Just look at the gap between Paycom and the boulevard, all owned by the City and just sitting there for a decade; didn't even have a sidewalk until recently.
It's the same across the entire length apart from the Omni and Scissortail Park.
Just look at the gap between Paycom and the boulevard, all owned by the City and just sitting there for a decade; didn't even have a sidewalk until recently.
It's the same across the entire length apart from the Omni and Scissortail Park.
Agreed, but it is part of the problem, not the whole problem. Developers are not lining up anywhere near either side of the blvd. No developments around Farmers Market. Strawberry Fields seems dead for years. Mazaheri has made no movement. The apartments by the Omni seem stalled. None of these rely on the setbacks. I can't believe putting in a round about and bringing it to grade at Classen would make these developers move.
As I said, there is no private land to develop anywhere along the boulevard, including and especially Farmer's Market.
The closest thing to it is the old Lumberyard owned by Mazaheri and there was just an announcement last week that that is trying to be acquired by the Stadium District group... And even that property has a big setback from the boulevard.
These huge gaps comprised of weirdly-shaped properties are exactly why there was so much advocacy just to return everything to the original street grid and create developable land. What we have now is a 100% consequence of basically turning the old I-40 into a street-level quasi freeway with huge setbacks.
They should use the blvd for light rail if it passes until it joins back up with Reno
Its really silly seeing a streetcar track sandwiched between a sidewalk and another sidewalk north of the boulevard. "We're going to have this random section where its not a streetcar".
Yep. It would take a lot to extend the streetcar to these great areas, but to do so before 2028 would be a great idea. But as Jedi said, won’t happen. And that’s too bad.
Yesterday, they were out doing some exploratory work in the area where I believe the stadium will be located.
The trucks were pulling away just as I got my drone in the air.
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That last shot is awesome, Pete! Gives a great perspective of where the stadium will be.
Has that area already been remediated from an environmental standpoint? I'm pretty sure the land that Moshe Tal owned where TK7 used to operate would at least need a Phase 2 site assessment, if not higher.
Yeah, sorry I don't know how to blow it up any better. If you want, go to the oklahoma county assessor website: https://docs.oklahomacounty.org/Asse...aultSearch.asp.
Click the "MAP Search" tab at the top and then zoom in to the area between Shields and 235. It will show you the set back. Then go west and look at the set backs. Just west of Western along the Boulevard is a massive set back and all private ownership.
To Pete's earlier point, the city owns most of the land right next to the boulevard so unless you have an in with the city and can buy it from them to develop it, you are going to be well removed from it. Again, it's just a bad design.
I know this has been discussed earlier in the thread, but will there still be a significant amount of mitigation work for the soil pollution here?
Yes.
And the standard is much higher for residential properties (which will be a big part of the proposed development) than for something like the stadium itself.
No idea how the developers plan to deal with this and by consensus of anyone who knows about contamination, there is no way to know the extent of buried oil tanks and other issues until they dig up the entire property. Remember that long before this was the Producer's Coop, it was a huge oilfield back when nobody even considered environmental impact.
If the contamination in the area is that risky, how deep do you need to dig to determine what kinds of development would be suitable for the area.
Looks like enough land to build the MAPS 4 Multipurpose Stadium and a future 75,000 seat 'retractable roof stadium,' beyond 2030.
They would be required to dig as far down as the contaminants have seeped and to remove that soil until the site meets established levels of cleanliness. That could easily be a hundred feet or more, depending on how contaminated the site is, and would require millions of dollars of work.
I remember when the lot on the NE corner of NW Expressway and Portland was being readied for construction of the former Circuit City location. There had been a gas station on that corner for many years, and the removal of the tanks and contaminated soil required that they remove TONS of soil. They had to be 50 to 60 feet below grade, at least to my memory.
This is the current ownership of the various parcels in this area.
Echo Soccer (Kanady) bought the 9 acres for $13 million last month. Beffort bought the one parcel for Mose Tal for $1.3 million; I believe Beffort bought the other Tal parcels as well but that's not what is indicated on the County Assessor site.
You can see there are several different owners, road right-of-way, and from my understanding a bunch of railroad easements throughout.
Depending on how things go with future acquisitions, they may be planning to create ingress/egress at Walnut Ave. The Boulevard is pretty much at ground level at that location.
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I do hope the developers have considered the cost of remediation in their figures. I would hope they already have done soil sampling, as well. It would suck if this development gets paused or canceled because of lack of forethought, with regards to how bad the soil is (or could be).
I am assuming that the parties involved are aware of all the contamination issues, but you never know. Some people see the whole forest, then the trees come up and bite them.
Edit to add that I do believe they have. Just know that things can sometimes not be taken into account. Trees within the forest have taken down large developments before (not just OKC).
I look forward to seeing how this plays out!
Echo started in the oil and gas business so I would be very surprised if they didn't do their due diligence on the cost of remediation for the property. Also, I am sure there will be a public assistance ask (TIF) for the project and whatever that is will help offset the costs.
I understand what you are saying, but I am as sure as anything ever discussed on OKC Talk that the soil issues are intimately known to all parties involved. There was someone on this thread, or another one about the site, that walked us through all the issues and solutions with contamination and remediation. Very well done, and it was in 2024 IIRC. Anyone remember it?
This site was obviously not contaminated to the Superfund level, as it was never listed on that. I'd be more concerned about contamination around Moshe Tal's properties than I would be the Producers Coop site. TK7 produced fuel additives and who knows if those ingredients and products were stored safely?
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