Downtown Wal-Mart

[swake]

Looking at the zoning, and looking at the idea that the streets on the site are private there's nothing anyone can do to stop another Home Depot from happening, the site is large enough and such a store would conform to zoning rules. The city has no pull if they want to build a suburban store. That is all bad news and a complete failure of the current zoning code.

The good news is that the developers don't seem to want to do that. They want to build something else and want some contribution to help in the form of a TIFF. The request for a TIFF is leverage for the city to ensure that what the developers build fits with what is good for downtown.

I'm emotionally against Wal-Mart downtown, I don't shop there. But the reality is that you can't stop it and no other grocers have any interest, nor have they for a very long time. And downtown needs a grocery store.

This area is inside the loop, but it's been far from Urban for decades and nothing has been built there for decades. The area is a scar that separates midtown from downtown. Healing that scar and filling it in will go a long, long way to reintegrating downtown into the city. Don't just protest, force the developer to build something good, even if it is a Wal-Mart.

Wishing for stores that aren't coming and wanting there be no chain stores or restaurants, that's, that's not realistic. What downtown is like that? Wal-Mart is going downtown in Austin, the main grocer in downtown Chicago is Walgreen's and DC has crappy Safeway's. Let's make the best of this opportunity.

[pfox]

Just brainstorming here, but were I doing the urban design and programming for this development, I would include the following criteria, in addition to the brick/"urban" facade:

1) 2 Story, Half the footprint. Allows for more flexibility for adaptive reuse of the building should it go dark.  Also more efficient, compact land use in our soon to be limited amount of developable land in the CBD. The Target at Northgate Mall in Seattle uses these escalators that carry your shopping cart from one level to the other in order to navigate the multiple levels.

2) Traditional Downtown Setbacks. Sidewalks. Proper urban streetscaping. Good lighting, trees, benches.  Pedestrian oriented approach to the building.
3) Transit Considered in Design. (6th St. is a huge transit corridor.)
4) Structured Parking adjacent to the two story building, and angled on street parking. Another benefit of the two story building is that you can more efficiently utilize your land.  What would have been 75,000 square feet of single story building becomes the parking for the facility, with the first level essentially being surface parking, and with access to the second floor from the upper levels of the parking structure.
5) Must at least attempt to gain LEED certification.  Green Roof, Rainwater catchment systems, structured parking. Before you laugh me off of the forum, read this: Wal-Mart and Eco-Accountability

I think we, The City of Tulsa, TulsaNow as good planning advocates, and Wal-Mart have an amazing opportunity to play a role in changing the perception about our city and about the 'evil' Wal-Mart.  If they implemented the above criteria, I believe that Wal-Mart would 1) be recognized in a positive way from a public relations standpoint and 2)would create something unique enough that people might actually come to shop there just to see the "two story Wal-Mart".  It might even be a point of pride for Tulsa.  Something to brag about...*shrugs*.

I also believe that having a downtown grocery store is critical to attracting rooftops. So that element of the project is a very good thing.

Hey...just trying to be positive folks.

[pfox]

quote: Code Green: News From the Eco-Frontier
Always Low Prices—and Now Eco-Accountability
Wipe that smirk off your face: When America's largest retailer embraces environmentalism, we all benefit

By Amanda Griscom Little




From a distance, the Wal-Mart in Aurora, Colorado, looks like any of the thousands of big-box behemoths operated by the world's second-largest company. But a closer inspection reveals more than a few incongruous details: The parking lot contains recycled asphalt from a local airport runway. The heating fuel is a mixture of fry grease from the store's deli and motor oil salvaged from its lube center. Electricity is supplied by solar panels and a windmill. In fact, nearly every component of this shopping mecca, which opened late last year, represents the cutting edge of sustainable design, from the waterless urinals to the ultra-efficient lighting system.

To hear Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott tell it, the Aurora store is the retail outlet of the future, a pilot project and a model for development. And, as you've likely heard, that's just the beginning of his grand green plan, which includes goals that border on the fantastical: Wal-Mart's empire, he says, will eventually run on 100 percent renewable fuels, create zero waste, and sell an increasing number of sustainable products.

Bogus, you say? I was one of many who struggled to suppress a gag reflex at the coupling of green and Wal-Mart in the same sentence. Catalyst of suburban sprawl, king of the 5,000-mile supply chain, and employer of 1.8 million (many with gripes about schedules, pay, and benefits), Wal-Mart personifies the corporate consolidation that has hurt local farms, businesses, and sustainable small-town living. It's the biggest private consumer of electricity in the United States, with a carbon footprint (when you include its supply chain) the size of Texas.

Which is why I was shocked to discover, when I took a good, long look at Wal-Mart's plan, that it's not only serious but seriously ambitious. Sure, it's common knowledge that Wal-Mart is now the world's biggest distributor of organic milk and purchaser of organic cotton. But over the past year, the company has been introducing other green commitments, vowing to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent by 2012 (on par with Kyoto Protocol targets), double the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet within a decade, make stores 30 percent more energy efficient, and cut 25 percent of its solid waste in the next three years. The chain has declared that all of its wild-caught fish will be sustainably harvested, and some stores are already beginning to source produce locally. Scott is committing $500 million annually to make it all happen, and he's urging the 60,000-plus suppliers that sell products in his stores to adopt similar goals.

The seed for Wal-Mart's green dream was planted during a series of adventures that company chairman Rob Walton (son of founder Sam Walton) took with Conservation International CEO Peter Seligmann. They went diving in the Galápagos, hiking in Madagascar, and birding in Brazil's wetlands. "Rob wants to understand nature as well as he understands business," Seligmann says. When talk turned to the role of the marketplace in protecting the environment, Seligmann made the case that changing Wal-Mart's corporate actions could have a dramatically more powerful impact than Walton's personal quest to conserve wilderness.

If Wal-Mart were to go green, Seligmann told Walton (and, later, CEO Scott), it could attract new customers, boost employee morale, and burnish its public image (which has floundered in light of dubious labor and environmental practices), while saving big on energy bills. Blue-chip brands like GE and Starbucks, he pointed out, have already joined the sustainability bandwagon, not so much out of do-gooder spirit but because they've realized that smart environmental practices can fatten their bottom lines.

Walton and Scott acted quickly, running extensive cost-benefit analyses in 2004 and then developing a companywide eco-strategy. In Scott's words, they're out to "democratize sustainability" by making everything from clean power to pesticide-free foods—currently enjoyed mostly by affluent people who can pay premium prices—affordable for the masses. Wal-Mart, with its economies of scale, has the power to do that: The greater the demand for green products, the cheaper it is to produce them and the lower the retail price tags. Already, Wal-Mart has introduced a five-year program designed to help its suppliers shrink packaging and, in turn, cut energy and waste costs by $3.4 billion. "I've never seen any company embrace environmental strategy like Wal-Mart has," Seligmann says.

Reactions from the environmental community have been predictably mixed. Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of eco-safe-household-products company Seventh Generation, has refused to sell at Wal-Mart. "It's too early to conclude that they are fully committed to their plan," he says. "If I were a supplier, I couldn't play the objective, critical role needed to help ensure they live up to it." Michael Pollan, whose bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma examines the American food chain, challenged the superstore's decision to mainstream pesticide-free groceries in a June essay for The New York Times Magazine. Organic food, he wrote, "is about to go the way of sneakers and MP3 players, becoming yet another rootless commodity circulating in the global economy."

But Greenpeace USA director John Passacantando—never shy about fingering corporate giants—calls Wal-Mart's commitments "remarkable" and "hopeful, even if they're just goals at this point." "What's hard to believe," he told me, "is that America's political leadership is lagging behind Wal-Mart on this issue." Last summer, former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach signed on as a Wal-Mart consultant. And the Environmental Defense Fund has opened an office near Wal-Mart's Arkansas headquarters to work pro bono on the company's sustainability strategy.


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Mass-market solutions involve trade-offs, but corporate America has more power to solve climate problems than Washington does

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While Wal-Mart deserves big props for helping to spearhead the corporate green movement, the retail Goliath needs to do plenty more before it gets a gold star. Things like matching its environmental goals with equally ambitious labor standards; making future and existing stores green and siting them in mixed-use downtown areas, to stop encouraging sprawl; requiring—not just urging—its suppliers to meet green standards; and sourcing regional food and merchandise at all its stores, to keep local farms and businesses alive.

Environmental advocates have work to do, too. They need to accept that mass-market solutions will inevitably involve trade-offs. They need to continue building stronger partnerships with corporate America, which today has more power and inclination to solve the climate crisis than Washington does. They need everyone—Republicans and Democrats, communities of all colors and income brackets, corporations and consumers—on board to reverse the potentially catastrophic ecological trends of our day. If sustainability is truly going to go mainstream, no person, party, product, or polluter can be left behind.

[MichaelC]

From Tulsa World

quote:American Residential Group of Tulsa will construct high-quality apartments for the East Village, a proposed mixed-use development downtown that will feature an urban-designed Wal-Mart Supercenter.

"We're excited about this," said developer Jay Helm, president of American Residential Group.

Helm has been approached by some of the previous groups that wanted to redevelop the east end of downtown, but he declined to participate because he didn't think their plans could be executed.

"But with this one, we know they can execute, and obviously we think we can do our side of it," he said.

Real estate developers John Williams of Claremore and Tom Seay of Arkansas have teamed up on the project to redevelop 15 acres in east downtown.

The project will have an urban-designed Wal-Mart Supercenter as an anchor to attract other smaller retailers and commercial businesses to the area that is roughly bounded by Frankfort Avenue and U.S. 75 between Fourth and Sixth streets.

Seay said a mixed-use,
urban design doesn't work without all of the elements -- an anchor tenant to draw the traffic and smaller retailers and the residents to feed the retail.

Seay said a portion of the plan includes construction of 150 apartments, which American Residential Group will build.

Helm and his partner, Steve Ganzkow, pioneered the resurgence of residential housing downtown in 1998 by constructing the Renaissance Uptown Apartments at 11th Street and Denver Avenue, which at the time were the first downtown residences built in 27 years.

Shortly after, the men transformed the Tribune Building at 20 E. Archer St. into lofts.

Helm said the apartments slated for the East Village project will sit above small retail spaces, "like you see in major cities."

"We're not building apartments over Wal-Mart," he said.

The Wal-Mart Supercenter will back up to U.S. 75. On Fifth Street along Elgin Avenue over to Fourth Street and both sides of Fifth Street will be small retailers and the apartments, Helm said.

He said the apartments will be three to four stories high, with 10- to 12-foot ceiling heights. They will start out as rental space, but be built so that they can eventually be converted into individually owned condos.

"We think having a retail anchor to spur quality, smaller retailers will make the residential work, helping to create that critical mass needed to spur a true revitalization," he said.

Seay said the Wal-Mart Supercenter will play an important role.

"Quality retail won't come without the big draw, and Wal-Mart will be the big draw" Seay said.

He said he has already talked to some local restaurants and a national restaurant chain about the development.

Having the residents there, Seay said, will spur other small businesses like hair salons, cleaners and coffee houses.

"There is going to be 65,000 square feet of retail shops in the area," he said.

Seay said there are still issues that have to be worked out with the city on the project, including the creation of a tax increment financing district.

In a TIF district, some of the property and sales tax revenues generated from a development can be used to fund infrastructure improvements that normally would be the responsibility of the developer.

A retailer such as Wal-Mart could be a tremendous engine for a TIF district, city officials have said.

Seay and Helm said TIFs are essential to make large developments work in developed areas like a downtown because of the cost to deal with infrastructure issues.

"It is much cheaper to build on raw land," Helm said.

The city has several TIF districts downtown. Its newest one is in southwest Tulsa, where the Tulsa Hills shopping center is being built.

Another asset with Wal-Mart is the boost it will create to the city's sales tax revenue, the developers said.

Helm and Seay also pointed out that once the TIF dissolves there would be an increase in property tax revenue that would benefit the city and county.

[brunoflipper]

ok, i'm an optimist, so sue me... i had hoped this time it'd be different...

but the word on the street is that this is a  crap screen and seay is going to move forward with a bull**** big-box suburban design...

he's been asked to do a design similar to those i posted here http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7227&whichpage=2 and he declined...
seay's even gone as far as implying no one should expect more because "it's just tulsa"...

**** him and feed him beans...

if it is all his money, he can do whatever he wants but it won't be, he'll need a tiff... i'm betting that seay has yet to officially ask the mayor about getting a tiff...

now, the questions are:
needing a tiff, is the city willing to require a really urban design?
are we so desperate we'll take some ****ty suburban big-box dolled up with bricks and stucco, separated from the street by an asphalt ocean?

with a tiff in play, this fight needs to be about the building, the design and the land use and NOT the tenant... walmart will probably bail on the locale in 10 years, so it better be a good design...

this should all be about the developer... consider that walmart is trying hard to get into urban areas and might be willing to make many merchandise, design and  operational concessions to the vocal locals (just as they did in ATL)... seay however is trying to dupe us...

the mayor needs to know that we won't stand for seay's crappy suburban design in downtown...

everyone here needs to contact the mayor and let her know what you think...

[cannon_fodder]

I think I'm on board with you Brunno.

I think a Wal-Mart downtown is better than the vacant lots it will replace.  Cute mom and pop shops would be better, but its not happening.

However, if they want public money I want an "urban" design.  I do not, NOT want to see a 15 acre parking lot in front of the development.

[Renaissance]

Agreed.  This store MUST NOT have a generic, cheap design.  It is imperative that we get the Mayor and City Council's attention.  I am going to commence writing emails next week, after the PGA is gone.  It's going to be important to make noise now, even with the distraction of the upcoming river vote.  It can't wait till the drawings are finished and the writing is on the wall.  

Got to make this a mainstream concern . . .

[PreserveSouthTulsa.com]

For several years now, small busniesses have come and gone in the downtown area.  Most of these that have persihed have done so because of a lack of patronage.  It seems as though we all want to have locally-owned small businesses to revitalize downtown, but nobody (I'm included) seems to step up to the plate when they try.  
Then, when a big corporation comes along, we all cry about how it will ruin the urban landscape, the environment, vibe, etc.  However, most of this moaning about the corporate giant is done as we drive home from our corporate job after we make a quick stop at the area mega store.  
In the end, downtown is going to change one way or the other.  If we locals don't do it, some corporation will.  And I don't blame them for jumping on the opportunity.  
So I say: C'mon down Wal-Mart.  Build your shiny new store and fill it with your cheap and cheaply-made Chinese goods.  We will buy them as fast as you can stock them.  
And just think, the businesses and residences nearby won't have to paint anymore.  They will forever have a nice teal covering from all the plastic sacks blown from the parking lot.  Well, at least until Wal-Mart decides to move a few blocks away and leave behind its cavernous carcass.

[dsjeffries]

Thank you, Bruno... I thought for a while I was one of the few upset by the design, not the tenant...  

In fact, I came up with a design of my own for the store.  It's a basic, two-floor building that has the ability to be converted into smaller storefronts later on, with inspiration from the Gillette-Tyrrell Building.  
Just think...The only art deco Wal-Mart in the world... in Tulsa:



You can't see most of the details with the picture that small, so go to http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1042/1031084891_ad635aeb3b_o.jpg or my Flickr to see it in better detail.

[PreserveSouthTulsa.com]

quote:Originally posted by DScott28604

Thank you, Bruno... I thought for a while I was one of the few upset by the design, not the tenant...  

In fact, I came up with a design of my own for the store.  It's a basic, two-floor building that has the ability to be converted into smaller storefronts later on, with inspiration from the Gillette-Tyrrell Building.  
Just think...The only art deco Wal-Mart in the world... in Tulsa:



You can't see most of the details with the picture that small, so go to http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1042/1031084891_8c362f4f5f_o.jpg or my Flickr to see it in better detail.

Very interesting.  Such a design would help later on down the road when they leave the neighborhood.  And they almost always leave.

I am just afraid that their Deco would not be like your Deco.  Although just about any design can be done inexpensively with stucco.

[mac]

I, for one, have not walked into a Walmart for at least year and have not missed it one bit.

I don't know how it will be an anchor to a multi-use "village". What stores will be able to survive next to a Walmart? They already have everything from nail shops to medical centers.
What we really need downtown is more mass transit and locally owned shops and restaurants.

[Renaissance]

I'll echo Brunoflipper and Swake.  This could be good but it must be done right.  There's a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market serving the upscale State-Thomas area of Uptown Dallas, and it fits right in.  There's nothing inherently wrong with Wal-Mart as a grocer or a retailer, considering the grocery/retail vacuum in the area.  

But there is something inherently wrong with traditional big box retailing middle of any given downtown.  Tulsa can't expect radical redesign coming out of Bentonville, so forget all about multistory retail, a la Target in downtown Minneapolis or Chicago.  Big Box is coming to downtown.  

All voices concerned with downtown Tulsa can, and must, loudly demand major formatting changes in the presentment of that box.  My own list of requirements:

1.  Aesthetically unique design.  Not just a brick exterior, but major architectural elements lending to a sense of originality of place.  In other words, you look at the building and think, Tulsa, Oklahoma; NOT Anytown, USA.

2.  Urban-friendly parking.  There are at least three elements involved in functional urban parking.  First, integrated structured parking.  Don't just build a parking deck off to the side - integrate it into the building.  Second, break the surface lots up into pieces around the building in order to avoid swaths that are intimidating to the pedestrian.  Finally, these lots must be landscaped and fenced.  

3.  All buildings must address the street and have proper setbacks.  Structures must be close to the street to create a dense, lively feel, not segregatatd with swaths of concrete.  At the same time, there must not be solid brick walls abutting the sidewalk; rather, windows, entryways, and green spaces should abound.  

4.  The apartments, especially, should turn outward and address the neighborhood, with wide patios and windows that open.   Don't fence it off like the Rennaissance, or your street level retail won't flourish.  

5.  Infrastructure will include broad sidewalks for cafe seating and ease of pedestrian movement; traffic calming; pocket green space; and public art.

You want the TIF?  Follow the instructions.  

[TheArtist]

I am far more willing to put the effort into fighting for a better wal-mart design than no wal-mart. Still want to see this developers over all plan though.

Someone mentioned using current set backs. I would like to see new development have wider sidewalks between the buildings and the roads. More conducive to walking, strollers, wheelchairs, sidewalk cafe's, benches, trees, lights etc. Most of the current sidewalk space we have is too small.

[RecycleMichael]

My views are not against Wal-Mart, but believe that downtown should strive to have different things and different stores than the rest of the town. I just always hoped that downtown looked differently and Wal-Mart seems very content with doing the same thing over and over again.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because my wife doesn't trust me to go shopping.

Wal-Mart does have an impressive environmental record. Because they are now the largest buyer of organic cotton and organic produce in the world, thousands of farmers are now succeeding without the use of pesticides. They have also built very good green buildings, including a new one last year in McKinney, Texas that I would put up against any other retail store in America.

They have always supported recycling, even giving The M.e.t. most of our large containers used to recycle paper and glass. They have given us free rent and paid our electric bill for over a dozen years at the 81st and Lewis store. I have been doing "green shopping" training for their employees (my next is scheduled Monday at 10pm at the Admiral location for the third shift workers).

They are soon to announce a new pilot program for the Tulsa area stores to compost food waste from their stores. The landfill west of town has been working out the details in a separate area and if it proves successful, will be incorporated into all their operations. It will also mean that area restaurants and grocers will be able to also dramatically reduce the tonnage going for disposal  

Make the Downtown Wal-Mart unique, green, and attractive and I am ok.

They aren't my first choice for redevelopment, but the area they have selected ain't doing much for us right now either.

[dsjeffries]

To me, making a Wal-Mart 'unique to Tulsa' means making it art deco.  I've added color to my design  to show just how cool a Wal-Mart could actually be in downtown...  Like others have said, the design of this building will drive the future buildings in that part of downtown, so it needs to be done right, with style, and has to be unique.  Who knows, if they do decide to 1)take design suggestions and 2)make it art deco, Tulsa's favorite architectural style might just see another boom... I think it'd be great to see a large number of new art deco buildings in downtown.

(Click to enlarge)