I live about 3 blocks from the Hospital. Figured I might make a thread for the East part of Norman.

we can put in news and good businesses to use.

The Conoco at porter and robinson is a better place since the new owner took over. His name is Raj (sp) Nice guy..

One new business I think other people should check out on Norman's East Side is that new Boomerang Car Wash, located just south of Kongo's and right next door to the new Pizza Hut on 12th St. NE. It's a ride-thru car wash/dry that took me only 3 minutes to get through, and only cost $5. They also have FREE Vacuums!

I used to go to the self-serves on this side of town and had spots no matter how much I used their "spot free rinse". This car wash was vastly superior to any of those. (and even the automatic "touchless" ones over here)

On another note...Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers (Alameda and 12th) and Chicken Express (E. Lindsay) have both opened recently. I have tried both and was very pleased.

I live in east Norman as well (actually east of 12th). Didn't really know that Norman had such a busy forum all its own. Anyway, yeah, Raising Cane's chicken fingers are really good. Especially the dipping sauces. We also went to the Tea House over by the Albertson's, it's ok for lunch, but choices in entrees are rather limited, if you want chinese, just head on over to the superbuffet across the street, or on the west side next to Interstate Dr. The Tea House is mainly for tea lovers.

Switching gears for a bit, has anyone noticed the traffic getting worse in the past couple of years on 12th? Especially with all the new development...

Abner's at 12th adn alemeda is a good place for lunch and dinner, there meatloaf was good, lunch one day I tried a big honking chicken fried sandwhich is was good too, adn if anybody loves garlic like me you have to try there garlic frys, ooohhh there are so good. I have been there twice adn am tryign to go back more so I can try more on there menu.

Rasing canes, is a ok place if you like chicken fingers, thats all they sell. They are good compared to other chicken fingers I have ate that was either dry or tough, its kinda on the high side but worth it for the quality of the food you get.

There is also a new sonic at 24th east and alameda? I think it is, or could be lindsey.

Yeah the new sonic is on Alameda and 24th. Raising Canes is one of my frequent stops...even though they seem to have fired all their employees and started over recently. LOL

Boomerang is definitely night for the car wash need...much better than the self use things. Now I just wish we could get a couple of other venues the west side has. More restaurants would be nice. It gets old driving to the west side to really do anything in Norman...but I doubt it will stay that way forever.

The east side is growing pretty quickly with new developments really getting close to the lake. Of course East Norman is also a lot bigger than the west side since it goes all the way out to Pott County...so more room to grow. :)

Needless to say...I like living over here. I live in a development, but I still have a backyard with nothing but trees behind me...and you don't see that everywhere.

Pott County... that's pretty good. Never called it that, yet.

Abner's-I love that place. It's one of the few locally owned places that I would love to go and eat at. Try the grilled chicken sandwich with the garlic fries, mmmm, so good. They also have daily specials for lunch and dinner. Best of all, all the food they make is made from organic ingredients and prepared fresh everyday, from the sandwiches to the pasta.

those garlic frys are good, organic ingredients are what make it good.

The East Village development will definitely be a good thing for east Norman. It will add a variety of stores and eateries and be the first mixed-use development of its kind on the eastside. Also I have heard a CVS will be going in at the East Village corner of 12th and Lindsey. Hopefully it is at the same semi-urban scale as East Village with minimal parking out front and lots of landscaping, something that caters more to pedestrians rather than cars. It would be great to see Griffin Memorial Hospital somehow relocated someday and that whole area redeveloped into townhomes and houses. It would really be huge for Norman to do some major infill development like that, instead of just building out east. Of course Norman isn't far from reaching the designated greenbelt east of 36th Street.

^What's the greenbelt east of 36th? The large areas of trees with dotted with country homes?

Just so that they some how get the eastern loop idea actually moving forward to provide a faster way for us on this side to get up to the city. Sooner Road is okay...but it is getting extremely crowded and speeds are too mixed...35 to 75mph and its just a matter of time before crossover/head on accidents start happening.

Are there any long range plans for a metro east loop? It would make sense to convert Highway 9 in Norman into a limited access freeway (like it is around 12th Street) and construct a new highway on the east side of Norman up to Midwest/Del City all the way to I-44.

You can look at Norman's Greenbelt proposals here: Greenbelt (http://www.ci.norman.ok.us/planning/greenbelt/default.htm)

Norman currently has protected greenbelts on the westside (10 Mile Flats flood plain), the northside as a "buffer" between Norman and Moore, and the eastside around Lake Thunderbird. I think these are great for Norman and will encourage more infill development in the future.

On a completely diffrent note, what do you you guys think about bizjet traffic at Westheimer Airport once the hotel/conference center is completed at UNP? The airport already handles at least 4-5 bizjets/props a week (maybe even more, just going off of what I see on Flightaware), I'm thinking that with the hotel/conference center literally at the doorstep of OUN, bizjet/prop traffic will only increase. Question is by how much though. Still, no problem because aviation student runs aside, the airport is pretty much unused.

If it creates excess noise which I am sure it will, city of norman will put a damper on it. I was told that at one time norman was going to have a bigger airline come in, why one of the runways is oversized for the small planes that fly out of there, but city of norman shot it down saying it was in violation of noise ordanace(sp) createing a noise pollution violation. I think it would be great if it did happen would bring money into norman which is what we need.

OUN is actually one of the busiest airports in Oklahoma, one of the few known facts. The main reason of course is the OU students in the Aviation program.

The largest jet i've seen in there so far has been an Embraer ERJ-135/Legacy a couple years back. It was a push for it to make it out.

Airline traffic at OUN is a thing of the past...but as Norman grows, so will the general aviation traffic. Good thing here...attempt to push more departing traffic to the north where there is little development. The key is to balance the development and keep too many people from getting near the airport.

Personally what I would like to see in connection with the UNP development is a new air museum on the west side of the airport. The runway is long enough to bring in most aircraft and it would be a huge draw.

^Yeah, OUN is was at one point busier than OKC in terms of annual operations before Airman Flight School shut down ops.

Btw, I saw that Embraer Legacy you're talking about. I remember seeing a huge tail in front of the terminal (seemed three times as tall as the terminal itself lol) going what the... before I realised it was a Legacy corporate jet. But the largest jet that has come in now is a Dornier 328-100 turboprop, some company flew it in a few weeks ago. I didn't see it in person but it was on Flightaware.

The longest runway (17-35) is 5200 feet, I'm pretty sure they won't extend that. They could but it would intersect 3-21 and then the glideslope would get lower over that residential area. But yeah, I agree that GA traffic will grow as Norman grows.

I remember hearing about a proposed airline based out of Norman called Central Airlines I believe. They were going to fly charters to OU football away games. The architecture firm I used to work for in Tulsa (gh2 Gralla) drew up some schematic designs for their terminal to be built at OUN. Of course it fell through. I highly doubt you will ever see passenger service from Norman, the city is only 20 miles or so away from WRWA.

^Yeah, I'm pretty sure there won't be airline service at OUN. Especially as bizjet/prop traffic picks up in the coming years. Besides, the runways are too short for adverse weather operations with larger aircraft anyway.