REI

[Red Arrow]

The big shopping center that houses/housed the Spirit bank event center has multilevel parking...   Does it ever even get used?

I drove by on the way home from Sprouts.  There were some cars parked along the outside edge of the 3rd level.  I didn't see any others but there wasn't anything going on. Most of the businesses aren't really retail evening sales though.  Maybe the college uses it.

[BKDotCom]

The big shopping center that houses/housed the Spirit bank event center has multilevel parking...   Does it ever even get used?

The nearby car lots use the parking lot.
The Bixby chamber of commerce and some sort of mortgage office rent space in the event center.
The owners have sold the sound system and scoreboard.
It's for sale, but nearly impossible to use as an event center with nowhere to park and and all the non-entertainment tennants

[shavethewhales]

We could have a whole other thread just to discuss the spirit bank arena/plaza stuff.
My company actually got an old retail space to use as an office in Regal Plaza outside the spirit bank center. The entire center was sold around the start of the year, and the new owners have done a lot of work trying to get the place fixed up. There's a lot of rebranding going on, and hopefully they're working on getting the stadium opened up soon too.

But to answer the question: no, no one really uses the parking garage there except a few people who park on the outside edge to make it look like the garage isn't completely empty.


Getting back to the topic at hand though, I agree that the parking could be handled better, but honestly this development will probably turn the REI area into the main trail head for river parks in this area, so I can understand the need for lots of parking. On beautiful days in spring, for example, the other parking lots are overflowing.

That's not to say there isn't cause to make some noise and let them know there are people who care how this turns out. I think it would be a good idea to have more buffer between the parking lot and the trail so that stretch isn't so ugly and urban. There's room here to work things around a bit and improve it for everyone, but inevitably there will be a lot of surface parking.

[TheArtist]

" That's not to say there isn't cause to make some noise and let them know there are people who care how this turns out. I think it would be a good idea to have more buffer between the parking lot and the trail so that stretch isn't so ugly and urban suburban. There's room here to work things around a bit and improve it for everyone, but inevitably there will be a lot of surface parking. "

Fixed that for you.  If it were urban, it wouldn't have all that parking and would be pedestrian friendly.

[TeeDub]

But to answer the question: no, no one really uses the parking garage there except a few people who park on the outside edge to make it look like the garage isn't completely empty.

That was my point.   Tulsans tend to lean away from multilevel parking and prefer large, open, well lit (light polluting) spaces.   Look at the Promenade mall as another example.   Even if it didn't cost more, most people prefer open lots.

[DowntownDan]

I really like a restaurant with a patio abutting the trail.  Really don't like that it's surrounded by an ocean of asphalt.  The picture has trees but we know there won't be trees, or if there is, it'll be $10 baby trees from Home Depot that'll take 50 years to look like real trees. 

[SXSW]

Not a fair comparison because it's in an adaptive reuse of an old building in an urban location, but Denver's REI does a good job of incorporating its natural surrounding.  It has the S Platte River on one side where it offers kayak demos, and a mountain bike track on the other side which sits above an underground parking garage.  One thing that would be cool is to have a coffee shop on the river/trail side like what they have in Denver.  It makes for a nice stop while biking/jogging.

[PonderInc]

This is actually a fair comparison for a few reasons:

Even though Denver REI is considered "urban," it's in a corner of downtown that's not particularly walkable unless you're coming off the river trail.  It's bordered on one side by I-25 and another by Speer Blvd, which is a fast moving 8-lane street/freeway. The other side is the Platte River.

In this case, REI worked with the City of Denver to redevelop this property and great care was taken to make it an amenity.  It's surrounded by greenspace and has two small surface parking lots that are densely landscaped.  (I've been to the store many times, and never even realized there was underground parking.  I guess it's there somewhere.)

The store is 90,000 SF and has about 180 surface parking spaces.

Another store to compare to is the REI that was recently built in Pittsburgh, which is also adjacent to a river.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.428684,-79.965252,3a,75y,269.56h,73.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scqdPuyLSg2Q5YbkWv42EWQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[patric]

That was my point.   Tulsans tend to lean away from multilevel parking and prefer large, open, well lit (light polluting) spaces.   Look at the Promenade mall as another example.   Even if it didn't cost more, most people prefer open lots.

We gotta protect our heat islands, otherwise snowball-throwing politicians will take over.

[LandArchPoke]

That was my point.   Tulsans tend to lean away from multilevel parking and prefer large, open, well lit (light polluting) spaces.   Look at the Promenade mall as another example.   Even if it didn't cost more, most people prefer open lots.

Again this is rhetoric that is not true. Tulsans leave towards surface parking just like a New Yorker would if it is more easily accessible and closer to their destination. The parking garage at Saks seems to be used very often and it's not like parking is a huge headache at Utica Square. Parking garages seem to be used all the time downtown.

You are using two failed retail development to say see Tulsans don't get parking garage, they're afraid of them, and promoting the status quo. The parking garage at at Spirit Center isn't used because it's the parking that is the furthest from any retail space and the center is 50-70% vacant. If the parking garage was in the center of the development and there wasn't much surface parking and the center was fully leased you bet people would use it all the time. Promenade is a dead mall and because of that no one goes there making parking very easy in the surface pots that are quicker to park in and closer to the entrance of Sky Fitness or Macys that people visit. Why would you park in a garage just for the sake of it? If Promenade was brimming with business and leased with high quality tenants those garages would be full.

A small parking garage here would allow the developer to build even more square footage increasing their profits. In the long term would the city rather have 100,000 sq. ft. of retail or 50,000 sq. ft. of retail? Make the developer an offer to subsidize the parking structure in order for them to build more retail, more retail = more sales taxes. I don't get how this hasn't sunken in with our economic development people. 

[LandArchPoke]

As I said before... a 330 spot structure would cost approximately $6.6 million

Right now we have a development of 52,000 sq. ft. - we'll use $300 per sf in sales per year

= $645,000 in sales taxes per year to the city

What would it be if we upped the development to 100,000 sq. ft.? $1.29 million per year in sales taxes to the city.

Give the developer 25% of sales tax revenues back a year and that $5 million in 15 years, essentially paying for the structured parking, and the city gets 25% more sales taxes than with a surface parking lot consuming the majority of the surface land area of the development.

[Vision 2025]

As I said before... a 330 spot structure would cost approximately $6.6 million

Right now we have a development of 52,000 sq. ft. - we'll use $300 per sf in sales per year

= $645,000 in sales taxes per year to the city

What would it be if we upped the development to 100,000 sq. ft.? $1.29 million per year in sales taxes to the city.

Give the developer 25% of sales tax revenues back a year and that $5 million in 15 years, essentially paying for the structured parking, and the city gets 25% more sales taxes than with a surface parking lot consuming the majority of the surface land area of the development.

Your thought process isn't bad but don't forget there is additional debt service to be added to the developer's equation in order to pay for the parking structure and from my experience often the typical retail space deals are often not of sufficient duration to fully recoup the original investment let alone additional costs for structured parking.  If you want structured parking and more density the land price has to go way up to make it work.  In Jenks the Bank's structured parking was part of a TIF which was betting on more development but a good way to subsidize it if you like that sort of thing.   

Oh and for 20K a space you can do a very nice garage.

[PonderInc]

Or, you could just eliminate 3/4 of the proposed surface parking, and you'll have lots of space left over for development.

[LandArchPoke]

Your thought process isn't bad but don't forget there is additional debt service to be added to the developer's equation in order to pay for the parking structure and from my experience often the typical retail space deals are often not of sufficient duration to fully recoup the original investment let alone additional costs for structured parking.  If you want structured parking and more density the land price has to go way up to make it work.  In Jenks the Bank's structured parking was part of a TIF which was betting on more development but a good way to subsidize it if you like that sort of thing.   

Oh and for 20K a space you can do a very nice garage.

I may have not been super clear in that last post, but I was meaning that the city should kick in money to fund a parking structure for this site and other very important development sites. Essentially to double the sq. ft. of the development the city would double it's sales tax and ad valorem taxes. Waive 50% of the increase in revenues from the additional 50,000 sq. ft. (or 25% of the total revenues from 100,000 sq. ft.) and that would pay for the parking structure at essentially no cost to the developer. Then at the end of 15 years the city is earning double the revenue it would, and would be eating 25% more revenue in that first 15 year period than it would if the development is built as proposed.

Better yet, wrap the parking structure in multi-family, a use that most of the parking demand comes in the evenings - over night - and mornings when the retailers would be closed. That would increase the ad valorem taxes even more and make the structured parking even more economically feasible.

[davideinstein]

Good to see Blake Ewing adding nothing to the conversation on Facebook.