If you give a CVB an arena...

Very good opinion article as usual in this week's UTW, Michael.

CSL Int'l is hardly an independent or reputable research firm regarding any purported need for a new downtown hotel.

Is someone forgetting that they were an integral player with the rest of the construction-design-attorney-bond-dealer cabal of tax-vampires that were the promoters of Vision 2025 beginning back in 2002?

By the time our severely over-budget $200 million Arena opens in late 2008, and runs empty for a few more years causing annual millions in financial hemorrage to City of Tulsa's budget, will anyone remember CSL's key role in promoting yet more tax-and-spend funding to "SAVE DOWNTOWN" with a tax-payer subsidized hotel?

Simply don't believe a word they say.

I hear rumors we now have a happy camper in Da House. There goes da neighborhood or welcome to da 21st Century, Oklahoma! I am happy to report there are NO happy campers in MY family line. Certainly there are a whole lotta cranks though.

Sliced smoked pork, eh? I know of a much better use of pigs. DROP PIGS NOT BOMBS. The war would be over in a heartbeat with nobody getting hurt, at least in this lifetime. Although they might not make out with the virgins in the afterlife. Oh well, trade-offs.

After watching Tulsa politics unfold for several years, I have a desire to get involved with a campaign and get my feet wet. From the winners in this primary, who would you recommend? Love the blog!

Ha! Not me. I want OUT. But as long as the idiots keep making me pay TAXES, I'll grouse. Payback.

I'd like to expand on the UTW comments about making Downtown the "vibrant urban center". If this is what is desired, then the focus will have to expand well beyond the boundaries of Downtown proper to something like a 4 mile radius. I doubt you can cram enough population into Downtown to make it a self-contained vibrant urban center. Someone might suggest high-rise apartments would do it. Take a look at the area around Liberty Tower and University Club Tower apartments ... not a lot of vibrant urbancy going on there that I can see.

Because Tulsa spends the big infrastructure bucks in the southeast, I think your vibrant urban types tend to be located there. If Tulsa builds lovely brick planters in the medians of Southeast Tulsa, and lovely walls between major streets and the neighborhoods next to them in Southeast Tulsa, while leaving areas around downtown to whatever happens, one would not expect vibrant urban types to congregating in areas around Downtown.

Consider that basic sidewalks on West Edison end at 33rd W. Ave.; and there are no sidewalks at all on Easton. So one sees kids walking to school in the street.

Consider that Southeast Tulsa creeks have been nicely urbanized or put completely underground in concrete pipelines, while Harlow creek is left to be whatever Harlow creek decides to be.

Of course, diversion of infrastructure funds from Southeast Tulsa to Old Tulsa probably would not sit well with the folk in the Southeast.

And ...
It's give a MOOSE a cookie.

Nope, it's If You Give a Moose a Muffin.

I agree that a vibrant urban center has to extend beyond the area within the IDL to the neighborhoods surrounding it. The master plan for OSU-Tulsa gives me some hope that, at the western edge of campus at least, there will be good walkable connections with the north end of Brady Village.

I also agree that high-rises aren't the answer, especially if they're built like Liberty Tower, University Club Tower, and Central Park Condos to be isolated from their surroundings, not integrated into a streetscape. Christopher Alexander advocated a four-story limit for housing, on the grounds that taller buildings tend to isolate people and actually make them crazy. I would add that, in Tulsa anyway, taller buildings usually require more space around them for "livability space", building service and parking, so that there isn't much of a density gain.

I haven't done the math, but I'll bet you could put 100 good-sized flats, plus street level retail/office space, plus parking in a typical downtown block using only four-story buildings.

Reading all this on downtown Tulsa, I kept coming back to this question: I wonder how the poor dudes that bought the Mayo Hotel feel?
At what point do we say , stop, turn around and look! It all keeps going on to the next latest , greatest thing.
How many hotel rooms were torn down in downtown ( where some stood, that space is still an empty parking lot) and now for some reason there is not enough rooms???
Or to say, how many rooms are potentially on tap at the Mayo? This GAP of$22Mil would fix it up,I think.
If I am going to put any of my $ into hotel building taxes, I want it to be spent at the Mayo FIRST.

Yep. Muffin. I remembered that about an hour after I posted. But remembering the moose part right away ain't bad after buying the book ... oh ... about 20 years ago.

$10 gas will bring back Downtown. If someone wants to push the issue, just convert da Whirled Building into a big pile of rubble. And, spin the whole bloody mess as a tourist attraction. Worked great for OKC.

Other than that, quit laying down the concrete for south Tulsa roads that move traffic OUTTA town.

Hey, finally had a chance to peruse your UTW article. I like to read it while getting my fingers covered with ink.

100% in support of the bottom line: Let the market decide.

And, why is the City even paying CSL to do the study? Another case of a gub'mint taking their eyes of the ball. Yer Job #1 is PUBLIC SAFETY. Leave the rest to the pros.