Big development on Cherry St.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

Holy hell - Who has seen the car wash today? They painted it bright neon green. I'm all for it going out of the neighborhood now...

[}:)]

I believe new owners took over the spotnot chain. They all have new names and new.. unique.. paint schemes.

[tulsa1603]

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

Holy hell - Who has seen the car wash today? They painted it bright neon green. I'm all for it going out of the neighborhood now...

[}:)]

Saw that today at lunch.  At least before it just kind of went away.... Yikes!

[cannon_fodder]

I need some of those architectural drawings or Im pretty well lost.  Pictures people, we need pictures.   []

[deinstein]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

I need some of those architectural drawings or Im pretty well lost.  Pictures people, we need pictures.   []

If I can get my digital camera I'll walk down the street and get you some photos of the new car wash color scheme.

[B)]

[dsjeffries]

quote:Originally posted by OurTulsa

Whoops.  Did I say Trenton?  I meant Troost!  Rewind the discussion and start over with that correction in mind.

Okay, that does change it a bit! []
At least with that location, it will add a little more continuity (maybe not architecturally speaking) with the restaurants, storefronts, etc.  Really, Cherry Street seems to end (or begin) after you pass Panera, so if this can help lengthen the area with the highest concentration of restaurants and shops, plus add living space, I think it's a great development.

I know people here tend to rant about Bumgarner or comment on the faux-Italian buildings, but what he's doing really is helping the neighborhood.  I think it would be nice to have an architecturally contiguous neighborhood in Tulsa (though, once again, I know people will argue about the type of architecture).  Other cities have architecture-themed neighborhoods (albeit authentic ones), so why not here?

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by DScott28604

quote:Originally posted by OurTulsa

Whoops.  Did I say Trenton?  I meant Troost!  Rewind the discussion and start over with that correction in mind.

Okay, that does change it a bit! []
At least with that location, it will add a little more continuity (maybe not architecturally speaking) with the restaurants, storefronts, etc.  Really, Cherry Street seems to end (or begin) after you pass Panera, so if this can help lengthen the area with the highest concentration of restaurants and shops, plus add living space, I think it's a great development.

I know people here tend to rant about Bumgarner or comment on the faux-Italian buildings, but what he's doing really is helping the neighborhood.  I think it would be nice to have an architecturally contiguous neighborhood in Tulsa (though, once again, I know people will argue about the type of architecture).  Other cities have architecture-themed neighborhoods (albeit authentic ones), so why not here?

If that was really the case then the surrounding neighborhoods would not put up so much resistance. The fact the Bumgarners take a my way or the highway approach(ultimately to their own detriment) doesn't help either. The surrounding neighborhoods already have an established architectural theme, otherwise they wouldn't qualify for Historic Preservation zoning.

[akupetsky]

quote:Originally posted by DScott28604

quote:Originally posted by OurTulsa

Whoops.  Did I say Trenton?  I meant Troost!  Rewind the discussion and start over with that correction in mind.

Okay, that does change it a bit! []
At least with that location, it will add a little more continuity (maybe not architecturally speaking) with the restaurants, storefronts, etc.  Really, Cherry Street seems to end (or begin) after you pass Panera, so if this can help lengthen the area with the highest concentration of restaurants and shops, plus add living space, I think it's a great development.

I know people here tend to rant about Bumgarner or comment on the faux-Italian buildings, but what he's doing really is helping the neighborhood.  I think it would be nice to have an architecturally contiguous neighborhood in Tulsa (though, once again, I know people will argue about the type of architecture).  Other cities have architecture-themed neighborhoods (albeit authentic ones), so why not here?

I believe that you just answered your own question.  If it were authentic, that would be a different story.  Instead, Tulsa looks like its trying to copy Kansas City.  A cheap knockoff is still a cheap knockoff, even if it is continuous.  The point is that Cherry Street is already a desirable location, with a certain amount of architectural consistency.  Bumgarner's faux italian detracts from the smaller 1920/30s style buildings that already exist.  Why not create more consistence by looking to the buildings that already exist?

[dsjeffries]

quote:Originally posted by akupetsky
I believe that you just answered your own question.  If it were authentic, that would be a different story.  Instead, Tulsa looks like its trying to copy Kansas City.  A cheap knockoff is still a cheap knockoff, even if it is continuous.  The point is that Cherry Street is already a desirable location, with a certain amount of architectural consistency.  Bumgarner's faux italian detracts from the smaller 1920/30s style buildings that already exist.  Why not create more consistence by looking to the buildings that already exist?

I never said that Cherry Street was undesirable, and just because something isn't authentic doesn't mean that it's a cheap knock-off.  Just FYI, Kansas City's Country Club Plaza is anything but original.  Also, I doubt these faux-Italian buildings look anything like the Plaza--the Plaza isn't modeled after anything Italian, it's modeled after a Spanish city--Seville.  Do you think people complain that the Plaza is "just a cheap knock-off" of Seville?  

The buildings on Cherry Street really share no similarities except that they are small.  Other than that, the buildings don't really share any architectural elements.  There are only two, maybe three buildings that are similar, those being where Kilkenny's is located and one on the south side of the road closer to Utica that houses an art gallery and Bourbon Street.

I agree that builders should try to match existing themes of neighborhoods, but I don't think it's right to continually dismiss a developer's plans not because what they're doing will injure the neighborhood but because you disagree about the exterior styling of the buildings or just dislike the guy.

Yes, there are issues of scale, as well, but John Bumgarner isn't doing anything that will hurt Cherry Street financially or that would make it less desirable.

I'm not an advocate for tearing down the whole of Cherry Street (or any other neighborhood) just to make the buildings fit each other, but I don't consider this Bumgarner project a bad one.

[TheArtist]

I remember complaining about the look of the urban lofts going in around Cherry Street area because they didnt fit in.  I got my head bit off in the forum and people argued that what  makes Cherry street unique is its diversity.  People complained that not everyone likes, Disneyesque "themed" areas.

Again, are we talking styles?  or scale? If Cherry street were to be zoned or form based or something to have an appropriate "look" what would that be?

[Double A]

The topic of diversity was in regards to the socio-economic demographics of the area, not architectural styles. We want infill or redevelopment that is in scale, character, and harmony with existing neighborhoods.
If scale was the only litmus, Bumgarner's developments and metro lofts would still fail miserably. I really resent being told what's best for the neighborhood where I live(for longer than most of these clowns have even been in Tulsa) by YP appletini bourgeoisie elitists that don't even live in the hood.

[TheArtist]

There have indeed been topics of diversity of income.  But the one where I mentioned not liking the style of the lofts for that area, and where I got griped at, was definitely about the different types of building styles.

[deinstein]

Diversity of income is the biggest ordeal in my opinion. You've got to avoid gentrification. For example, I can look at two Metro Lofts going up (one completed) and they are paying $200,000-$300,00 for these. Where I live, I pay $385.00/month for a two bedroom after the student discount. This type of income diversity gives the neighborhood the character it needs and allows for both poor college students and successful professionals to live next door with the same general feel of community.

[Double A]

Thank you.

[dsjeffries]

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

Diversity of income is the biggest ordeal in my opinion. You've got to avoid gentrification. For example, I can look at two Metro Lofts going up (one completed) and they are paying $200,000-$300,00 for these. Where I live, I pay $385.00/month for a two bedroom after the student discount. This type of income diversity gives the neighborhood the character it needs and allows for both poor college students and successful professionals to live next door with the same general feel of community.

This is what is hoped for the First Street Lofts.  I don't see why the same thing can't be done in a  different style building (i.e., faux Italian).  Since we don't have access to the plans for whatever is going in on Cherry Street we can't really say that we approve or disapprove of the design, but we still can hope that it will have some of the same aspects of mixed-income and mixed-use developments that promote the diversity of its residents.

I went on a walking tour of Cherry Street today to get an idea or feel for the architecture and found that the Italian look has already been there for quite a while.  There is more than one building that has terra cotta roofs, both on those original buildings from the 20s and 30s and even on structures like the Albertson's at 15th & Lewis.  So perhaps the Bumgarner building at 15th & Utica might be of a much larger scale than the rest of the buildings and is of stucco instead of brick, it doesn't seem out of place to me.  The Stillwater Bank building, however, is completely out of touch with the neighborhood.

The rest of the buildings on Cherry Street didn't seem to share any characteristics except for their low height.  We have strange L-shaped strip centers, colonial home-style, some like the Subway building that just look run-down, and actual homes-turned-offices.  There's not a real continuous street-front among the buildings, which might have led to me to consider the entire neighborhood as sort of disconnected.

There isn't just one style of architecture--it's a mix of styles and decades, so I think that most things that could be built would fit right into the mix.

I wasn't arguing before that Cherry Street needed to be gutted and turned into a themed district--I merely entertained an idea that a part of town could have its own distinctive style that set it apart from the rest of town.  I wasn't advocating gentrification for the privileged.  (I took several pictures on my outing today and will post them if anyone is interested.)

No, I don't think that gentrification is a good thing.  Look at what's happened to SoHo, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen and even Harlem in NYC--those once undesirable areas were transformed by the City's artistic and alternative crowd and are now ridiculously expensive places to live.  Reinventing a neighborhood, as OurTulsa put it, is desirable.

I'd really like to see a grocer, library and small park to help Cherry Street gain even more of that community feel.

I wish that developers in Tulsa were more active in proposing plans to the respective neighborhoods and consider feedback before simply revealing their plans for what will be.  Setting up a website isn't a difficult thing to do.  Setting up a meeting/forum isn't a difficult thing to do.  A simple showing of concern for the existing neighbors would certainly make everyone happier and would make for much less controversial, more appropriate developments (though there will always be people who are unhappy with anything and everything that comes up).

[Double A]

Not that I'm agreeing with you about the diverse mixture of architecture, but how does cramming as many cookie cutter modern lofts on to as many lots in one area or cramming as many towering, cookie cutter, faux italianate, glamorized suburban strip malls(complete with vast seas of inefficient suburban surface parking) along commercial corridors contribute to and preserve that diverse mixture of architecture you speak of?

One more thing, the commercial developments you cited around Cherry St are renovations of existing buildings, not the out of scale, lot cramming, scrape and rapes that Metro Lofts and the Bumgarners specialize in.

BTW, do you even live in this area?