Riverwalk Phase II

[Gaspar]

Few more pics from their website





I can see walking along this and having fun at a bookstore, coffee shop, small bistro with sidewalk seating, etc

I hope they don't enforce the use of European licence plates on all of the cars.

[Townsend]

I hope they don't enforce the use of European licence plates on all of the cars.

I think they look cooler.

[Hawkins]

After favoring this area and frequenting it often, I've come to the conclusion that the whole thing is a pipe dream.

71st Street is a main artery. 96th Street is not. The Hills shopping center happened, Riverwalk Phase II (as it was originally planned) and the Driller Stadium development did not.

Stick a fork in it because that corner of Jenks is done. Riverwalk Phase I is now close to 50% vacant. TK's and Ale Haus have both shut their doors.

Main Street Jenks (96th Street) is an antique mall. It looks like a Mexican tourist town (except it is a lot cleaner, I'll give Jenks that).

There are hotter areas and safer trends to chase if you are a developer right now.

[tshane250]

Ugh, I wish Tulsa Hills had followed a model more like this instead of an anywhere USA strip mall approach.  Just my opinion, though.

[Red Arrow]

Tulsa Hills has managed to be both pedestrian and automobile unfriendly.  What kind of business model is that?

[OurTulsa]

We might want to rethink our rail connection to B.A. as the first priority.  There are so many opportunities along the west bank of the River terminating at downtown Jenks.  The entire line could be destinations if done right.


http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=32&articleid=20091008_32_E1_Sasaki938041

A-list designer to guide Jenks
The Village on Main is enlisting a prestigious urban design group.

By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Published: 10/8/2009  2:28 AM
Last Modified: 10/8/2009  4:17 AM

Sasaki Associates, a Boston-based architecture and urban design group, will help guide the look and feel of Jenks' new "front door."

Officials of Sasaki are meeting Thursday through Saturday with representatives of The Village on Main, the $60 million, 420,000-square-foot retail, office, residential and hotel project under development south of 96th Street near the Arkansas River.

Jenny Laubach, the media relations and marketing director for The Village on Main LLC, said gaining the assistance of Sasaki adds prestige to the center. "This is the equivalent of Cesar Pelli designing the BOK Center," she said.

Sasaki, which has designed buildings, urban districts, collegiate facilities and shopping centers across the globe, is no stranger to Oklahoma. The firm provided project management, technical landscape and civil engineering design services for the construction of the Oklahoma City Memorial.

Fred Merrill, a partner at Sasaki assigned to The Village on Main, said he is intrigued by the vision for the project as well as Jenks itself.

"The idea that The Village on Main is an extension of downtown Jenks is a very exciting opportunity to bring good urbanism to the city," Merrill said.

Sasaki won't fully design the project's eight buildings. Instead, the firm will develop general design guidelines for the area.

The goal is to make the area feel diverse yet unified, as well as give large tenants a degree of freedom in their building designs, said Bob Eggleston of The Village on Main LLC.

"Instead of having a design with one style, we wanted it to feel like a village with different styles within a certain set of guidelines," he said.

The goal is to incorporate "smart growth" — a building strategy in which developers use a limited amount of land in the most efficient way — with green areas, pedestrian-friendly spaces and a general feeling of openness.

Sasaki representatives also will meet with the major tenants signed so far — Eggleston said he cannot yet identify them publicly — plus political and economic leaders in the city. In addition, the group will attend the Art on Main festival in downtown Jenks on Saturday, Merrill said.

"We want to be quiet observers and see how people use the space, and see how The Village on Main can reinforce that," he said.

The development's first building, a 22,000-square-foot medical facility to be occupied by Utica Park Clinic, is under construction with a targeted completion date in May.

Approximately 110,000 square feet of retail space is reserved for the first phase of the project, Laubach said.

[Townsend]

The goal is to make the area feel diverse yet unified, as well as give large tenants a degree of freedom in their building designs, said Bob Eggleston of The Village on Main LLC.

Kind of makes me think that means the box stores will still look like box stores.

[Hawkins]

Tulsa Hills has managed to be both pedestrian and automobile unfriendly.  What kind of business model is that?

Well its a model that has brought in several large tenants (like Super Target) and some nice nationally recognized surprises like Books-a-Million and Buffalo Wild Wings.

Those three stores alone (forget the other 20-30 tenants) probably generate twice the revenue of all of downtown Jenks and the Riverwalk combined.

In short, the Hills has commerce. The 96th Street corridor has failure.

The 81st & Riverside Casino is the juggernaut of the area, and it is thusfar disconnected from what they are trying to do in Jenks. And I'm starting to wonder why they (developers) ever looked at Jenks. Its a small town.

Its not like Broken Arrow, which landed a Bass Pro Shop, or Downtown Tulsa, which got the Drillers.

I'm just venting here, because like you guys, I saw the Riverwalk and thought 'Hey! This is what Tulsa needs!!" Its beautiful and different, and not 'Box Chain' material.

But now, several years later... it is a failure.

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[Hawkins]

Ugh, I wish Tulsa Hills had followed a model more like this instead of an anywhere USA strip mall approach.  Just my opinion, though.

They used a proven business model that attracted major tenants. Can't argue with that.

Unsightly? Perhaps? Pedestrian unfriendly? Yes.

Raking in the cash and drawing in the consumers? Oh yes. TRY to go to Buffalo Wild Wings on a Tuesday. I dare you.

[TheArtist]

 The Riverwalk imo is just too small as it is to be the kind of "destination" shopping/dining/entertainment experience one would imagine it could be. Perhaps this phase 2 development will push it over the edge in that respect. Kind of reminds me of Brookside versus Utica Square. Utica Square has just enough shopping of the right mixes to make it a nice "hey lets go to Utica Square and do some shopping" Where as Brookside, as much as I would love for it to be that way, does not. Its more of an eat and hang out type place and the shops that are there are ones I would only go to if I were looking for something in particular, not just to browse/impulse buy or do my X-mas shopping for instance. And Brookside does have its club/bar/coffee shop elements as well.

Again, the Riverwalk has a few restaurant draws, but not enough mass of anything else to make it a true draw. Its unique set up and the fact that it is on the river helps in the uniqueness and desirable ambiance category, (we wouldnt be talking about it otherwise) but you need more than that. 

As for the Main Street thing and why build there... demographics. Jenks may be a small city, but it still has the right demographics and is growing. There are a lot of small shopping/dining/office type developments on corners all over far South Tulsa. Plus I still say that the area could use a newer, more "upscale" shopping area. The Jenks/South Tulsa area is full of new middle and upper middle class, families and teens who like shopping for certain types of things and like the new "Town Square" type environments that have worked plenty well in these types of areas all over the country. Why not here as well?

Look at the income profiles presented in the middle of this page for the old River District proposal.   

[Red Arrow]

Well its a model that has brought in several large tenants (like Super Target) and some nice nationally recognized surprises like Books-a-Million and Buffalo Wild Wings.

Getting in and out of the parking lots is terrible.  I understand the designers not wanting the lots to be the local drag strips but there are many instances where you think you are heading for an exit only to find yourself in the no-exit area of a maze.  There are several instances of exits on the east side lots that only turn north.  People wind up on the north bound side of the access road trying to go south.  I have seen a few, my brother has seen several more.  I expect the stores will mostly be successful since the alternative is 71st and 169 or a few other scattered locations that folks on the west side of (maybe) Lewis won't bother to go to.  That doesn't make it a friendly place to go, just better than the combined hassle of the other locations.

[TheArtist]

One other thing..... Us urbafiles (or however you spell that) are fond of talking about pedestrian friendly this, pedestrian friendly that.  One day when talking to the folks, they can be quite blunt sometimes, about downtown and pedestrian friendly developments, they said something to the effect "Why the hell would anyone want to walk around out in the rain, or cold or heat or wind or snow, when they can walk around in the air conditioned comfort of a mall?  Especially in this climate!"  

Now, I can come up with plenty of responses to that, but there is till a big hunk of truth in what they said. And that truth got me to thinking about what we are wanting to create downtown, or in these other pedestrian friendly districts.

Design and details matter.

We dont have large swaths of dense, pedestrian oriented, urban areas and or a lot of people used to walking and biking places in inclement weather.  What areas we or developers are going to create should take these factors into account, otherwise these small, starter, pedestrian friendly, urban areas, will have a heck of a time competing with the malls and megastore, car oriented developments.

So I have thought about what would help these starter, pedestrian areas, be more likely to be used in our environment (cultural and meteorological ).  I have found a lot of solutions in how they used to do things back when they had to walk.

Look at downtown in the old pics... Awnings eeeeeeverywhere. New buildings, even old ones they are refurbishing today, they tend to leave the awnings off.  A long forgotten, but important detail imo.  Loggias.  I remember being in Paris, loggias everywhere, lining entire blocks of buildings.  Especially ones that have lots of shops and ground level retail. Interconnected shops. Eureka Springs, Disney World,,, I can think of lots of places in which the shopping areas have shops and restaurants here and there that are connected to the store next door, on the inside.  Some spots even have glass archways from the roof of one building over the street to the next building forming a kind of "street mall".

No need to have every inch of sidewalk covered with awnings or loggias, or every place connected.  But you do want enough of them to make the weather less of a concern. Especially in areas where you want people to shop, and dine, and stroll. Its like we are trying to go back to an older way of doing things, but have sadly forgotten some of the important details that make these things work.

We need to pay more attention to these details in Downtown (around the ballpark, Blue Dome, Brady Arts, for instance). Lets not forget the awnings, loggias, etc.  Look at the weather we have been having lately. If we want these areas to work in this city, new construction and developers should put these things in. And unfortunately most of what I have been seeing doesnt have it.  One hopes that someone from "Sasaki Associates" is walking around in Jenks, in this downpour, right now lol.

[Hawkins]

Getting in and out of the parking lots is terrible.  I understand the designers not wanting the lots to be the local drag strips but there are many instances where you think you are heading for an exit only to find yourself in the no-exit area of a maze.  There are several instances of exits on the east side lots that only turn north.  People wind up on the north bound side of the access road trying to go south.  I have seen a few, my brother has seen several more.  I expect the stores will mostly be successful since the alternative is 71st and 169 or a few other scattered locations that folks on the west side of (maybe) Lewis won't bother to go to.  That doesn't make it a friendly place to go, just better than the combined hassle of the other locations.

Spoken like a true Tulsa driver!!   

If you spent a year living in Dallas like I did, you would fall to your knees and kiss the asphalt upon returning to Tulsa and its simplicity of layout (including this Hills Shopping center parking lot).

In Dallas, it takes 45 minutes to go anywhere, and an hour to get back. U-turns are part of normal vehicular travel. Nothing is on a direct route. Lose your way back to the highway and you are lost forever.

Tulsa, and this "maze" in the Hills Shopping center is juvenile stuff, my friend. Juvenile, direction mobility 101 stuff.

Stop drinking the water. I've narrowed it down, and I think there might be something in the Tulsa water supply that docilifies local area residents driving behaviors.

Oh, but this does bring up my main point about why Downtown Jenks development is doomed.

96th street is not a main artery and people in Tulsa are afraid to cross it. 71st Street is, it is a connection of the simplicity of the South Tulsa layout, and that is why the Hills won the day.

On Black Friday this year, the Hills will be mega-jammed, the stores packed with shoppers, Buffalo Wild Wings and Smash Burgers will have lines out the door...

and the Riverwalk will be its usual wintertime ghost-town...

--

[Hoss]

Spoken like a true Tulsa driver!!   

If you spent a year living in Dallas like I did, you would fall to your knees and kiss the asphalt upon returning to Tulsa and its simplicity of layout (including this Hills Shopping center parking lot).

In Dallas, it takes 45 minutes to go anywhere, and an hour to get back. U-turns are part of normal vehicular travel. Nothing is on a direct route. Lose your way back to the highway and you are lost forever.

Tulsa, and this "maze" in the Hills Shopping center is juvenile stuff, my friend. Juvenile, direction mobility 101 stuff.

Stop drinking the water. I've narrowed it down, and I think there might be something in the Tulsa water supply that docilifies local area residents driving behaviors.

Oh, but this does bring up my main point about why Downtown Jenks development is doomed.

96th street is not a main artery and people in Tulsa are afraid to cross it. 71st Street is, it is a connection of the simplicity of the South Tulsa layout, and that is why the Hills won the day.

On Black Friday this year, the Hills will be mega-jammed, the stores packed with shoppers, Buffalo Wild Wings and Smash Burgers will have lines out the door...

and the Riverwalk will be its usual wintertime ghost-town...

--

That's why I was lucky I got to spend three years in Houston; it made me appreciate the simplicity of Tulsa traffic.  I hear people moan and complain about the BA or 169 or I-44, then I remind myself of what the Katy Freeway in Houston was like before they widened it in the early nineties and chuckle at some of the people here.

Northern VA made me appreciate it as well; I-66 coming out of the Beltway towards Herndon/Manassas about 4pm is taking your life into your own hands.

[Red Arrow]

Spoken like a true Tulsa driver!!   

If you spent a year living in Dallas like I did, you would fall to your knees and kiss the asphalt upon returning to Tulsa and its simplicity of layout (including this Hills Shopping center parking lot).

I deliberately chose NOT to look for employment in Dallas.  They are, however, jumping ahead of Tulsa in Light Rail transportation.  Yep, Tulsa is easy to navigate.  I think it's a plus, not a detractor.

In Dallas, it takes 45 minutes to go anywhere, and an hour to get back. U-turns are part of normal vehicular travel. Nothing is on a direct route. Lose your way back to the highway and you are lost forever.

I grew up in southeast PA, near Philadelphia.  In PA the roads were made where the cows walked.  In many places, literally.  The roads go around trees.  In the 30s, Gov Pinchot wanted PA to have the greatest roads. They graded them and put down stones and oil.  Good for the time.  By the early 70s when our family moved to OK, many PA roads were the same except for many more layers of stone and oil.  Up and down and twisty, great for sports cars.  If you don't follow route numbers, you will be hopelessly lost.  The concept is easy for me.

Tulsa, and this "maze" in the Hills Shopping center is juvenile stuff, my friend. Juvenile, direction mobility 101 stuff.

I am presently home, indicating I did not stay in the maze.  There are many things I can do that I don't like.  Just because Dallas is worse doesn't negate the fact that the parking in Tulsa Hills is still a bad design.  The Hills is automobile dependent.  It should be automobile friendly.

Stop drinking the water. I've narrowed it down, and I think there might be something in the Tulsa water supply that docilifies local area residents driving behaviors.

I only occasionally drink Tulsa water, then only the filtered stuff from the coffee/hot water machine at work.  Tulsa drivers drive me nuts.

Oh, but this does bring up my main point about why Downtown Jenks development is doomed.

96th street is not a main artery and people in Tulsa are afraid to cross it. 71st Street is, it is a connection of the simplicity of the South Tulsa layout, and that is why the Hills won the day.

Downtown Jenks is kind of what many here promote,  store fronts to the sidewalk, a little on street parking, mom and pop shops. Mostly nothing I am interested in though.  There used to be a hardware store but it went away long ago. Housing is not far away in the older part of town.  I won't count all the new development in the "suburbs of Jenks" for this discussion.   Access to Jenks via the 96th street bridge is about as easy as it gets from Riverside.  I think success is more a matter of Tulsans like big box stores and the convenience (in spite of the parking lot) of the Hills.  I'm not sure what this means to the development of downtown Tulsa.

On Black Friday this year, the Hills will be mega-jammed, the stores packed with shoppers, Buffalo Wild Wings and Smash Burgers will have lines out the door...

and the Riverwalk will be its usual wintertime ghost-town...

--