Moving City Hall

[Hometown]

Well I've spend most of my adult life in New York and San Francisco, so walkable to me is probably unaccepable to most Tulsans, who insist on parking next to the front entrance.

Back at the ranch:

The items you listed that were suggested by another poster to enliven civic center are all great ideas.  Your thought about redeveloping city hall for offices is not bad.  As it stands civic center is busier than anywhere else downtown.

The problem we have with our civic center is that its historic period is so close to us in time that it is difficult for us to see it as historic.  But we will soon.  

People hated Victoria bric-a-brac.  Now they love it.  Just as we now admire the architecture of the old county court house that was torn down.  Look what Fort Worth has done with their old courthouse.  We could have had that too.  

Our fabulous old movie theatres rivaled the great ones.  We tore ours down, even after other cities had begun to preserve theirs.  The list goes on and on.

To our credit, all of this redevelopment means that a lot of people have a vested interest in Tulsa.  But so much of it is misguided that I am afraid my beautiful hometown is no longer recognizable and we are in the fast lane driving as fast as we can, headed straight towards butt ugly.

Now, I'm acquainted with an architect that is working on a project outside of Tulsa for a well known oil man.  He says that the word from their benefactor is "spend what ever you need to spend to do it right."

That is the spirit that built old Tulsa.  New Tulsa isn't in the same class.

[Double A]

Word.

[shadows]

We can find 80 million dollars to buy a building in "tornado alley" that can not withstand strait winds, that is a hazard to the public from fragmented tempered glass, who engineering could have the domino effect like the twin towers, including 1140 space parking garage for 1400 employees but we cannot find 12 million dollars to repair the present city hall building.

Are we to believe the building under consideration would withstand a down burst like destroyed the church at 15th and Memorial?   Course we could file that with the hundred year flood files.    

Fifty years has changed from the centralizing of government function for  public accessibility at the plaza to decentralizing of government functions under one roof.

Governments over the centuries build buildings that define the strength of the government it houses.   Visiting dignitaries' would not be impressed by our glass house concept of our government .

We have all those birds in the bushes that want to buy the high priced city owned lands but I have not heard of any birds in our hands.

[YoungTulsan]

We arent paying 80 million for the building.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

We arent paying 80 million for the building.

who is then?  Mickey Mouse?

[Conan71]

Yeah, the city is doing real good at things coming in at the promised price, can anyone say: "BOK Center"?

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

We arent paying 80 million for the building.

who is then?  Mickey Mouse?

He's saying we won't pay that price.

As noted before, the owners are more interested in getting out than making a profit. I would assume there would be certain tax breaks as well when selling to a non-profit or governmental agency.

[PonderInc]

I'm personally all for consolidating into one building.  This will not only increase efficency among departments, it should make it easier to see where redundancies exist...and better for the mayor to "drop in" on various agencies.  I would expect long-term savings.  Plus, I like the "transparancy" metaphor.

Parking will be much easier with the attached parking garage, and it will be easy to tell people where to go: "look for the building that looks like a Coke bottle."  (I'm not fond of the architecture, but it's cool inside...and much better than the current hideous city hall.)

I do wonder why there are several hundred sand bags on the roof of One Technology Center.  Does this hold the roof down in case of high winds?  Doesn't seem very "high-tech."

And I remember back in the WCG days that anyone with a window cube really struggled with heat and glare from all the sunlight.  (Hard to see your computer screen.)  As I recall, people were instructed NOT to use umbrellas or large hunks of cardboard to shade their computer screens (didn't look professional/hi-tech to guests!)  Did the glare issue ever get fixed?  (One rumor at the time was that the glass was installed inside out, but surely that was an urban myth!)

[inteller]

nah, I visited clients at wiltel several times and I never experienced anything unpleasant about the building except you had to walk to the edge of the building to get to a bathroom.

[shadows]

Taking in consideration of the builders of the glass building and them wanting to get out from under the obligation of maintenance I get the same feeling that so many of the working poor stockholders were in, by the unprecedented action of misinformation and fraud, biked out of their saving in the deleting by the parent company of their stock interest.

The bargain glass building is being transferred again under the same conditions and procedures to the losses of the working poor. I am sure on the open real-estate market the selling price would be much, much less that the city paying 80 million for the glass monstrosity.  Even if the mayor was to buy and give it to the city I would believe the upkeep cost would out distant all gains in this pre-energy construction, inefficiently deigned monster .

The present building halls seem to be where we are lacking in space.  One can note that the parade of persons in the halls carrying coffee cups 8 hours a day are the city employees on their 8 hour coffee breaks.   We do need more room for them in case some citizen has a problem and tries to meander around to find someone to talk with him.

It once was so easy to take you problems to a commissioner who overlooked single departments.  

The unanswered question: Is this purchase being made to benefit the city bureaucrats or the struggling retirees or the working poor?

Or a party house for the visiting dignitaries?      

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

nah, I visited clients at wiltel several times and I never experienced anything unpleasant about the building except you had to walk to the edge of the building to get to a bathroom.

Cool! We can set up a web cam outside the buildilng so we'll know when our public officials take a crap. That's transparency!

[inteller]

yeah that was pretty weird., but really only one end of the building could be spied on since the north side just overlooked the street.

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by Double A

quote:Originally posted by inteller

nah, I visited clients at wiltel several times and I never experienced anything unpleasant about the building except you had to walk to the edge of the building to get to a bathroom.

Cool! We can set up a web cam outside the buildilng so we'll know when our public officials take a crap. That's transparency!

Ooof, be careful what you wish for... [xx(]

[MichaelC]

UTW article by Bates

Way too long to copy and paste, and it wouldn't make sense if butchered.  But it sounds reasonable to me.

[Double A]

I hope if this does happen, they drop the plans to lease out the extra space and instead move the library to those floors.