Vision Extension - IDL Removal/Demolition

[carltonplace]

Would we even need the tunneling that Austin is planning? Couldn't our needs be met with a resevoir and canal system?

[SXSW]

Would we even need the tunneling that Austin is planning? Couldn't our needs be met with a resevoir and canal system?

That's just it, we already have the storm tunnel.  We would just need to create the surface part in the natural basin the creek used to run in, like what we've already done successfully with Centennial Park. 

[Conan71]

That's just it, we already have the storm tunnel.  We would just need to create the surface part in the natural basin the creek used to run in, like what we've already done successfully with Centennial Park. 

Let's hope we get some visionary leadership at the very top who might help shepherd this along.  We are turning the tide with a council which is becoming more thoughtful and educated on smart and attractive development.

[carltonplace]

Let's hope we get some visionary leadership at the very top who might help shepherd this along.  We are turning the tide with a council which is becoming more thoughtful and educated on smart and attractive development.

That's more hope than I have left with the grey cloud the current "leader" has floating over my head.

[heironymouspasparagus]

That's more hope than I have left with the grey cloud the current "leader" has floating over my head.

Don't despair!  A seed has been planted.  Maybe not in your lifetime, or mine, but there may be hope in the distant future!


I have been inspired - even if Tulsa doesn't do canals, I have a perfect bed of very flat clay and am in process of finding a bulldozer to dig around in it.  Am going to build a canal.  Not enough elevation for locks/dams, but will make a very nice floating channel.  Now I gotta find a barge....!

[patric]

Agreed. Seems like deja vu all over again. The same thing happened with Vision2025 in the first place, several politicians tried to cram the Arena idea down voters throats what, 3 times or so? All of which were voted down until Vision2025. I'm afraid this next go around might meet the same fate as the previous votes.

This needs to be solely focused of capital improvements projects that make an impact on the community. The idea that we can just use more and more sales taxes to pay for roads, police, and fire are dangerous in my opinion. If we don't make investments in our community that are going to spur growth - such as the BOK Center which has brought downtown back to life - we are just going to go down the road of Detroit. We can't bail ourselves out this way, the only way to fix our revenue problems is to spur growth. Well how do we do that? We do it through investing in light rail, streetcars, commuter rail, bus rapid transit, trails, bike lanes, or the IDL project I've proposed. Projects that make a developer go "I want to build a new development in Tulsa" - a public safety tax isn't going to do that and never will. The public safety tax proposal is doubling down, and it seems like pretty all of the council outside of Gilbert gets this. The public safety tax would be putting us in fast lane for the City of Tulsa to go bankrupt - if we can't live within our means, don't dip into sales taxes like this - figure out a way to spur growth and revenue to fix the problem (hint > it's density).

I'm not convinced damns on the river will spur must economic development either because right now with the REI and Outlet Mall two of the most prime develop-able pieces on the river are being converted to typical suburban shopping center you can find anywhere else in the US - not what waterfront property deserves. Bynum did say they are working on a ROI in terms of what the damns would spur in new tax dollars, but that won't be released for a few months so once I see that I would be more willing to vote one way or the other.

If it was public safety tax or water in the river - I would vote for water in the river in a heartbeat.

"I will continue to call out my frustration with the fact that we're talking about how many tenths of a percent should go to public safety first instead of talking about what outcomes we'd like to achieve first," Ewing said.
Ewing...said he's not against increasing the number of police, but he said he has been adamantly opposed to increasing the ranks of officers with no strategy in place on how to use them.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/city-leaders-discuss-role-of-public-safety-in-economic-development/article_2bafc281-cba1-5b18-8f9e-afc855cf70b8.html


As long as capital improvement projects were tied to what voters saw as police slush funds they failed, again and again.  Some leaders understand, some dont.

[LandArchPoke]

If people have the time I'd suggest watching some of the webinars on CNU:

http://cnu.org/our-projects/highways-boulevards/webinars

The Vancouver one has an interesting perspective and something I think is very beneficial is that congestion can be a good thing. Traffic and visibility drive commerce. After spending a considerable amount of time in Vancouver over the years too I can say their traffic without any freeways is considerably less than Austin.

[SXSW]

Big Box retailers are not easy to deal with in terms of negotiations. These are just concepts, and when thinking big - that location offers in my opinion the best site for a soccer stadium and is one of the few places downtown you could locate a stadium large enough for an MLS stadium without tearing down a bunch of properties and closing off streets. Now would Home Depot go along with it? No idea. It's worth exploring though. Likely the best chance would be to do a land swap with them.

There would be 2 sites for something like this on the north and south side of 11th Street which would mean that could stay in the same location, but just going from a suburban style store to one of their mixed-use urban style stores next to a new stadium.

I'd be curious what type of lease arrangement Home Depot has at that location.  The more I think about it the more this site makes the most sense for a future stadium.  If Home Depot were open to a land swap and didn't want to build an urban store where would they go? 

[LandArchPoke]

I'd be curious what type of lease arrangement Home Depot has at that location.  The more I think about it the more this site makes the most sense for a future stadium.  If Home Depot were open to a land swap and didn't want to build an urban store where would they go? 

Home Depot owns the land for this site - except for the old Warehouse Market building.

If they didn't want to build an urban format store, their options are rather limited if they wanted to relocate within a mile of that store. There's two plots of land along Utica Avenue on the north and south side of the BA Expressway they could locate, the sites are small so you'd have to do something creative like rooftop parking if they were going to do a non urban format store. Other than that, their options would be to go north and I'm not sure you could get them to do that. If they did an urban format store their site options multiple significantly.

I agree in that I think this site is the best option for a soccer stadium. It's the only site within the IDL that you could build on that would not require the closure of any streets. It also creates a triangle between the BOK and OneOk Field. This site would be a huge boost to the south side of downtown, Gunboat Park, and 11th Street.

[cannon_fodder]

If it was a choice between tearing out the East leg of the IDL, or dams on the river... I'd go with tearing out the IDL for sure. As Conan pointed out months ago, the economic analysis has been shown for the IDL project, not so much for the dams (I know the numbers are just assumptions, but better than nothing). Plus, it benefits TULSA - not Jenks and the Creek Nation.  [I'm all for the Zink lake proposal, but I don't get the south dam at all]

BUT --- after re-reading this entire thread I revert back to the fact that there IS a ton of land available downtown. Particularly in areas close to the east leg of the IDL.  Yes, I know they are not commercially listed... but if we freed up twenty acres of land along the former path of the IDL - buying a parking lot is a competitor to buying newly created land. Parking lots are almost always for sale, at some price it makes sense to build a ramp, shuttle employees, or move away. Particularly when many of those lots are usually at 50%.  Add to that available land that Nordam's downtown activity has been declining for years and years. Then add all the property in the Pearl that is available for redevelopment (ironically, even more of a competitor if the new land is opened up).

Now, looking at the map we are making amazing strides. Hodges bend has seen about a block and a half of empty land built on. The Blue Dome has not only seen a ton of redevelopment, but Hogan occupied a quarter of a block and if the Nelson group has their way - another entire block gets occupied. Following the IDL east leg to the south, another block is slated to be the new Unitarian Church.  The GunBoat park area is just waiting for something awesome to happen. And, of course, the 6th and Peoria area has become very cool in the last decade.

BUT --- if you extend in from the IDL just three blocks, only looking west. There are 9 empty lots and probably nine blocks of surface parking (1/4 block here, full block there).  Safely 20 acres of land available for development if the demand pressure was there (downtown blocks are about 2 acres each). And that isn't counting the lots available within three blocks to the east (there's a lot!). The downtown areas that have been discussed on here removed their highways and saw awesome redevelopment when land pressure was high.  I hope we get there.

With that in mind, this proposal is great. I think it would be wise to slate it as a long-term plan and stick to it. I'm not expert city planner... but I played Sim City enough to know if you are going to do a massive project like this you need to plan ahead or you end up paying for infrastructure you plan on tearing out.  The south leg of the IDL desperately needs repair. We would need to understand how traffic flow would be altered and plan accordingly on the surface streets as well as the remaining IDL legs. We would need to develop the areas near the to-be removed leg with the eventually removal in mind (if something is going to become a through street, you don't want to build there now only to have to buy and demolish a new building when you want it to go through!).

Also, the cost estimates for removal look very accurate. Milwaukee removed their elevated highway for $28mil/mile. Add some inflation to that plus the rebuilding infrastructure cost and I think your fairly close --- with the exception of adding in any cost to redesign existing interchanges for the remaining legs of the IDL. Your ROI numbers are probably decently accurate - while an 8% ROI after 30 years is abysmal, it at least shows an economic return!

Other random thoughts on re-reading the thread:

- If the land was freed up, I'd only sell it to someone who had a development plan and funding approved. If we sold it to whomever wanted it we would have a ton of speculators sitting on vacant land for thirty years. Better to sell it for a little less and have it built upon.

- I missed the boat, but it occurred to me with all this highway talk that someone should have proposed making the BA not crappy. Another thread, another time.

[SXSW]

If it was a choice between tearing out the East leg of the IDL, or dams on the river... I'd go with tearing out the IDL for sure. As Conan pointed out months ago, the economic analysis has been shown for the IDL project, not so much for the dams (I know the numbers are just assumptions, but better than nothing). Plus, it benefits TULSA - not Jenks and the Creek Nation.  [I'm all for the Zink lake proposal, but I don't get the south dam at all]

I'd like to see some kind of streetcar proposal with a multi-modal downtown transit hub included with this next round of capital projects (which it sounds like we'll hear more about from Blake Ewing on 9/17), along with the Zink Dam rehab and whitewater chute.  I think some kind of riverwalk along Crow Creek or unearthing Elm Creek would be worthwhile projects as well.  Build the Jenks dam in a later phase or have the Creeks/Jenks foot the majority of the bill.  Removing the east leg of the IDL could be part of a larger project to rebuild the BA and add commuter rail, which has been discussed for years.  It actually makes sense if there is a downtown transit hub for it to connect to and the intermediate stations between downtown and BA are planned properly.  

I also agree that if the east leg is removed and the street grid is restored with Madison becoming the boulevard it used to be through that area then you would need a "master developer" for all or parts of it to ensure that a bunch of people don't just sit on the land.  This is how Austin did it with Mueller and Denver with Stapleton, both redevelopments of old airports.  I'd be interested to see how other cities that removed highways handled it.  OKC relocated I-40 to the south and doesn't have a master developer involved which is probably why development there has been so slow, although they are probably waiting for the central park project to be completed to kick off projects around it.

[LandArchPoke]

BUT --- after re-reading this entire thread I revert back to the fact that there IS a ton of land available downtown. Particularly in areas close to the east leg of the IDL.  Yes, I know they are not commercially listed... but if we freed up twenty acres of land along the former path of the IDL - buying a parking lot is a competitor to buying newly created land. Parking lots are almost always for sale, at some price it makes sense to build a ramp, shuttle employees, or move away. Particularly when many of those lots are usually at 50%.  Add to that available land that Nordam's downtown activity has been declining for years and years. Then add all the property in the Pearl that is available for redevelopment (ironically, even more of a competitor if the new land is opened up).

Now, looking at the map we are making amazing strides. Hodges bend has seen about a block and a half of empty land built on. The Blue Dome has not only seen a ton of redevelopment, but Hogan occupied a quarter of a block and if the Nelson group has their way - another entire block gets occupied. Following the IDL east leg to the south, another block is slated to be the new Unitarian Church.  The GunBoat park area is just waiting for something awesome to happen. And, of course, the 6th and Peoria area has become very cool in the last decade.

This is where Tulsa is stuck in between a rock and a hard place right now is because we do have a significant amount of parking lots - however, these parking lots are owned by a VERY small group of owners that have not been willing to sell. 3/4th of the surface parking lots are owned by TCC, PSO, and the churches.

You do have a few key plays such as the Nordam site and the Blue Dome parking lot, but if you think about all the development that is currently underway and if we keep the pace we are going at there will be a significant land shortage for development in only a few years. This plan really is a long term vision of helping the downtown core grow and feed into surrounding neighborhoods.

Today I don't think there is a need for 100 acres of land to be available downtown, but in 5 - 10 years yes there will be a need. Do we plan for this now? Or let ODOT keep control of this land for another 30 - 40 years?

Other random thoughts on re-reading the thread:

- If the land was freed up, I'd only sell it to someone who had a development plan and funding approved. If we sold it to whomever wanted it we would have a ton of speculators sitting on vacant land for thirty years. Better to sell it for a little less and have it built upon.

I agree with this point, and I have though deeply about how to handle this. There are ways of putting restrictions on the land when it is sold to avoid this, similar to how the land around the ballpark has been managed.

Milwaukee did this successfully with the land they had under their control when they removed the freeway in their downtown. There is a large swatch of land that remains available for purchase, but it was put into an authorities control I think that is similar to TDA. They however, put so many restrictions on the land - like the project has to be built providing minority contractors work and low income household work and other restrictions that has made it impossible for a developer to make any project work.

I'd like to see some kind of streetcar proposal with a multi-modal downtown transit hub included with this next round of capital projects (which it sounds like we'll hear more about from Blake Ewing on 9/17), along with the Zink Dam rehab and whitewater chute.  I think some kind of riverwalk along Crow Creek or unearthing Elm Creek would be worthwhile projects as well.  Build the Jenks dam in a later phase or have the Creeks/Jenks foot the majority of the bill.  Removing the east leg of the IDL could be part of a larger project to rebuild the BA and add commuter rail, which has been discussed for years.  It actually makes sense if there is a downtown transit hub for it to connect to and the intermediate stations between downtown and BA are planned properly. 

I also agree that if the east leg is removed and the street grid is restored with Madison becoming the boulevard it used to be through that area then you would need a "master developer" for all or parts of it to ensure that a bunch of people don't just sit on the land.  This is how Austin did it with Mueller and Denver with Stapleton, both redevelopments of old airports.  I'd be interested to see how other cities that removed highways handled it.  OKC relocated I-40 to the south and doesn't have a master developer involved which is probably why development there has been so slow, although they are probably waiting for the central park project to be completed to kick off projects around it.

I think the transit hub could play very well into this proposal as well. I think a streetcar route could be constructed on these corridors connecting back into downtown and to other neighborhoods like Cherry St, Utica Square, Expo Square, Pearl, TU, etc. It would provide an opportunity to lay the tracks cheaper as the street-grid is rebuilt. I'm excited to see what Blake will be proposing in terms of the location of the multimodal station and if he will talk about any plans for streetcars, brt, or commuter rail in the near future.

As for a master developer, I think it would be important to bring in one big company like Trammel Crow who did Union Station in Denver for this project. I don't think they should have control over all the land, but something like 50% I don't think is unreasonable and would provide a high credentialed developer with proven ability to execute projects. Granted, this would depend on wether we did the full scale version of what I've proposed or a slimmed down proposal of just removing the East leg of the IDL. If just the East leg was removed, 1 master developer could be a viable option for the entire land area. 

[kevo]

I'm all for removing the IDL as well.  In addition we should look at getting rid of the LL Tisdale parkway.  It was originally billed as a highway to Skiatook but was abandoned as a state project.  In a world of Rose colored glasses we could take the credit from removing the LL Tisdale and adding those miles to the western extension of the Gilcrease Expressway. That would connect with HWY 412 West of downtown.  To get some more Credit, we then remove the section of 412 from downtown going west where it connects to the Gilcrease Expressway.  We then use the credit for those miles to get over the Arkansas river and connect with the section of the Gilcrease Expressway just south of  41st st. And that is how we get the loop around west Tulsa.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

I'm all for removing the IDL as well.  In addition we should look at getting rid of the LL Tisdale parkway.  It was originally billed as a highway to Skiatook but was abandoned as a state project.  In a world of Rose colored glasses we could take the credit from removing the LL Tisdale and adding those miles to the western extension of the Gilcrease Expressway. That would connect with HWY 412 West of downtown.  To get some more Credit, we then remove the section of 412 from downtown going west where it connects to the Gilcrease Expressway.  We then use the credit for those miles to get over the Arkansas river and connect with the section of the Gilcrease Expressway just south of  41st st. And that is how we get the loop around west Tulsa.

IIRC, you can't build the Gilcrease the direction you suggest because aside from being Osage county, it's also Osage Tribal land, and that is the reason that Sand Springs and Tulsa did not grow north and west.

[SXSW]

IIRC, you can't build the Gilcrease the direction you suggest because aside from being Osage county, it's also Osage Tribal land, and that is the reason that Sand Springs and Tulsa did not grow north and west.

Honest question, does owning property in Osage County have any special requirements because it is "tribal land"?  How is it different than Creek or Cherokee land?  Just curious if that really is an impediment to development of the section of Tulsa in Osage Co.

I always thought it was because large parts of that area were controlled by the Gilcrease family who didn't want to develop it.  Plus the infrastructure was never very good there due to the hilly terrain.  Add in the "north side" stigma and not much has happened.  I am curious though with downtown development at its current pace and with the eventual construction of the Gilcrease loop if it becomes more attractive.  It's a beautiful area, I would almost hate to see it paved over.