Can OKC Learn From Tulsa's Vision 2025?

[Spartan]

Well, what has worked for the few downtown OKC condo buyers is that we've been touting the cost benefits of moving downtown. I know Tulsans are doing this too, but I don't think to the extent that OKC developers have, just because you ARE more likely to get drawn into OKC's downtown from the suburbs than you are Tulsa's downtown. That's just a simple fact we can all agree on. OKC's downtown is a downtown built for suburbanites, whereas Tulsa is more of a local downtown, different vibe. If you live in the suburbs the only reason you're going to be pulled down is for a concert or for work, so there may NOT be that much to factor into a cost benefit analysis.

[Rover]

Well, what has worked for the few downtown OKC condo buyers is that we've been touting the cost benefits of moving downtown. I know Tulsans are doing this too, but I don't think to the extent that OKC developers have, just because you ARE more likely to get drawn into OKC's downtown from the suburbs than you are Tulsa's downtown. That's just a simple fact we can all agree on. OKC's downtown is a downtown built for suburbanites, whereas Tulsa is more of a local downtown, different vibe. If you live in the suburbs the only reason you're going to be pulled down is for a concert or for work, so there may NOT be that much to factor into a cost benefit analysis.

What are you trying to say? Tulsa is more of a local downtown. What does that mean? Tulsa has very little going on downtown. OKC has fully as much..more restaurants, more clubs, a movie theater complex, art galleries and museum, bowling alley, sporting events, performance theaters, and more retail.

[Spartan]

No, Tulsa is just more of a local scene, is what I mean. There aren't chain restaurants in downtown Tulsa, except for like..Arby's. Tulsa's downtown scene revolves around music venues and a scattering of restaurants and clubs that are the epitome of local. OKC's downtown scene is an interesting clash of that local element and the chain element, chain restaurants everywhere, suburbanites bused in by the dozens to go to the chain movie theater and the Bass Pro, and so on.

That's not to say that OKC doesn't have a local scene in its downtown, but it's given in a lot to make room for the chain scene. I think that's what Tulsa's downtown completely lacks compared to OKC. So that's why some of the more hard-core urbanists such as myself sort of scoff at the old "Tulsa's got nothin on us" line, because what they've got nothing on us on, is everything that I'm against..

[ljbab728]

University Club (the round tower) is the tallest at 30+ stories at 17th & Carson, and another 8 story apartment building next to it. Central Park condos are two 20+ story towers at 7th & Elwood. There is a 30 story highrise condo tower at 15th & Boulder. Sophia Plaza is 10 stories I think at 15th & Frisco. 2300 Riverside is over 20 stories at 23rd & Riverside. There are a few others but those are the tallest, and you are correct none have been built since the late 70's and they are not downtown (except Central Park) but in Uptown/Riverview just south of downtown. There was a proposal for an 18 story condo tower at 21st & Main in the late 90's but it was shot down by Maple Ridge NIMBY's.

According to Emporis, the highrise residential buildings in Tulsa, are:
University Club Towers - 32 floors
Liberty Towers - 23 floors (This is the one at 15th and Boulder so not 30 floors)
2300 Riverside Apartments - 16 floors (not 20 plus)
Central Park isn't listed but appears to be 22 floors.

The Oklahoma City comparison:
Regency Towers - 24 floors
The Classen - 21 floors
The 360 at Founders Plaza - 20 floors
Park Harvey - 17 floors
Lakeview Towers - 15 floors

Not a big difference even if some of the OKC condos are further out from downtown.

[BG918]

What are you trying to say? Tulsa is more of a local downtown. What does that mean? Tulsa has very little going on downtown. OKC has fully as much..more restaurants, more clubs, a movie theater complex, art galleries and museum, bowling alley, sporting events, performance theaters, and more retail.

I think everyone agrees downtown Tulsa is not as active as downtown OKC. Like Spartan said though it has a unique, albeit small, scene of its own that is almost entirely local. Tulsa's heart is in midtown, and that is where you will find the majority of local restaurants and shops, high end chain and local shopping at Utica Square, walkable districts in Brookside and Cherry Street, and even office/highrise residential in the area around Utica Square (Yorktown Plaza and Utica Place, which are not on the list above) which also is home to two of Tulsa's largest employers St. John and Hillcrest hospitals. Tulsa, in that way, is more similar to Atlanta, Dallas, and even NYC in that midtown is more of the heart of the city and more active than the mostly office-based downtown. OKC is more downtown-centric, which makes sense because downtown OKC is in the geographic center of the city and metro while in Tulsa midtown is more central than downtown.

[Rover]

So the definition of downtown for comparisons sake keeps getting changed. Tulsa's focus is not downtown it is mid-town? That is interesting. I guess we could now compare 63 and Western area, or Western 36th to 50th, or the May/NW highway area. I thought this discussion was focused on bringing residential to downtown and what OKC might learn from Tulsa. So far I haven't seen anything very conclusive that the real market for downtown Tulsa is exhibiting more energy or inertia than OKC. So, back to the question, what can we learn?

[Spartan]

Well the challenge Tulsa has had is to get people who would otherwise live in midtown to live downtown. It's not been to get people from the burbs to come downtown like OKC's pitch has been. To assess the level of energy for downtown Tulsa right now, all I can say is look at all their construction projects underway. It's incredible.

[Rover]

Hey, Spartan, do you have a link to a list of all the downtown developments for Tulsa? That would be interesting.

Do you happen to know how many housing units are actually in the financed and/or coming out of the ground stage in the downtown area? How might that compare with what has already happened in Bricktown and close in in OKC? They seem a little behind the curve with OKC. We too had lots of "projects" going on. The problem was, many of them ran into the reality of the marketplace.

And I agree that they are trying to get mid-town to downtown. I hope in the process they don't create issues with mid-town. Do you think that people will just move into mid-town from the burbs then? It seems like Owasso and BA are the real growth areas though....further out not closer in.

[Spartan]

I did a blog post that I'll try and find that was a rundown of all the Tulsa projects in the works, but it's about 6 months old.

I'll revise these numbers, but this is just off the top of my head: At one point before the bust OKC looked like it was going to add over 3,000 residential units downtown between 2005 and 2010. I'd estimate that not even half got built so maybe 1,500 is being generous. Right now, in 2010, there are probably around 500 proposed housing units, which is down from around 2,000 proposed back in 2008.

Tulsa probably built 800 downtown residential units (more than half OKC's amount) between 2005 and 2010 out of probably around 3,000 that was proposed (not including the Tulsa Channels). But the perception is that it's much less because Tulsa has lacked major projects with 200+ units, they've done it all with smaller infill. I imagine right now all of Tulsa's current proposed/under construction projects amount to 800 living units, 400 hotel units, and a lot of office.

Recap

Actually built between 05-10:
OKC 1,500
Tulsa 800

Proposed throughout 05-10:
OKC 3,000
Tulsa 3,000

Proposed currently:
OKC 500
Tulsa 800

OKC has some huge projects that certainly boost the count a little. The Legacy had around 300 if I recall correctly, The Hill is 160 (which it will never come close to), Richard McKown's project is around 250, Dick Tanenbaum was to build over 200 on the Mercy Hospital site. And so on. Tulsa's just had to double down on the smaller >100-unit infill projects, the majority have just a dozen or two dozen units.

edit:
Here are some pages that run through a lot of Tulsa development projects
http://downtownontherange.blogspot.c...wn-update.html
http://downtownontherange.blogspot.c...c-v-tulsa.html

[BG918]

And I agree that they are trying to get mid-town to downtown. I hope in the process they don't create issues with mid-town. Do you think that people will just move into mid-town from the burbs then? It seems like Owasso and BA are the real growth areas though....further out not closer in.

The suburbs are still the highest growth areas just like they are in OKC but midtown Tulsa has been a hot market as well. Modest neighborhoods like Brookside and Cherry Street became hot real estate and parts of these areas are full of new and/or completely renovated homes and condos. So what OKC has seen downtown Tulsa has seen in midtown, and Tulsa has to compete with that which makes downtown (for residents) a harder sale. The V2025 housing fund was created as a development incentive for downtown and it has yielded several nice projects which wouldn't have happened otherwise. I don't know if the same fund is needed in OKC because the market seems to be creating plenty of new housing similar to how the market has driven new housing in midtown Tulsa. Though I'm sure you would see even more projects in downtown OKC if such a fund existed, and it would be something for the city to explore.

Spartan is correct that Tulsa has had lots of small projects while OKC has had larger downtown projects with more units. That has been good for OKC because a lot of young people that want to live downtown also want something new(er) and with the fitness center and pool they can get at suburban complexes. Besides Renaissance downtown there aren't many options like that in Tulsa where in OKC you have Deep Deuce, Legacy and others on the way.

[Spartan]

I would actually question whether the market is creating the quantities of downtown housing needed for where we're at. We are WAAAY behind schedule from the 5-year outlook laid out in the 2005 Downtown Housing Study, which I actually thought was pretty conservative.

[Rover]

If there are all these people with checkbooks in hand waiting for a place to live, why do you think developers aren't building for all this demand? There are plenty of clear lots and whole blocks that are available. There are standing buildings. Are the developers just stupid? Does no one want to make money off of all this demand? There are lots of architects available for work, lots of contractors who would love to be building something. So why aren't they? Why won't someone hire them to fill this demand?

[Spartan]

I don't know if you're asking rhetorical questions, but development is hard to pull off, especially right now. I also think it is disingenuous for you to be stating those rhetorical questions when you started this thread about what OKC could learn from Vision 2025. Unless your argument is that there isn't demand for downtown housing in OKC..

I would say there is strong demand for something in any market where the occupancy rate is over 80%. Downtown OKC's apartment occupancy rate is over 98%. The Deep Deuce Apartments are 100% full, the most successful apartment project in the history of the state. Yet Somerset never finished build-out, why? The answer is who the hell knows.

[G.Walker]

When I started this thread, I did have the housing component of Vision 2025 in mind and what we can learn from it. I think the difference between Okc and Tulsa when it comes to downtown housing infill is that Okc wants private developers to build housing without any type of assistance from the city, when Tulsa gives incentives to private developers wanting to build housing downtown. Now the good and bad...The good I think about downtown residential development in Okc, is that it has seen steady growth, and its not stagnant, and it doesn't come and go. The downside is that downtown residential developers have got conservative on the type of housing to build, thats why you see a lot of low-rise housing being developed.

The good about downtown residential development in Tulsa is that its more aggressive and they have support from the city. The downside is that Tulsa is too focused on renovating old buildings for housing, and not stepping up to build brand new residential housing. To me, neither city has set the bar for unique and extensive downtown living, we will see what city will do it within the next few years.

[G.Walker]

some downtown Tulsa living options:

Additional Urban Living Locations
Mayo 420 | www.mayo420.com
Phil Tower | www.philtower.com
Central Park Condos | www.cptulsa.com
Uptown Renaissance Apartments and Tribune Lofts www.argtulsa.com
The Village at Central Park | www.thevillagebuilders.com

[G.Walker]

Hey, Spartan, do you have a link to a list of all the downtown developments for Tulsa? That would be interesting.

Do you happen to know how many housing units are actually in the financed and/or coming out of the ground stage in the downtown area? How might that compare with what has already happened in Bricktown and close in in OKC? They seem a little behind the curve with OKC. We too had lots of "projects" going on. The problem was, many of them ran into the reality of the marketplace.

And I agree that they are trying to get mid-town to downtown. I hope in the process they don't create issues with mid-town. Do you think that people will just move into mid-town from the burbs then? It seems like Owasso and BA are the real growth areas though....further out not closer in.

Recent Downtown Tulsa Construction Projects

Complete or nearly complete Cost in Millions Source
BOK Center $200 Million Public
One Technology Center acquisition (City Hall) $ 55 Million Public
Downtown Street Reconstruction $ 20 Million Public
Way finding signage system $ 1 Million Public
Crown Plaza Hotel Renovation $ 25 Million Private
Route 66 Gateway Bridge and Plaza $ 3.6 Million Public
OSU Tulsa research building $ 43 Million Public
River Parks Trail Improvements $ 15.3 Million Public / Private
Langston University Tulsa Campus $ 8 Million Public
Holy Family Cathedral Renovation $ 6 Million Private
Centennial Plaza & Park $ 7.8 Million Private
KMO Building Renovation $ 1.6 Million Private
Mayo Hotel Renovation $ 40 Million Private
Mayo Building Residential development $ 24 Million Private
Atlas Life / Marriott Courtyard Hotel $ 17.2 Million Private
ONEOK Field $ 40 Million Public / Private
John Hope Franklin Park $ 3 Million Public
Convention Center Renovation & New Ballroom $ 50.5 Million Public
Boulder Bridge Demolition & Redesign $ 3.2 Million Public
OSU Tulsa Forensics Laboratory $ 39 Million Public
Tulsa Community College Building $ 20 Million Public
North & West Leg of IDL reconstruction $ 75 Million Public

22 Total Projects $ 698 Million Public / Private


New Downtown Tulsa Construction on the horizon


Programmed or planned projects Cost in Millions Source
Mathews Building (Art Museum) $ 10 Million Private
Mathews Building ( Arts & Humanities Council) $ 10 Million Public / Private
Brady District Park $ 5 Million Private
Tribune Lofts II $ 5 Million Private
ONG Building residential conversion Not reported Private
ONG Building parking and mixed use $ 4 Million Private
Greenwood Development (mixed use) Not reported Private
ODOT 1-244 Multi-modal Bridge (Stimulus) $ 150 Million Public
Cain's Museum $ 2.5 Million Private
Boulder Bridge Reconstruction $ 10 Million Public
One Place (mixed use) Development $ 38 Million Private
Williams Center North Garage Expansion $ 5 Million Public
West Bank Festival Park Improvements $ 6 Million Public
Route 66 Restaurant & Interpretative Center $ 6 Million Public
Griffin Communications new TV studio $20 Million Private
1st Street Lofts $ 3.5 Million Public / Private

Source: http://www.billleighty.com/downtown_...velopments.htm

[Rover]

I am really glad Tulsa is starting to make some moves again. When I lived there most of the politicians, business people and public were really arrogant when it came to their city and except for a few generous people like the Westbys, nobody did anything. Consequently, nothing terribly meaningful happened there from about 1970 on. So it is good for them to wake up and realize that they needed to be proactive. Meanwhile OKCitians knocked the chips off their shoulders and went to work and now there is major money being spent on developing this city. While we certainly can watch Tulsa to see how the incentives work for them, I think it will be 5 years before we know the real effect and whether the people respond by buying what is being built.

[Rover]

I don't know if you're asking rhetorical questions, but development is hard to pull off, especially right now. I also think it is disingenuous for you to be stating those rhetorical questions when you started this thread about what OKC could learn from Vision 2025. Unless your argument is that there isn't demand for downtown housing in OKC..

I would say there is strong demand for something in any market where the occupancy rate is over 80%. Downtown OKC's apartment occupancy rate is over 98%. The Deep Deuce Apartments are 100% full, the most successful apartment project in the history of the state. Yet Somerset never finished build-out, why? The answer is who the hell knows.

I make my living off of developers, so yes, I know development is hard. But the point is that there is a huge difference between theoretical demand and real demand. Developers and banks are reticent to risk millions without some pretty significant evidence that they can build and get their money back. If it was such a slam dunk in downtown OKC then projects would be getting done. I think that it is not so clear that there is actual demand at the RATES that would interest developers and investors.

[Spartan]

Well, here is where you bring up a subjective point. You're right, the banks are no fans of urban development. They especially don't like to see multiple guidelines of OKC real estate broken, and that is that we don't like multi family, and we don't like multi-story (hell, let alone basements), and we like everything to be ranch style.

I would literally take every dollar I have out of Bank of Oklahoma and put it all in a bank that said it would invest its money in higher-quality building projects. And that would be a bank making a difference, rather than what usually happens is traditional-minded bank executives and uncomfortable investing in urban development and would rather just only talk about suburban tract housing which is proven (and it really is).

So yes, if we really were serious about solving the problem of low development activity, then we should start with the banks. But it's not entirely they're fault, because the feds are still discouraging real estate investment despite the rumor I hear going around that they want "stimulus." I guess they would rather every USD be invested in Chinese sweatshops and Mexican drug markets than anything iffy like real estate development...

[Rover]

A major portion of the economic problems was the creation of artificial demand for real estate and construction from years of easy lending policies, irresponsible monetary policy which focused on low interest rates for stimulating growth, low accountability for financial instututions, low bars set for loan qualifications, and on and on as part of trying to prove that we could just outgrow our problems. Except in pockets of the country the result was a glut of building inventory and lack of underlying demographics to support it. That is why condo development, hotel development, etc. has been in the tank.

Keep in mind that if you don't have a strong growth pattern, people have to sell their home to move into a place downtown or anywhere else and there have to be buyers. Even the renters have to abandon their current residences. Don't think that suburban apartment owners aren't going to fight back by lowering prices and making it difficult to leave. So even developing apartments isn't a slam dunk and without risk. The market has to be looked at holistically to assess risk.

[Rover]

I would literally take every dollar I have out of Bank of Oklahoma and put it all in a bank that said it would invest its money in higher-quality building projects. And that would be a bank making a difference, rather than what usually happens is traditional-minded bank executives and uncomfortable investing in urban development and would rather just only talk about suburban tract housing which is proven (and it really is).

So yes, if we really were serious about solving the problem of low development activity, then we should start with the banks. But it's not entirely they're fault, because the feds are still discouraging real estate investment despite the rumor I hear going around that they want "stimulus." I guess they would rather every USD be invested in Chinese sweatshops and Mexican drug markets than anything iffy like real estate development...

So quit investing in Chinese sweatshops and Mexican drug markets. (Whatever this is in reference to.)

Anyway, perhaps you should organize a REIT for the purpose of investing in the types of projects you espouse. If your ideas are convincing you should get in the game and organize some investors. Perhaps you could do the city a service while living up to your ideals and making a lot of money doing it. There are a number of "fat cats" you can go talk to who are supporters of downtown development who might be interested in investing.

The best way to prove out ideas is to put them to the market for acceptance. Give it a try. You certainly have the passion.

[Spartan]

These kinds of exchanges we seem to always have once a discussion goes dead are going to be really ironic if a few years from now that's actually the direction that my career goes..lol

[Rover]

Spartan, I really respect your activist attitude. I was being serious in that we should have people who will have a conviction of belief and a willingness to fight for the visions they have and to help make those things happen through economics. As you may be able to tell, I am an economist by education and I tend to believe that in the end economics winds up driving these things. So someone like you being passionate can change the game by providing the thing that gets visions accomplished...money.

[Spartan]

I usually know that you mean what you say, and I know you weren't being sarcastic. I just don't know how to respond to that, because there's people on this board younger than I am who say they're going to be developers after college, too. I know sometimes it works that way, sometimes not. The reality is I'm working on a degree that can make a lot of money in the NW but would cause me to go absolutely broke in OKC unless I enterprise a little bit, and you can't usually blaze your own path like that immediately after college. But look at some of these developers we have who are now in their 30s and genuinely believe in downtown and ARE putting their money behind their vision.

Grant Humphreys and Richard McKowns are two great examples of people who I think are visionaries first, pragmatics second. McKowns has an awesome project coming that's going to be successful, Grant's going to have to pick himself up from Block 42 and stay away from condo sales for a while. Marva Ellard is another bona fide urbanist. Sometimes urbanism works..I would point to how Marva got out of The Hill fast and the economic contrast between Marva's proposal and Wiggin's failure. Obviously Chuck Wiggin comes across as more the economist type than Marva Ellard who comes across as more of a visionary.

So I would just say, just because someone thinks more like an urban visionary and less like a pragmatic economist, doesn't imply economic success level. I agree that economic success is the end point. One of the many things we agree on, you know.

[Oil Capital]

Tulsa probably built 800 downtown residential units (more than half OKC's amount) between 2005 and 2010 out of probably around 3,000 that was proposed (not including the Tulsa Channels). But the perception is that it's much less because Tulsa has lacked major projects with 200+ units, they've done it all with smaller infill.
Recap

Actually built between 05-10:
OKC 1,500
Tulsa 800

I think one has to do some pretty creative addition to come up with
800 housing units added in downtown Tulsa in the last 5 years. Note that Tulsa's downtown housing study linked elsewhere in this thread shows a loss in both population and number of households in downtown Tulsa between 2000-2009.