A Critical Look at the Proposed Arkansas River Infrastructure Development

[Bamboo World]

Where will this river development be located?  The Arkansas River and the San Antonio Riverwalk or even Bricktown Canal are very different beasts.  If you want San Antonio style Riverwalk you're better off opening the ditch from the Pearl District, thru Veteran's Park and on to the river.  I would likely support public dollars for that project over dams in the river.

I agree with rdj.  The Arkansas is very wide, much wider than San Antonio's river or a narrow canal.

Also, even if three or four of the proposed Arkansas dams were to be built, long segments of the river through Tulsa would remain much as they are now:  as a braided stream with lots of sandbars, depending on rainfall and releases from Keystone.

There don't need to be dams for river development to happen.  Example:  The recent announcement about Helmerich Park being developed not as a public park, but yet another huge surface parking lot and some private retail stores/restaurants at 71st & Riverside.  There's no dam creating a lake on the Arkansas near 71st St.

[Conan71]

The river walks at San Antonio and OKC are on a scale more like Brookside or Cherry Street with water separating the two sides of retail development instead of asphalt.  There simply is no way to do what has been done in San Antonio with the Arkansas unless you do this along a tributary or do a side-stream like they did in OKC.

The Arkansas River is much more analogous to the Ohio River at Pittsburg, Cincinnati, or Louisville.  The biggest difference between Tulsa and major hubs along the Ohio, Mississippi, or the Hudson is those three rivers are navigable at major cities, whereas the Arkansas retains it's prairie character through Tulsa.  As transportation hubs, those cities have had river front commerce out of necessity for around 200+ years.

Cincinnati celebrates their park space in anticipation of completing a trail connecting those parks:

Ohio River Trail is planning on to complete the 4.75 mile segment from downtown to Lunken connecting our world class riverfront parks to east side neighborhoods and the 333 mile Ohio to the Lake Erie trail by 2017.This will leverage our region's most valuable natural resource, the Ohio River, with the construction of a regional trail network.

https://eastendcincinnati.wordpress.com

In other words, cities much older than Tulsa are just now catching up to the type of river trails Tulsa has now had for four decades.

In comparison, here's San Antonio:




Bing Thom said during the roll out of "The Channels" proposal that the Arkansas River was not "human scale".  I believe his intent was, you can't stand on one bank and wave at your friends on the other bank because you can't see them from the other side.  By its nature, it lacks the coziness of the canals other cities have constructed.  The canal in San Antonio was originally devised as a stormwater sewer and was to be paved over, just as we paved over Elm Creek through downtown Tulsa.  Elm Creek is our cozy canal opportunity.  Filling the Arkansas River from Sand Springs to Haskell and decorating the banks with commercial development still will not even come close to emulating the river walk in San Antonio.  It's not the correct scale.

Tulsa can actually be a leader rather than a follower in improving and celebrating our park space along the Arkansas River.  That is being done with The Gathering Place.  When it is completed, it is supposed to be a world-class park others will want to emulate.  Don't we want other cities to look at Tulsa and say: "Now there's a place which resisted the temptation to dreck up its banks with commercial development."?

We've already seen the city seems so desperate for commercial development along the Arkansas that they were too afraid to tell the developer of the supposed REI space they had to do something attractive.  Instead, from renderings anyone here has managed to dig up, it looks like park users will see a 30 foot lay up slab wall from the trail.  Oh, we will also get a bank and maybe a restaurant or two, maybe a nail store or phone store.  The development further down Riverside near the Creek Turnpike on Tulsa's side also missed an opportunity to embrace the river- turning it's back, instead of its front to the river.

Across the river in Jenks, they did manage to get it right with Riverwalk Crossing (architecturally-speaking) even though they have had trouble retaining tenants.  It may have helped if there were entrances toward parking and the river for each retailer/restaurant to make it more attractive from the parking side.  I honestly don't have the right answer on how to correct the vacancy issue other than there really was not that much pent up demand for retailers to locate next to a prairie river or there wasn't enough demand on the part of consumers to eat or shop next to the river.  Putting water in the river is not some magic elixir to change consumer spending habits or the realities of commercial leasing.

This is something which needs to undergo extreme scrutiny before we start selling off or doing 99 year leases up and down the river with out of state developers who are only in it to make a buck doing the construction.  They could care less if the development goes tits-up a few years after they have left the city.  I'd hate to see a bunch of speculative development sitting half empty and rotting along the river.

I personally prefer our park space as a sanctuary as the rest of our city runs out of empty development space.  Parks and recreation equates better to the quality of life that will attract desirable employers and demographics, not what we have in the way of retail.

[carltonplace]

Completely agree.

If Tulsans are attracted to water in the river to spur waterside entertainment type development that they see in Chicago or San Antonio or OKC then we need to take the top off of Elm Creek at a fraction of the cost.

If they want water front develpment like they see in New Orleans along the Mississippi then we only need water in part of the river and a big concrete mall with lots of public event and park space (we have the public and park space already).

We don't need water in the entire length of the river from Sand Springs to Bixby to create a water feature shopping center. Water in the entire river will not ever spur enough development to create enough sales tax to make it sensible. In contrast the BOK was not expected to pay for itself but it has kicked off a growth spurt in downtown that more than made up for its cost...because there were easy to find development opportunities in the vicinity.

The river can't do that...there are already parks and houses and things that make the growth/development potential limited.

People won't travel to Tulsa or Bixby to see the water in our river. They will come to have a drink in a cool place next to a water feature. Why does that have to be the river?

Young people won't migrate to Tulsa to live and work because our river is brim full of sandy brown water, they will come because we have the things they want: Good higher education, jobs to pay back their student loans, a Tulsa vibe/hipness, and living units that are close to those jobs.

[cannon_fodder]

Conan for president! (CarltonPlace can be VP)

[sgrizzle]

We don't need water in the entire length of the river from Sand Springs to Bixby to create a water feature shopping center.

As of like six months ago I think the plan is West Tulsa to South Tulsa.

[up4more]

I didnt mention San Antonio because I want it to look like it but to be our own unique river. Too big? Too muddy? River Seine in France. Thames river in England. Venice has a stench. If we shape all aspects of the river designing, zoning, banks etc. then over time it could help make Tulsa into a tourist attraction, a unique attraction, that would be in one of those travel magazines as a destination place listed right next to San Antonio. No water and it sits as it is as a gnarly gash down the entire length of our city. The river being filled up is not the end of the development but a spark that private entities Im sure would have a desire to expand upon. Which would be a portion of that elusive ROI that isnt evident. The city should plan for the private desire to develop the river and what should be transformed and what should remain that benefits this city. The light rail? Why cant we do all of this? Isnt that what is called a master plan?

[rdj]

What and where is this development along the river corridor?

[cannon_fodder]

up4more,

I don't want to be mean, because I like your passion. But the rivers you mentioned bare no resemblance to the Arkansas, simply no resemblance. The geography of the cities accompanying them are also a different world:

Seine is a narrow river that is choke by retaining walls on both sides. It is navigable and has been surrounded by Paris for nearly 2,000 years. Along its banks are a half dozen of the worlds top tourist destinations and 12 million people in the metro. The immediate area has a density in excess of 55,000 people er square mile. Almost THIRTY TIMES more dense than Tulsa. The river is also about 1/3rd the width of the Arkansas.


Google has many 360 views along its banks.


The River Thames is the same story. Ancient city built along a commercial waterway. Ten million+ people in an impossibly dense mass around the river. Scores of world class tourist destinations along its banks:



And Venice isn't even on a river.


As Conan pointed out - most of the great waterfronts in the US are former commercial hubs. We used the waterfronts for commerce, then we protected ourselves from them (levies etc.), and now we are embracing them. Other cities have built what are better described as canals: the narrowed river in San Antonio, Indianapolis, the great drainage ditch of Oklahoma City. Small, intimate spaces. The Arkansas fits neither mold.

What we are proposing is building several small lakes that are a  1/2 mile wide and surrounded by parkland. We are selling this by arguing that it will ?spur development - where, no one is sure. What, who can say?

Tulsa would need absorb Kansas City and St. Louis to have a shot at recreating the Saine of Thames. We would need the earthquake activity to seriously increase and drop Texas into the gulf to compete with Venice.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The river walks at San Antonio and OKC are on a scale more like Brookside or Cherry Street with water separating the two sides of retail development instead of asphalt.  There simply is no way to do what has been done in San Antonio with the Arkansas unless you do this along a tributary or do a side-stream like they did in OKC.


Bing Thom said during the roll out of "The Channels" proposal that the Arkansas River was not "human scale".  I believe his intent was, you can't stand on one bank and wave at your friends on the other bank because you can't see them from the other side.  By its nature, it lacks the coziness of the canals other cities have constructed.  The canal in San Antonio was originally devised as a stormwater sewer and was to be paved over, just as we paved over Elm Creek through downtown Tulsa.  Elm Creek is our cozy canal opportunity.  Filling the Arkansas River from Sand Springs to Haskell and decorating the banks with commercial development still will not even come close to emulating the river walk in San Antonio.  It's not the correct scale.

Tulsa can actually be a leader rather than a follower in improving and celebrating our park space along the Arkansas River.  That is being done with The Gathering Place.  When it is completed, it is supposed to be a world-class park others will want to emulate.  Don't we want other cities to look at Tulsa and say: "Now there's a place which resisted the temptation to dreck up its banks with commercial development."?

We've already seen the city seems so desperate for commercial development along the Arkansas that they were too afraid to tell the developer of the supposed REI space they had to do something attractive.  Instead, from renderings anyone here has managed to dig up, it looks like park users will see a 30 foot lay up slab wall from the trail.  Oh, we will also get a bank and maybe a restaurant or two, maybe a nail store or phone store.  The development further down Riverside near the Creek Turnpike on Tulsa's side also missed an opportunity to embrace the river- turning it's back, instead of its front to the river.

Yep.  We are so obviously "desperate" to get development for development's sake we are willing to forgo a lot of quality of life items.

Canals would be more scale appropriate for us and at least give us a chance to have something other than stagnant, mossy ponds for a large part of the year.

[carltonplace]

the most analogous development we would get on a full of water Arkansas river would be like the Navy Pier in Chicago which is beyond lame.

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

Wouldn't Lady Bird Lake in Austin be a better comparison? The Colorado River looks like a braided prairie river here, and the city is of a more comparable size.  Look what's along the banks where there's water - mostly trailes (though not as nice looking as ours), some REI parking lots here or there, a few tower hotels like that overlook the river, but not much else.  It looks about like the banks of the Arkansas in Tulsa, but nothing like the wall-to-wall development of the River Walk in San Antonio. And heck, Austin is a city most of us point to as one we'd like to be more like.

If we really must have a river/lake full of water and surrounded by development, I think the best section to target is the portion that flows east to west from Sand Springs to Downtown, not the segment that flows north to south. I don't know anything about the engineering feasibility. But unlike say 51st-61st, it's not bordered by beautiful park; it's mostly surrounded by gross industrial stuff.  Gross industrial is the perfectly fertile soil for hipster urbanism.  Imagine a mile of Prairie Artisan Ale and other breweries inhabiting old warehouses like this one on Charles Page, connecting downtown Tulsa to downtown Sand Springs, unlocking the Irving and West O' Main neighborhoods.

But more realistic is the canal idea. I love this and think Elm Creek is in a great location, especially if it gets ride of part of the IDL and connects downtown to the Pearl. What about Crow Creek? Having a "River Walk" from the Gathering Place and RiverParks to Brookside seems like a good project.

[patric]

Tonight the city council is expected to give approval of the plan to rezone the space from Helmerich Park down to Margaritaville.

[Townsend]

Tonight the city council is expected to give approval of the plan to rezone the space from Helmerich Park down to Margaritaville.

Is anyone aware of polling on possible success of a river/dam vote?

[cannon_fodder]

Tonight the city council is expected to give approval of the plan to rezone the space from Helmerich Park down to Margaritaville.

What?

Rezone from 71st to Joe Creek from parkland to what?  All of it? After Joe Creek it is Creek Land.

Why rezone all of it if you are moving the park further south?

THIS is another reason why water in the river is a bad idea.

Step 1) Spend $300,000,000 putting water in the river
Step 2) Claim you now need to develop park land to make the investment worthwhile
Step 3) Developers profit...

[Red Arrow]

Tulsa would need absorb Kansas City and St. Louis to have a shot at recreating the Saine of Thames. We would need the earthquake activity to seriously increase and drop Texas into the gulf to compete with Venice.

Where is Lex Luthor when you need him?