A Critical Look at the Proposed Arkansas River Infrastructure Development

[sgrizzle]

Cannon, your assumptions seem to be all based on the original dam placement. With a dam at 49th street, there better "dam well be" water in the river at 41st.

[cannon_fodder]

Good call - if they built the dam as currently proposed you would be right. There would be water for the soccer field site. But all my other fatal issues would remain. Sorry man, I just don't see it. I tried to find the actual history of how the soccer fields came to owned by River Parks (and read a bunch of neat stuff on Garden City), but it would require a trip to the land records and I'm not that motivated.

So I wrote a snarky advertisement instead (sorry):

"NEW CONDOS! Located in Historic Garden City, built as a work camp for Texaco workers in the early 1920s - Garden City has been cutoff and preserved for a generation. Promising to be a diverse neighborhood - to the north you have a coal fired power plant and a major refining complex. To the South you have light industrial and the waste water plant. Just to the west you will enjoy thirty (30!) lots that have been purchased and raised through a joint venture of Holly Refining and Marketing and the City of Tulsa in an effort to eliminate residential development in Garden City! But not all of them! After peaking in the pre-war era Garden City opportunities now abound and it features homes starting at $500. That's right, multiple homes and trailers that are occupied assessed at $500! And dozens to choose from in the coveted $15 - $35k range.

But wait, there's more!

To the east, if you climb the dike immediately in front of your new $300,000 condo, you can see water in the river!"


Truthfully, the refinery has been trying to buy our property owners in the area since 1970s. The City has been buying properties and discouraging development since the 1986 flood, which breached that levy.  PlanitTulsa acknowledges Garden City, but I couldn't find any plans to develop the area. It is theoretically possible to turn the parks into condos, but it won't happen.

Sorry to be so negative.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Canon_fodder, that was a beautiful thorough argument. Besides the additional dam they added in after the initial proposal (and even if they add that), the arguments for new dams are pretty weak.

I remember very shortly after the first river tax failed, construction began to revitalize and repave trails along the east bank of river parks along with other beautification projects (new statues, playground at 41st, etc). The timing was brilliant and seems like might've been planned by the River-tax proponents (e.g. Bartlett) to mislead the public. Had the tax passed, the average person might've thought that had something to do with the river tax and thought "Wow! They make progress quickly!" Thus increasing the perceived value of the River tax and helping improve future political clout. As it was, the tax failed and the renovations were completed and were great.

[Conan71]

Good call - if they built the dam as currently proposed you would be right. There would be water for the soccer field site. But all my other fatal issues would remain. Sorry man, I just don't see it. I tried to find the actual history of how the soccer fields came to owned by River Parks (and read a bunch of neat stuff on Garden City), but it would require a trip to the land records and I'm not that motivated.

So I wrote a snarky advertisement instead (sorry):

"NEW CONDOS! Located in Historic Garden City, built as a work camp for Texaco workers in the early 1920s - Garden City has been cutoff and preserved for a generation. Promising to be a diverse neighborhood - to the north you have a coal fired power plant and a major refining complex. To the South you have light industrial and the waste water plant. Just to the west you will enjoy thirty (30!) lots that have been purchased and raised through a joint venture of Holly Refining and Marketing and the City of Tulsa in an effort to eliminate residential development in Garden City! But not all of them! After peaking in the pre-war era Garden City opportunities now abound and it features homes starting at $500. That's right, multiple homes and trailers that are occupied assessed at $500! And dozens to choose from in the coveted $15 - $35k range.

But wait, there's more!

To the east, if you climb the dike immediately in front of your new $300,000 condo, you can see water in the river!"


Truthfully, the refinery has been trying to buy our property owners in the area since 1970s. The City has been buying properties and discouraging development since the 1986 flood, which breached that levy.  PlanitTulsa acknowledges Garden City, but I couldn't find any plans to develop the area. It is theoretically possible to turn the parks into condos, but it won't happen.

Sorry to be so negative.

Widening 41st St. east of the 75 interchange would be very difficult in places.  Our shop, for instance, would lose about 1/2 the depth of our parking lot which is needed to safely turn around and get out of the parking lot.  We would literally be on-street parking if that were ever to come about.  KenTube/TekTube, MSI, Acme Wheel Alignment, and others along 41st would lose parking space and or space used for staging semi trailers. 

My hunch about the soccer fields is there could be mid-century and earlier waste underneath the fields.  Chromium was a common anti corrosion agent used in power plant cooling systems (Erin Brockovich anyone?) and where did the coal ash end up from the power plant when it was coal fired?  With all the refining activity since around the turn of the last century on the west bank, it's possible there could be all sorts of fun stuff under the fields.  Purely my conjecture, mind you.

There are too many things working against this industrial pocket becoming a commercial corridor in my lifetime.  If it were a bare plat of land, it does have intriguing possibilities with the river to the east and Cherry Creek looping around the south and west sides of the area.  Again, in my lifetime it will not be a bare plat of land barring a 2 mile wide F-5 tornado coming through..

Only point you made which is incorrect is the PSO plant is no longer coal fired.  It was converted to suspended gas-fired Springfield water tube boilers in the mid-1950's.  /boilergeek

[Conan71]

Canon_fodder, that was a beautiful thorough argument. Besides the additional dam they added in after the initial proposal (and even if they add that), the arguments for new dams are pretty weak.

I remember very shortly after the first river tax failed, construction began to revitalize and repave trails along the east bank of river parks along with other beautification projects (new statues, playground at 41st, etc). The timing was brilliant and seems like might've been planned by the River-tax proponents (e.g. Bartlett) to mislead the public. Had the tax passed, the average person might've thought that had something to do with the river tax and thought "Wow! They make progress quickly!" Thus increasing the perceived value of the River tax and helping improve future political clout. As it was, the tax failed and the renovations were completed and were great.

Those of us against the river tax in '07 were derided as selfish, lacking in vision, and Kaiser was going to take his money elsewhere.  All those trail improvements we've seen since then are funded either entirely or in part, by Mr. Kaiser's philanthropic entities.

[Vision 2025]

Having done extensive utility work, fill and grading (the fields had significant settlement issues) and irrigation work at the Soccer Fields I can confirm that much of the RPA Soccer Fields are former landfill(s) as is other parts of the near river west bank.  At the fields, we found junk (I remember cars trucks, ladders, pipe and lots of pallets) but nothing toxic when we tested the dewatering pump discharge regularly to confirm it met the City's industrial pre-treatment requirements (which are pretty darn strict and it met) before the groundwater was discharged into the sanitary sewer for treatment just in case.

[swake]

The river is one of, if not the single most prominent feature of the Tulsa area. Much of the time the river looks like crap. This project is worth it for no other reason that it will dramatically improve the aesthetics of the city. It will also enhance Riverparks and The Gathering Place and will provide some development opportunities. I'm not seeing the downside here.

[Townsend]

I'm not seeing the downside here.

It's really freaking expensive

[DTowner]

The river is one of, if not the single most prominent feature of the Tulsa area. Much of the time the river looks like crap. This project is worth it for no other reason that it will dramatically improve the aesthetics of the city. It will also enhance Riverparks and The Gathering Place and will provide some development opportunities. I'm not seeing the downside here.

Not only is it expensive, as Townsend noted, but it comprises enormous lost opportunity costs for other projects around Tulsa that could have a significantly bigger impact on Tulsa's growth and aesthetic improvement.  Whatever money goes to dams will not be going to transportation or any of the other many projects identified for potential inclusion in the next Vision vote.  I'm not yet fully decided on the dams vote (except I support fixing Zink), in part because the plan is so incomplete and keeps changing.  But I see what the public's investment in downtown has generated and I would prefer to continue to focus on that part of town before throwing a lot of money at the river based on what so far seems more hope than legitimate prospects for quality development that would result from putting water in the river.

[Townsend]

Not only is it expensive, as Townsend noted, but it comprises enormous lost opportunity costs for other projects around Tulsa that could have a significantly bigger impact on Tulsa's growth and aesthetic improvement.  Whatever money goes to dams will not be going to transportation or any of the other many projects identified for potential inclusion in the next Vision vote.  I'm not yet fully decided on the dams vote (except I support fixing Zink), in part because the plan is so incomplete and keeps changing.  But I see what the public's investment in downtown has generated and I would prefer to continue to focus on that part of town before throwing a lot of money at the river based on what so far seems more hope than legitimate prospects for quality development that would result from putting water in the river.

That's the longer version

[Bamboo World]

I'm not seeing the downside here.

1. It's really freaking expensive.

2. It comprises enormous lost opportunity costs for other projects around Tulsa that could have a significantly bigger impact on Tulsa's growth and aesthetic improvement.

3. Additional dams will be more disruptive to the ecology of the river, and they will require on-going maintenance.

Timed releases from Keystone for specific events would be a better idea.

[sgrizzle]

Watch CF freak out about spending $150M to redevelop an area that runs the length of the city while being OK with our recent spending of like 3 times that on the donut hole in the NW corner which had even less developable area by his criteria.

[cannon_fodder]

Watch CF freak out about spending $150M to redevelop an area that runs the length of the city while being OK with our recent spending of like 3 times that on the donut hole in the NW corner which had even less developable area by his criteria.

We spent $450-600,000,000.00 to encourage development of 30 acres somewhere?  How did I miss that? Oh, right, because it didn't happen. There has been a ~40 year conversation about finishing the Gilcrease loop. A project which will not be put to a vote in the near future and which I have not spent much time considering.

The river does run the length of the City. But we are talking about building lakes in a limited portion of it. The only question is how much actual development will we get from those limited portions. Coupled with the river looking pretty... is that worth $200+ million.  The argument just doesn't...wait for it... hold water.

I'm all for raising $200mil in taxes to improve the quality of life in Tulsa. I think we can invest it better.

[Conan71]

The river is one of, if not the single most prominent feature of the Tulsa area. Much of the time the river looks like crap. This project is worth it for no other reason that it will dramatically improve the aesthetics of the city. It will also enhance Riverparks and The Gathering Place and will provide some development opportunities. I'm not seeing the downside here.

Our bombed out roads are a pretty prominent and noticeable feature of the Tulsa area.

Development economics will make sense whether there is water in the river or not.  I had lunch on the patio at Blue Rose yesterday.  There was very little water in Zink Lake at the time.  More water would not have improved the experience.

I'm not entirely against the idea of dams.  If we didn't have what I consider to be more important spending priorities, I probably could get behind it.

I'm still somewhat unclear how the Vision 2025 extension ballot will read.  Will it be multi-tiered like the original one?  The proposal is for 1/2 of the expiring .6% tax to go to dams and the other half to economic development.  What concerns me is if the dams are too closely associated as part of the extension, it could end up tanking the economic development part as well.  I'd rather see this scrapped for a later time.

[sgrizzle]

Our bombed out roads are a pretty prominent and noticeable feature of the Tulsa area.

Development economics will make sense whether there is water in the river or not.  I had lunch on the patio at Blue Rose yesterday.  There was very little water in Zink Lake at the time.  More water would not have improved the experience.

I'm not entirely against the idea of dams.  If we didn't have what I consider to be more important spending priorities, I probably could get behind it.

I'm still somewhat unclear how the Vision 2025 extension ballot will read.  Will it be multi-tiered like the original one?  The proposal is for 1/2 of the expiring .6% tax to go to dams and the other half to economic development.  What concerns me is if the dams are too closely associated as part of the extension, it could end up tanking the economic development part as well.  I'd rather see this scrapped for a later time.

Probably separate ballot issues
1. River
2. Public Safety
3. Everything else.