention is a bad thing?  More like free advertising.   Hard to even remember that there are two other proposed outlet malls.