That's the issue, here. On the one hand, I wish Tulsa had a OU-Tulsa & OSU-Tulsa using the same downtown campus, much like Indiana Univ-Purdue Univ-Indianapolis (IUPUI plays NCAA basketball in ORU's conference)... IUPUI is just east of downtown Indy...
As noted before (by me), I think a good full-fledged university to compliment OSU-Stillwater should contain a strong arts program-- after all, OSU has traditionally been an agriculture school (Pistol Pete ain't really a cowboy at heart; he's an Aggie)...
As for athletics, I'm pretty sure OSU is already building a soccer/track&field stadium and has a nationally ranked women's socer team (coached by a Bishop Kelley grad, if memory serves).
But Tulsa doesn't have a college playing at either the NAIA or NCAA Division II level... think about the prospects of sports fans from NEO, UCO, SEOSU, ECSU, SWOSU, Cameron or NAIA teams at SNU, Oklahoma Christian, USAO, OCU, and OBU going to downtown Tulsa for games, probably basketball to begin with; any stadium facilities would be at least a decade away (unless T Boone Pickens decides otherwise...)
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Originally posted by TheArtist
Many people consider within the IDL to be downtown. I consider a lot of the things around it to be downtown as well, including the college. I would prefer a soccer stadium not be within the IDL, but rather it be outside the IDL by the college. The photo you show of Omaha's stadium seems to show something similar. The soccer stadium is in a less developed area just to the other side of the highway from their downtown.
Not saying a soccer stadium wouldn't work within the IDL at all, just would like to have it as close to the college as possible so that it could be considered both as part of their campus and as part of downtown.
A soccer stadium at OSU-Tulsa is an old argument; and one of the big issues I had with the criticisms of Nov 2005's East Village (40 acres of housing/retail, 20 acres for a 20k stadium) was the carping done--- this magical IDL dividing line existed, yet The Village at Central Park is outside this line; there's a big box Home Depot INSIDE the IDL... the site is still a good site for any arena/stadium/ballpark/ampitheatre, yet when Global's original proposal came around, I heard all this talk of "move it a few blocks this way" or "no... a little to the right," "move it ANYWHERE outside the IDL" or "OSU-Tulsa would be PERFECT"... the only way OSU-Tulsa would be the answer is if T. Boone Pickens has his checkbook out...
Otherwise, OSU-Tulsa is an inferior downtown location for a sports stadium; if the Drillers have no interest in playing there, why would it interest MLS? TU's men's soccer team rarely draws over a thousand fans... and Indy's minor league ballpark is outside the CBD; the RCA Dome and NBA arena are both inside that magic dividing line... [8D]
You know, I wish Union HS would have done a 20k football/soccer stadium that MLS coulda partnered with, but instead we're stuck with the UMAC to compete with Expo and the Reynolds Center... oh, and that BIG arena downtown...
My hopes these days are pinned on a smaller Skelly Stadium after they bulldoze the upper west stands and replace it with a huge 3 story press box... but attracting Major League Soccer to Tulsa that way has about as much chance of happening as Zinedine Zidane playing for my beloved Chicago Fire...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRWwmk-JjG8Oh wait... what were we talking about? [
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