Quote:
Originally Posted by BIMBAM
Well, those sound like some great starts towards helping downtown Tulsa recover! As for helpful suggestions, I've been thinking and I may have a few. As has been stated, the people of Tulsa are ideologically conservative, and I have kept that in mind when trying to think of ideas that would be politically palatable. It seems to me that one of the biggest problems is that it's cheaper for a company to tear down a building and make it into a parking lot then to keep the building. Perhaps the first thing to do would be to increase taxes gradually, say 6% a year for five years, on vacant lots in the central business district, and then use that income to reduce taxes for the buildings in the downtown core. If kept revenues neutral or made as part of a net tax cut, conservatives should be able to support it. It's lowering taxes for businesses and creating an incentive to develop properties in downtown Tulsa and bring new jobs. In the end it's good for the parking lot owners to, because if it brings in more people to DT, that's more parking revenues for them.
If you want to promote a more urban aesthetic, one way might be to zone for maximum set backs from the street, but allow for unlimited parking at the rear of buildings. This allows businesses to offer as much parking as they'd like in a city with no PT options, won't come off as a war on the car to residents in autocentric areas, and will still maintain the cohesive urban 'look' of downtown. That way, when a developer might want to build something truly urban, it won't look out of place. Large back alley parking areas also gives freedom for easy additions as the need for more space grows, without overly affecting visibility to customers or getting in the way of business at the front door.
Making urban buildings legal under zoning was a great idea and definitely necessary.
Tulsa's downtown is deserted and needs some residents to liven the place up. Unfortunately, people want to move into a neighbourhood, not a place where no people live. City would need to partner with a few big developers and make a plan for a neighbourhood with things like a grocery store and pharmacy in it, or no one will move there. Then with a big developer willing to start things off by building a bunch of the first buildings, smaller firms could fill in the remaining lots. In Canada, I know Griffintown in Montreal, the Olympic Village in Vancouver, Wesbrook Village at University of BC, the Don Lands in Toronto, the East Village in Calgary, and Ottawa's Lebreton Flats are examples of sucessful new urban neighbourhood building which could serve as models (there's probably more relevant American examples in some US cities to). It'd also have to be somewhere really choice, like a walkable community next to the hospital, aimed at seniors who want easy access to healthcare but aren't mobile for driving anymore. Or a planned neighbourhood with shops next to that glorious new park you mentioned, to maximize the value of the land adjacent to this grand public asset. Something that screams upside potential. Once there's some residents nearby with the various amenities they bring with them, speading development closer into downtown will be an easier sell.
To help make itself the go to place for Tulsans, downtown could perhaps offer special low tax incentives for entertainment venues and restaurants. Say no taxes for three years and low taxes afterwards. This might hopefully lead to clubs, music venues and restaurants developing all those parking lots to take advantage of the lack of NIMBY residents, the best access to transit in the metro (for when people are drunk), the allure of skyscrapers which are fun to see at night, people partying after going to the BOK centre, and suburbanites wanting to go somewhere that feels lively on the weekend. Nighttime bus service on the weekend to downtown would certainly compliment this plan.
Anyhow, those are my suggestions for thing that to my mind seems doable in Tulsa. Of course, none of it might be feasible at all, I don't know much about the city other then what I've tried to glean from wandering around on google maps.
|
Your tax idea seems quite interesting to consider will definitely put that out there and see what the response is.
From your and others assessments of downtown it's apparent that "from the air" looking at a google map, our downtown really does look like the entirety must be a stagnant, dead wasteland. Indeed, even just 5 or 6 years ago you could go to the heart of two skyscraper canyons, the intersection of Boston Ave and 5th streets, in the evening after work hours and hardly see a car parked on the side of the road or one driving down it, or nary a single other sole walking down the street. Once I even laid down right in the middle of the road taking pictures up towards the tops of the buildings without worrying that a car would run over me lol.
http://www.maketulsa.com/2011/11/ind...shopping-2011/
click on that photo of downtown photo by Kelly Kerr. Empty. The blog is about a bunch of local young people going into some of these buildings with temporary shops for Christmas. Many of the shops are now permanent and growing. The building to the far far right now has several shops in it, the one just to it's left is now condos with ground floor retail, the one past that is now a Courtyard Marriott with shops and galleries, the one to the far far right corner is getting ground floor retail and its neighbor is being turned into lofts. etc. Now there are always cars up and down the street even in the evenings, there are several outdoor seating/eating areas, people on the sidewalks, and so on. Finally that beautiful core is coming alive.
Now within just a couple blocks of that intersection there are many old buildings that were once offices that have been turned into hotels and hundreds and hundreds of lofts with dozens of new ground floor retail shops, galleries, cafe's and restaurants, gyms, a small museum, and now even a few chains (definitely a sign that things are on the upswing). I just opened a shop this last Christmas at the corner of 6th and Boston (DECOPOLIS Studios, check us out on Facebook!
www.facebook.com/decopolis the space was a wreck and abandoned for over 30 years. Owners gave us a good rate but no build out so doing it all out of pocket and with hard work and creativity, we are still a work in progress lol). I know I am an "early adopter" in the area but even right by me the old Art Deco, ARCO/Service Pipeline oil company building just to the north is being turned into lofts with ground floor retail, to the east of me an incredible mid century bank building has been saved and turned into a snazzy, new restaurant,
http://vaulttulsa.com/ then right out my front window across the park the beautiful Art Deco, TransOk building is being converted into lofts with ground floor retail.
So far every single old building that has been turned into lofts has sold out before or right after it was renovated. Recently a large property holder (Kanbar of Sky Vodka who bought up in one fell swoop almost a THIRD of all of downtowns office building space because he believed that Tulsa was an undiscovered treasure ripe for redevelopment) just announced they are to begin work on another 700 living units. And in the last few years we have finally started seeing NEW (yay, finally lol) construction, apartment and condo buildings go up in other parts of downtown. And yes, a grocery store is due to open downtown later in the year.
The north part of downtown is really growing with lots of infill, the heart or core where the big skyscrapers are has been turning around. The north side had 3 tiny "districts" "Brady Arts
www.thebradyartsdistrict.com (where the Cains Ballroom and Brady Theater are and the brand new Guthrie Green
www.guthriegreen.com )" "Greenwood greenwoodchambertulsa.com (where the new baseball stadium is)" and "Blue Dome
www.facebook.com/BlueDomeTulsa (named after an old art deco gas station that acts as a landmark for the area)" kind of hipster central for Tulsa. What's exciting is to see those 3 small districts beginning to all grow and you can now see that in time they will merge into quite a substantial chunk of pedestrian friendly urbanity (Google maps is WAY outdated in these areas showing empty spaces where there are now buildings). But yea, I figure it will be a while before that wasteland on the south side has anything done with it. The north side had some small old buildings that could be redeveloped by local entrepreneurs who began the transformation and now your seeing larger developments go in. But the south side doesn't have that. It's mostly large chunks of property owned by the local Jr College and some large downtown Churches for their parking.
Prev
I so agree with you. I read what he posted also but I was going to let it pass - because it was kinda vague - not sure if it was a backhanded compliment or not. Now that he is doubling down on his comparisons, the vagueness I had is more clear.
Linear Mode
