Downtown Development Overview

[SXSW]

Midtown doesn't have a mall (or a decent one) and no extremely dense retail areas. It seems like the new additions, it could make that area into one of the denser retail/food options. Although much heavier on the food for now, the mix already makes it a destination. Eventually, that corner could become a "day out" or "night out" kind of place like going to the mall used to be.

Utica Square? 

[swake]

Utica Square? 

Brookside? Cherry Street? Promonade(which is dying)/Southroads?

[SXSW]

Artist, I love Decopolis and really need to get down there and support it again. Honestly, it does feel like I go out of my way to get there... Hope you can find another great location closer to the action. Have you looked into the Boxyard?

I brought this up in a past thread but I think the area around Boxyard has some of the best retail potential downtown.  You have Boxyard itself at 3rd & Frankfort which is perfect for small retailers (similar in concept to Mother Road Market but outside) along with Fleet Feet and Lee's Bicycles at 2nd & Frankfort, and the future retail at Santa Fe Square where Frankfort will extend from 2nd to 1st. 

Another retail cluster is at MLK & Archer with Magic City Books, Made and the Bodega along with several eateries.  It would be awesome to see the parking lot across the street redeveloped into something similar with multiple businesses fronting Archer.

[MostSeriousness]

Tulsa World got the story out while the conference is still going:

https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/wpx-to-build-new-headquarters-in-downtown-tulsa/article_c7078c27-db79-5faf-b760-2c5191cb6907.html

[swake]

Looks like SW is toast.

[SXSW]

You know as excited as I am to see WPX build a new HQ I wish they could've picked a site that is just a parking lot.  Interested in seeing more renderings though, it looks like a high quality project.

[tulsamatt]

[shavethewhales]

Awesome! Massive new building, filling in lots of dead space, and a major company staying in Tulsa and planning to continue growing here even though they don't even own wells in Oklahoma. Spaghetti Warehouse was a cool building, but this more than makes up for it. If they have some space for ground floor retail that will be perfect.

Only question I have is what will be the impact on the Williams tower with WPX gone? How many floors do they currently occupy? Hopefully Williams is expanding again as well.

[SXSW]

Not a fan of the parking garage facing Guthrie Green, not sure if that's the west side though?.  But if adding parking to the district means more surface lots go away then it will be a positive.  

[tulsamatt]

Only question I have is what will be the impact on the Williams tower with WPX gone? How many floors do they currently occupy? Hopefully Williams is expanding again as well.

Don't hold me to this, but I believe they are on 7 floors in the tower now. And, I'm pretty sure the presentation said 6000 square feet for ground level commercial.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Utica Square?  

You consider Utica Square a mall? It's a shopping center. It's not very dense and mostly aims for the higher income demographics. And most importantly in my comparison, there's no food court there. I was pointing out that Mother Road is fulfilling that missed need, bringing in crowds like malls around here used to.

Utica Square could totally evolve into something with much more density and a real food court type area and turn it into more of an actual destination for people other than Starbucks fans and high end shoppers, but they haven't shown any willingness or desire to become that.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Brookside? Cherry Street? Promonade(which is dying)/Southroads?

Utica Square? 

Promenade is terrible, and even though it might be Midtown according to Tulsa World's map, it is on the outer cusp. That area is so suburban, it might as well be South Tulsa. It has all the sprawl and character of any other suburban area in the country. I (and many of the other Midtown/downtown snobs) rarely if ever venture that far south and to such utter bland wastelands (being a bit facetious and overly-dramatic, but really do avoid that area). And the food court there is not something that will bring many people in like it used to be.

Cherry Street and Brookside still aren't meeting that novel need that Mother Road has been. They are awesome collectives, but a victim of their own success to an extent. They are both a combination of too expensive and too spread out to do what a food court does: provide a large number of retail and food options in a dense area with rents that give startups a chance. There's no huge space for something like this at those places right now and downtown had the one proposed that backed out.

Mother Road Market is thriving in part because they're starting from the ground up in a blighted/empty corner on a building they already owned with an idea that could've stayed scaled-down or grown depending on the market. It looks like the market is telling them to expand. Also, it's a non-profit pet-project backed by a massive and very Tulsa-centric foundation the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation. They want Route-66 and Midtown Tulsa to thrive. They saw this was an idea that did really well in urban areas all over the country and mimic'd it very well.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

I brought this up in a past thread but I think the area around Boxyard has some of the best retail potential downtown.  You have Boxyard itself at 3rd & Frankfort which is perfect for small retailers (similar in concept to Mother Road Market but outside) along with Fleet Feet and Lee's Bicycles at 2nd & Frankfort, and the future retail at Santa Fe Square where Frankfort will extend from 2nd to 1st. 

Another retail cluster is at MLK & Archer with Magic City Books, Made and the Bodega along with several eateries.  It would be awesome to see the parking lot across the street redeveloped into something similar with multiple businesses fronting Archer.

I agree. That area has the best chance to become a dense retail area in the future so long as they move forward with Santa Fe Square.

I'm a little disappointed in the Boxyard. Besides being a constant rotation of opening and closing shops over the few years it's been open, they completely closed off one side to be a bar where families can't walk through anymore (21+ only) so the top floor is like walking down a long hallway with nothing at the end (except elevators which you don't want wait for and use for 1 floor). It's already very small, so having nearly half blocked off for a bar takes away quite a lot from it. Then most things on the top floor aren't what most would care to visit. It's a great concept, but not quite large enough to keep many people busy for long if you aren't there to drink. It's not really an after-hours place either as most shops close pretty early and there's just the 1 restaurant. Still a really cool place, but they really should make the upstairs a walking thoroughfare for all ages and work on keeping tenants (Seems like half the few spots are vacant or going out of business any time I visit).

[swake]

They have construction equipment on site now. The Spaghetti Warehouse building might not even make it to next weekend.

[TheArtist]

WPX bought the old Spaghetti warehouse a couple years ago and signaled intentions to build a new office building there so they can move out of their Williams building lease. https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/report-wpx-energy-to-buy-former-spaghetti-warehouse-building/article_9f7ff2fa-f3d9-5bd5-ad14-1f5f336a63d0.html

Could be interesting. WPX is big and growing, so could be a tall building in store. Would rather it be redeveloped into more food/entertainment/lodging for the district, but a big new office building isn't anything to sneeze at.


Artist, I love Decopolis and really need to get down there and support it again. Honestly, it does feel like I go out of my way to get there... Hope you can find another great location closer to the action. Have you looked into the Boxyard?

Thank you!

As for the Boxyard, probably a worse location than where we are at retail wise.  Also hear "behind the scenes, for people try to put a positive spin on things publicly" that retail struggles there.  It is isolated with gaps in the urban fabric, cut off from the small cluster of stuff on east 3rd street with apartments and non retail businesses.  Remember some of the tenants being excited when that architecture firm went in across from them.  I was like... not good.  If Santa Fe Square went in that could help, but pedestrians are so finicky. One block gap might as well be a mile gap.  And remember, its not just about "will this work, can this business survive" its about "can this business compete with similar businesses in the local mall, strip mall, or a more vibrant urban spot.  Can this business thrive and grow. At least during the day we have thousands of potential customers in the large office buildings around us.  They do not.  But even then, we still get, 3 years plus in at this location people coming in from the buildings practically right across the street from us going "how long you all been here?".  So strange.  Plus we get loads of tourists and tour groups to our location because of the architecture, that they don't get.  They do have more buzz than we do, but on the ground I think we are better where we are, BUT that is still not good enough to be competitive with other stores like us in better locations. 

We took a risk, we have done ok.  But writing is on the wall. Baring some surprising turn of events, we will have to move. 

Typical rule of thumb is 6 city blocks of contiguous, retail to make an area competitive and doable.  Yes there are exceptions.  Even the Mother Road Market must continue to expand.  Its going off newness and buzz now, but... competition and bored familiarity will eventually set in so in order to be "real" it will have to grow.  One advantage the Market has as well is the publicity all the businesses together work to create, and that the foundation itself puts out there. 

So if we do move, the question is.... Where?  In downtown where will there be several blocks of retail facing retail without gaps?

Look at the Promenade.  When you started seeing that mall get non-retail type places and "gaps/closed spots" it was like... "Ooops it's dying!"  Easy for people to understand.  But its fascinating that people don't see it's the same thing with blocks of retail in an urban area. It' is also why its actually in the zoning code and illegal in many cities to allow things like an insurance or tech firm, architect firm, or living to go in on the ground floor of their urban retail corridor.  They know it will hurt retail.  Those things can go everywhere else in the urban core and it will be fine.