Downtown Development Overview

[SXSW]

When is the TDA supposed to make their decision for the half block lot by the ballpark?  And isn't there a streetscape project planned for Archer and Brady? 

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Potentially good for downtown:

Vic Regalado considering sale of Sheriff's Office building to fund transfer of operations to embattled training center

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/vic-regalado-considering-sale-of-sheriff-s-office-building-to/article_b722fd5c-a61b-5492-b836-fe88c391e7d8.html

Funny, I was over there a couple weeks ago laughing about how terrible most of the properties surrounding the BOK Center are currently are for pedestrians. Not that a huge event center adds to walkability or needs to be in a walkable area, but would be nice if the area offered a bit more for pedestrians and to help the image of downtown. Going counterclockwise from One Place, it is surrounded by a huge parking lot, a big electrical substation, the Sheriff's Office (And the Avalon Correctional Center and Juvenile Detention Center going in north of that),  a huge storage building, American Cold Storage, Veolia Energy warehouse, parking garage, parking lot, USPS, and then the more walkable elements arrive: bus station, parking lot with MixCo bar in back. parking lot with hotel going in and the only pleasant part of surroundings the BOK Center, One Place which is a shell of what was proposed.

There is a nice 4300 sq ft house west of the BOK Center which was listed at $554k for sale for over a year and is an example of how unwalkable/low-demand the area is (The same place would easily fetch that price or more in most midtown neighborhoods). Perhaps good they picked an area like that for the BOK rather than the Blue Dome or Brady.

I don't see the Sheriff's Office being easy to retrofit into something walkable or a mixed use facility but at least it could be open to the market for that.  I also heard that USPS might be considering selling their downtown property.

[DTowner]

Potentially good for downtown:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/vic-regalado-considering-sale-of-sheriff-s-office-building-to/article_b722fd5c-a61b-5492-b836-fe88c391e7d8.html

Funny, I was over there a couple weeks ago laughing about how terrible most of the properties surrounding the BOK Center are currently are for pedestrians. Not that a huge event center adds to walkability or needs to be in a walkable area, but would be nice if the area offered a bit more for pedestrians and to help the image of downtown. Going counterclockwise from One Place, it is surrounded by a huge parking lot, a big electrical substation, the Sheriff's Office (And the Avalon Correctional Center and Juvenile Detention Center going in north of that),  a huge storage building, American Cold Storage, Veolia Energy warehouse, parking garage, parking lot, USPS, and then the more walkable elements arrive: bus station, parking lot with MixCo bar in back. parking lot with hotel going in and the only pleasant part of surroundings the BOK Center, One Place which is a shell of what was proposed.

There is a nice 4300 sq ft house west of the BOK Center which was listed at $554k for sale for over a year and is an example of how unwalkable/low-demand the area is (The same place would easily fetch that price or more in most midtown neighborhoods). Perhaps good they picked an area like that for the BOK rather than the Blue Dome or Brady.

I don't see the Sheriff's Office being easy to retrofit into something walkable or a mixed use facility but at least it could be open to the market for that.  I also heard that USPS might be considering selling their downtown property.

The Sheriff's office faces the BOK loading dock, so I don't see how much of anything is going to make that side walkable.  The courthouse/post office is really unfortunately, but nothing will happen to that building until a plan for a new federal courthouse is in place.

[patric]

I don't see the Sheriff's Office being easy to retrofit into something walkable or a mixed use facility but at least it could be open to the market for that. 

"Parts of the Faulkner Building, 303 W. First St., have stood since the early 1900s, Regalado said"
Lead pipes, asbestos...

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

The Sheriff's office faces the BOK loading dock, so I don't see how much of anything is going to make that side walkable.  The courthouse/post office is really unfortunately, but nothing will happen to that building until a plan for a new federal courthouse is in place.

How is the entrance to the BOK center "walkable" in terms of things that would make an area pedestrian lively? While at times it brings in lots of people, most of the time the doors are closed and locked with nothing going on. Being by the loading dock is more unsightly than the front but shouldn't be much of a hindrance for office space and while not ideal could be ok for some other types of businesses and maybe even residential.

[Vision 2025]

One of the reasons the BOK Center was sited there is because as a class of facilities, arenas make lousy neighbors and due to their size do not fit easily into walkable or wannabe walkable areas and the loading dock and back of house parts are specifically towards less pedestrian friendly properties.   

[Oil Capital]

One of the reasons the BOK Center was sited there is because as a class of facilities, arenas make lousy neighbors and due to their size do not fit easily into walkable or wannabe walkable areas and the loading dock and back of house parts are specifically towards less pedestrian friendly properties.  

Those issues can be (could have been) obviated by placing the arena at the edge of a walkable district, much like the placement of Oneok Field.

[Conan71]

Those issues can be (could have been) obviated by placing the arena at the edge of a walkable district, much like the placement of Oneok Field.

The placement of BOK is pretty well to the westernmost edge of what is walkable downtown.  With all the curb cuts, the tire store, front end shop and whatever else was there as well as the parkade at the Cox/Civic Center, it was anything but an ideally walkable environment before they put the arena there.

[Bamboo World]

How is the entrance to the BOK center "walkable" in terms of things that would make an area pedestrian lively?

It isn't.

The City of Tulsa made the area very unfriendly for pedestrians by closing four blocks of public streets and creating a super-block with a perimeter of 2,720 feet -- more than half a mile. 

Other less "walkable" aspects of the BOK Center design:

1. Rough unit pavers used for the sidewalks.
2. The general lack of shade trees and the trees around the perimeter of the site are planted on the wrong side of the sidewalks.
3. Lack of on-street parking on Frisco Avenue.
4. Huge setbacks.
5. No ground floor retail space facing outward toward Denver, as was shown on the conceptual drawings.
6. A shiny building exterior.
 

[DTowner]

How is the entrance to the BOK center "walkable" in terms of things that would make an area pedestrian lively? While at times it brings in lots of people, most of the time the doors are closed and locked with nothing going on. Being by the loading dock is more unsightly than the front but shouldn't be much of a hindrance for office space and while not ideal could be ok for some other types of businesses and maybe even residential.

Fair enough, the front is only "walkable" when events are going on.  But it's always more desirable to look at from surrounding businesses than a loading dock.

[Bamboo World]

Fair enough, the front is only "walkable" when events are going on.

The front is not "walkable."  No side is "walkable" or pedestrian-friendly.  The site isn't pedestrian-friendly.

But it's always more desirable to look at [the front] from surrounding businesses than a loading dock.

Not necessarily.  It depends on the weather, the time of day, the season, and what's going on.  The building is shiny.  On clear summer evenings, the dock area can be horribly hot, with the sun setting on the northwest side of the building.

On clear summer mornings, the entry side can be horribly hot.
 

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

New homes planned for The Villages at Central Park

The Pearl District is re-polishing one of its real estate gems.
Construction is scheduled to start in about a month on a new phase of The Villages at Central Park, adjacent to Centennial Park, west of Peoria Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets.
Sam Rader, chairman of Coldwell Banker Select, is set to invest from $10 million to $12 million into about 50 Georgian-style townhomes over the next two to three years, said Stephen Meltzer, project manager and real estate agent with CB Urban, a division of Coldwell Banker Select.
Rader is purchasing the property for the project from Jamie Jamieson and Kathy Henry, the husband-and-wife team who developed the first roughly 50 townhouses at The Villages at Central Park, as well as several other real estate developments in the Pearl District.
"The kind of people who moved in, they could see the vision to repopulate the core of the city," Jamieson said of the current Village, which is 100 percent occupied. "It was particularly baby boomers who have come in, people who have been around a bit, with a number of them with the confidence of having run their own businesses. And quite a few of the people are from out of town. It's a very tight community."

The new phase will feature ground-floor single units (866 square feet) with an enclosed garage, and upstairs units (1,442 square feet) with a private deck. The two-story homes (2,233 square feet) will have interior staircases and rooftop decks.

The units will range from $200,000 to $496,000, Meltzer said.

"If the sales go heavily toward one particular model versus another, then, of course, we'll respond to the market," he said.
"It is a green, pedestrian-friendly community. To make it pedestrian-friendly, you can't have lengthy blocks of row houses like you would see in New York City. At regularly spaced intervals, there are division between the blocks, and those have sidewalks and landscaping so you can navigate the community and the adjacent Centennial Park quite easily on a bike or by walking."
Jamieson built the first homes in the 2001, and construction stopped about five years later after the economy began to cool, he said.
The project is modeled after Georgetown, a historic neighborhood, commercial, and entertainment district located in northwest Washington, D.C.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/realestate/new-homes-planned-for-the-villages-at-central-park/article_37c6c115-69ee-5400-9a04-319e658fa4af.html

Maybe not technically downtown as it's just outside the IDL. These prices seem expensive per square foot (~$230/ft2) but good to see more housing for purchase downtown.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Hard to imagine a 2,233 sq ft townhouses can sell for $496k while the 2,713 sq ft Urban 8 are stagnant at $580k even inside the IDL. Must be more to it at Urban 8 (as others have suggested, you have to finish the inside yourself at that price).

And the Villages development investment is $10-$12 million for 50 units so that is at least 50,000 sq ft of housing they are putting in (probably much more - 60k-100k sq ft). Good to see the Pearl District becoming solidified as an urban/residential area. I have always liked the aesthetics of the Villages and Central Park and how the trail goes through. Nice view of downtown there too.

This seems like a big enough project to add to the comprehensive list of major developments in downtown.

[johrasephoenix]

I used to run through there all the time and those townhouses are awesome.  That said, I wish they were connected to Peoria or were across the street actually in the neighborhood.  As is it has a bit of a subdivisiony feel because the whole development has only one access road (I think).

[cannon_fodder]

I used to run through there all the time and those townhouses are awesome.  That said, I wish they were connected to Peoria or were across the street actually in the neighborhood.  As is it has a bit of a subdivisiony feel because the whole development has only one access road (I think).

I think that has more to do with building the development on under utilized land near downtown than by design. It is boxed in by a park, a cemetery, and a Family and Children Services. There are 8 lots to the north of Family and Children Services that front Peoria that are owned by Pearl Development LLC, but I do not know how that entity relates to the Village at Central Park development.

In any event, you can access the development from 8th or from the parking lot off of Peoria.

Looking at Tulsa County Assessor and Zillow, it appears the current units are mostly 2367 sq ft, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath, and are valued between $285 and $350k.  
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Central-Park-Tulsa-OK/250248_rid/village-at-_att/globalrelevanceex_sort/36.151968,-95.975552,36.148962,-95.980358_rect/17_zm/

It appears fron tmerely counting lots that there are currently ~50 units, there are something like 35 lots left open (plus the 8 on Peoria).