Tulsa, Not OKC, Is Getting a Hard Rock

[Steve]

Oneforone, this might interest you: Planet Hollywood actually did look at coming to Lower Bricktown in the late 1990s.
Now, for the rest of this debate, let's go with the premise that Moshe Tal, who had no development experience and never showed proof of financing other than stating he had unnamed investors from South America, actually got to develop Lower Bricktown instead of Randy Hogan.
And let's presume the Moshe Tal got to build everything and signed up a Hard Rock Cafe. Considering that the Hard Rock Cafes in Dallas and Austin have since closed, do you think the one here would have survived more than a few years?

[progressiveboy]

Oneforone, this might interest you: Planet Hollywood actually did look at coming to Lower Bricktown in the late 1990s.
Now, for the rest of this debate, let's go with the premise that Moshe Tal, who had no development experience and never showed proof of financing other than stating he had unnamed investors from South America, actually got to develop Lower Bricktown instead of Randy Hogan.
And let's presume the Moshe Tal got to build everything and signed up a Hard Rock Cafe. Considering that the Hard Rock Cafes in Dallas and Austin have since closed, do you think the one here would have survived more than a few years?

Actually HR did close in Dallas where they were located on McKinney Ave, however, as I previously posted, HR Cafe has reopened in Dallas which had their grand reopening on July 15. They are located in Victory Park. The local news station in DFW stated they missed being in Dallas and they are very happy to be back in Big D.

[jbrown84]

Point being, Progressive, that if HRC can't survive in Austin, then it probably wouldn't have lasted here for long.

Toby Keith's is a pretty good substitute.

[andimthomas]

Yeahh okay all the TV commercials and billboard advertising are getting annoying already.

[Jesseda]

hard rock cafe is like any other place its is expanding and opening up in almost every state, soon it will be like a chilis, every city over 20,000 people will have one lol..

[bluedogok]

Point being, Progressive, that if HRC can't survive in Austin, then it probably wouldn't have lasted here for long.

I actually think it could survive in OKC easier than it could in Austin. When it comes to Central Austin it is very much a more locally oriented town, that is what the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign is all about. I went into the HRC here once and it seemed no different than the other ones that I had been to before, there was no "localization" of the Austin location or if there was it was hard to find. That pretty much is the opposite of what Central Austin is about and the fact they rarely had live music there pretty much doomed them in this market, I think the only times that it ever had much of a crowd was during SXSW. OKC doesn't have the same type of identity so I think it would be a little easier to survive there. It probably would have survived better being out in one of the North Austin burbs rather than on Sixth Street. I think the House of Blues would have a hard time here, Antone's is already considered that here.

[hoya]

I only went into a HRC once. It was just a restaurant with a bunch of crap on the walls. I bought an overpriced jacket. Kind of neat, but I didn't get the feeling that it was in any way "special". I feel the same way about Dave and Busters, too. It's just a place to eat with some video games. Eh.

[Patrick]

Now, for the rest of this debate, let's go with the premise that Moshe Tal, who had no development experience and never showed proof of financing other than stating he had unnamed investors from South America, actually got to develop Lower Bricktown instead of Randy Hogan.

Actually, I have copies of his approval letters for intent to finance from Bank One and Midfirst Bank. So, yes, he did continually state he had "foreign investors" but he had letters of intent from local banks as well.

And let's presume the Moshe Tal got to build everything and signed up a Hard Rock Cafe. Considering that the Hard Rock Cafes in Dallas and Austin have since closed, do you think the one here would have survived more than a few years?

Wouldn't be any different than the deals with Edwards Theatres, Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill, Sega Gameworks, etc. falling through, all of which Hogan promised, and supposedly had letters of intent from.

[dismayed]

Oneforone, this might interest you: Planet Hollywood actually did look at coming to Lower Bricktown in the late 1990s.
Now, for the rest of this debate, let's go with the premise that Moshe Tal, who had no development experience and never showed proof of financing other than stating he had unnamed investors from South America, actually got to develop Lower Bricktown instead of Randy Hogan.
And let's presume the Moshe Tal got to build everything and signed up a Hard Rock Cafe. Considering that the Hard Rock Cafes in Dallas and Austin have since closed, do you think the one here would have survived more than a few years?

I have a question, because I don't know all that transpired with this Moshe Tal guy. But in researching articles in the Journal Record, I found many references to him having a business partner called David Cordish. I just did a search and found a very impressive website that seems to belong to this Mr. Cordish with some very impressive downtown developments, some of which I have actually been to and didn't realize he was the developer:

The Cordish Companies


I guess I just don't understand what happened. I would think that one unknown guy with money plus one well known developer is the way a lot of business deals go. As best I can tell from this article:

Bricktown theater plan gets thumbs-up | Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City) | Find Articles at BNET


The mayor and council at the time were concerned about having an out-of-stater do the development. I think the article above is kind of ironic in hindsight since it talks about who will ultimately be able to produce the downtown products (clearly favoring the Oklahoma company) and then goes on to list a bunch of stuff that we never received. I mean was this really what it came down to... who was local?

[Steve]

Letters of intent are non-binding experessions of interest, not proof of financing. That having been said, it's clear looking back that the city might have missed out on getting a great developer like Cordish because of who he was teamed up with. The problem I observed was Cordish never came to Oklahoma City or sent representatives until the political waters were poisoned over the Moshe Tal debates. He let Tal do all the speaking until the last hour and by then the hatred, right or wrong, for Tal, pretty much targeted anyone associated with Tal.
Of course all this is history now and be debated forever.
To this date Tal has done nothing with the property he still owns in Bricktown and has spent over a decade waging lawsuits.
For what it's worth, Moshe Tal may be one of the smartest men I've ever met. I say that with all sincerity. Just not sure he knew how get a deal done in this town. On the flip side, those who follow my coverage know I've given Tal's rival, Randy Hogan, a hard time over the design of Lower Bricktown, especially when it came to The Centennial.
I just don't get this whole love affair with Hard Rock Cafe and those who think it bestows big league city status.

[Steve]

"Wouldn't be any different than the deals with Edwards Theatres, Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill, Sega Gameworks, etc. falling through, all of which Hogan promised, and supposedly had letters of intent from. "

Yeah, it would be different.
The Edwards Theaters deal was very, very real. It got snagged up in the bankruptcies that swept the industry in 2000.
Dick Clark's made the Dick Clark's announcement, not Hogan. I recall that because Hogan was none too pleased about that press release going out.
Sega - yep, looking back that appears to have been truly a weak letter of intent that Hogan used as a band-aid to hold his development contract in place until he could find a real theater. This is observation only, and I can't prove that.

[bluedogok]

Well, those Sega locations no longer exist (maybe one survived in Tokyo) so it might have been a good thing after all the letter was weak.

[Steve]

Patrick, if you were in charge, which would you pick: a Hard Rock Cafe or the UK-supported Academy of Contemporary Music? Which is more unique (not saying better): Hard Rock Cafe or Toby Keith's?

[Patrick]

Patrick, if you were in charge, which would you pick: a Hard Rock Cafe or the UK-supported Academy of Contemporary Music? Which is more unique (not saying better): Hard Rock Cafe or Toby Keith's?

I'm not a big fan of Hard Rock (I don't see where it's much different from Chili's!!!), so definitely the UK-supported Academy of Contemporary Music.

I have to admit, I'd rather have the Toby Keith's over the Hard Rock. At least it's from local star Toby Keith, and I think having the live performances is a plus, whereas Hard Rock is just another theme restaurant.

[Patrick]

Well, those Sega locations no longer exist (maybe one survived in Tokyo) so it might have been a good thing after all the letter was weak.

It was no different from Moshe Tal's Hard Rock promise.

[Patrick]

Regarding Moshe Tal, I'm not sure his proposal would've been much better. He proposed a major enclosed mall for the property, which in today's economy, might have never made it. I really doubt it would've competed well with Penn Square Mall. And, he probably would've had the same problem attracting upscale tenants as other local real estate firms have. He promised large names like Gucci, Saks, Nordstrom, etc., but knowing what we know now, I don't really think he would've had much luck landing those retailers. We're probably better off with the Harkins Theatre. Still, I like the density that Tal proposed in his development. But, it did look a lot like San Antonio's River Center complex.

[fromdust]

Well, those Sega locations no longer exist (maybe one survived in Tokyo) so it might have been a good thing after all the letter was weak.

gameworks is still around. i think it would be cool to have one of those still. just my opinion though.

[Laramie]

How about the Hard Rock Hotel and Racino for Remington Park?

Isn't there a tribe wanting to build a casino not too far from Remington Park.

Why couldn't the tribe take over Remington Park and build a hotel on site?

[khook]

couple of tribes have bid on remington and should be in the running...

[BDP]

As for the original subject of this thread: So what?

Hard Rock is a brand known world wide, but it is known as much for its failures as it is for anything else. As others have pointed out, it is a brand as stale as Chili's or Planet Hollywood and it has little power to elevate the status of a development or community on its own. What really matters is whether or not the resort is world class. Whether it will be or not, I do not know, but even high quality resort hotels and casinos are a dime a dozen in this country. Most people live within a days drive of one. Really the only thing more watered down than the Hard Rock brand is Indian casinos themselves. It's not much different than if Harrah's brought its Toby Keith's tie-in to a lower bricktown casino or if Hooters leased its concept to an indian casino in bricktown.

I don't mean to say that it can't help the northeastern part of the state or that Indian casinos can't have a positive impact. In fact, due to revenue generated by the casino operations, these hotels often bring resort accommodations to a community that may not otherwise attract them. This is why I think it could be a good thing for there to be one within the city limits. Remington Park would be a great place as it may soon be connected to downtown and bricktown via rail and it is next to other attractions that could really benefit from the presence of a high quality resort near by. I think that it would really elevate the adventure district to a new level. But again, I don't think its branding would mean near as much as its location within the city itself or its overall quality.

We already have casinos within comparable distances from Oklahoma City as the Hard Rock will be from Tulsa. From what I can tell, they are not nearly as nice as the Hard Rock will be, but then again, doesn't that just mean that people are less as likely to actually go or stay in Tulsa? It seems to me you will have more people stay at the Hard Rock and visit Tulsa, and here you might have more people stay in Oklahoma City and visit the surrounding casinos. I'd personally rather have the latter, but it would be more beneficial if the resort was actually in the city, imo...

In any event, the rebranding of the hotel as a Hard Rock is not a bad thing, I just don't think it's something that is necessarily impressive on its own or something that quantifiably elevates the draw of the market beyond what any nice resort can do. Really what would make it more of a factor is if Catoosa was able to attract several more attractions to compliment the resort, giving it more of a competitive advantage against resort areas in other states and/or regions.

As for Lower Bricktown, I doubt it would be much better off today if it had a Hard Rock. We can go round and round with the "what if's" and Moshe Tal theories, but the reality is that Hogan got the project and, in my opinion, his mistake is not necessarily the tenant mix he has managed to create, but the way he has hobbled the district with his approach to building it out. It has actually a pretty good thing going with a mix of local restaurants and bars to go along with the theater, but it now has no where to go. In addition to committing prime space to surface parking, he used a large part of Reno and canal fronting property for a corporate office building that, to date, has no retail or publicly accessible space in it. If any of the current spaces were filled with a Hard Rock, it still would have no space left to capitalize on the presence of a Hard Rock, whatever value may or may not be left in that brand. Entertainment districts intent on being destinations need a comprehensive and dense mix of different services and attractions. There is little possibility of achieving that in lower bricktown at this point without rethinking much of what is already in place.

[Laramie]

You can dog it all you want but with only 7 in the world Hard Rock Hotels is coming to Tulsa its going to be HUGE just watch this will be fun. They will also be doing national TV advertising. It will be bigger than you think.



Pages - default

Wow! I guess there is nothing more to say on this issue, Tulsa is finally big league and passes OKC in one year? Don't, make me laugh!


We didn't bombard the Tulsa Now forum with "Oklahoma City, Not Tulsa, Is Getting an NBA franchise." We did leave Seattle a bone to chew on... We have the real McCoy. Hope you enjoy the WNBA, it's a perfect fit for Tulsa and you will have my support, I like watching the women play and I might drop in on the Hard Rock Zoo. I don't gamble.

The only thing hard I see Tulsa getting here is a hard head. You're going to need Oklahoma City to support many of the new adventures, so I wouldn't be playing the goodie, goodie, goodie scenanio--we are happy for you ; it just might cause one to think about visiting our little sister to the northeast.

Just the title of this thread seems as though Tulsa took off that hand-me-own dress made of drapes worn by Miss Scarlet and finally went shopping at their own Saks Fifth Avenue and got one hell of a bargain--well its about time!

Keep us informed about what's coming to Tulsa; however, you guys need to leave the goodie two-shoes out!

[oumoodman85]

I think its cool that the Cherokee is now being branded as a Hard Rock resort. However, the Hard Rock brand has been owned by the Seminole Nation of Florida for a while now...I don't really see this as a big deal. So what, the Cherokees worked out a deal to brand their largest resort as a "Hard Rock" destination. This was NOT a Hard Rock-led concept. They simply re-branded the existing Cherokee casino. Whoopdy-freakin doo.

[In_Tulsa]

This is for you OKC YouTube - Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy Right on!!!

[metro]

We're so jealous of Tulsa, you're on an OKC chat board....

[In_Tulsa]

HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!