Edmond Ideas

[cjohnson.405]

Restless Heart is my cousins band, they play festivals, fairs and at clubs/casinos all over the country. Three of the members are from Oklahoma as well, my cousin (bass) is from Altus, the guitarist is from Nicoma Park and the keyboard player grew up in Bartlesville. They have a show scheduled in March to play in Altus, they played there one time at the height of their popularity.

Let me continue my disclaimer....I actually love Restless Heart. I saw them in Waco when I was a student at Baylor many moons ago. Great to know that most of them are from Oklahoma!

Disclaimer continued...I had to look up 10,000 Maniacs and Right Said Fred as examples....

[bluedogok]

Let me continue my disclaimer....I actually love Restless Heart. I saw them in Waco when I was a student at Baylor many moons ago. Great to know that most of them are from Oklahoma!

They were also put together by two Okies, Tim DuBois and Scott Hendricks who went onto run record labels in Nashville. The guitarist from Nicoma Park went to OSU and played in a band with them in Stillwater. Most of the guys in RH were studio musicians in Nashville and both Tim and Scott used them a lot until putting them together in a band of their own. Another cousin (brother of the one in Restless Heart) used to sing demos with Tim DuBois's wife CeCe and hosted the show Opryland On Stage showcasing the entertainers at the Opryland amusement park when The Nashville Network first went on the air. He was in a band with other Opryland entertainers who eventually became the main part of Diamond Rio. He left that group because he didn't want to play in bars and is now a music minister and is married to a backup singer for Faith Hill. Paul's wife is from Lawton but they met in Nashville. There are a whole lot of Oklahoma connections in the music business there, many more behind the scenes than the ones who are known.

/threadjack off

[ImTheDude]

I spent last weekend in grapevine, research what they did and do exactly that. That place is great for hanging out in the evening/weekends.

[Frustratedoptimist]

Grapewine is a great example. According to the Edmond paper, the city council mentioned several of the ideas listed on this site as priorities, all under the umbrella of economic development (except unfortunately they forgot to specifically mention Restless Heart. Love them.) Anyone on here familiar with the downtown master plan they just updated and are about to hire someone to implement?

[tsou89]

Thank you for asking. I have two primary suggestions.

Focus on Downtown and make it unique amongst Oklahoma Cities:

1) Go visit downtown McKinney, north of Dallas. 7 years ago it was boarded up and dangerous. The city invested money in widening sidewalks (for sidewalk cafes/restaurants), renovated the courthouse that had been shut down for decades into a performing arts center and helped a few restaurants get on their feet. They also purposefully worked to end the leases of businesses that did not contribute to tourist/diner interest. 4 years later the place was bustling during the day and weekends. Today, it is busy every day and all night. There is live music in every corner and some really fantastic restaurants have opened. Every corner of the performing arts center is used as 1) a performance hall, 2) museums, 3) every nook and cranny is filled with ballet classes, guitar lessons, and art lessons. The place is brimming and alive and money is flowing out of people's pockets into businesses and back to the city.

2) Attract more upscale bars. Adults like to drink, have a good time, and spend money. I'm not talking Wolf Trap but more places like Vin Dulce. Alcholhol is expensive and generates alot of tax revenue per sq ft.

3) Attract more working art houses, like the glass blowing place at Italian Jims.

4) Attract a couple of upscale coffee & dessert places that feature one person playing music. People want a place they can hang out at the end of a fun evening and visit.

Upscale, upscale, upscale. I'm not talking about a level that prices everyone out of the market. But, everyone likes to go someplace that is contemporary and nice.

Basically, make downtown a place to spend an evening, not just blow by for dinner. People should go have dinner, see an event (performance or working art), hang out a bar, and then relax for coffee and dessert. Capture their money for the evening, not just dinner and then head back home.

Downtown has the bones and is currently UNDERDEVELOPED. The city can spend money to get a few things going and commercial will fill in behind.

What is the investment?
1) Invest in a Downtown PR/Events and Marketing group and money for concerts and live events. They should focus on concerts of people whose names you actually knew 20 years ago but are no longer big names and are affordable (appeal to 30's/40's/50's with money) : Restless Heart, Mark Chestnutt, 10,000 Maniacs, Right Said Fred. Disclaimer: these are not my favorites...just examples .
2) Continue enhancing Farmer's Market to add more and more live event opportunities. Ice skating was great and drew us downtown a few times. Add a concert area and a place for weekend events. This place should be busy every decent weather weekend.
3) Build a performing arts center that is within walking distance of downtown....or make Mitchell Hall more accessible and inviting...and more open to different performance groups and concerts. It should be busy every weekend.
4) Widen downtown sidewalks and narrow Broadway downtown down to 2 lanes (from 4).
5) Figure out how to get get rid of long time downtown businesses that don't contribute to tourist/diner interest. Yes, this is not fair but is in the best interest of the city. Offer them no interest loans to relocate to nicer places. i.e. I would imagine the TV/Appliance place relies on its long time name and not on downtown walk-up business.
6) Offer no interest loans for existing art/museum oriented businesses to remodel/update and stay open later so that they become destinations.
7) Offer no interest loans/special tax breaks to lure specific art and music oriented businesses.

My next suggestion is please do something about traffic. Traffic is miserable here and worse than anything I experienced while living in Dallas for several years. Traffic engineering in Edmond has been a disaster and traffic lights grow like weeds. There is no flow and I detest driving in Edmond. At the very very minimum, invest in a system that times East/West lights and Broadway lights.

Don't get rid of the medians on 15th!!!! These should be all over Edmond. Traffic medians with turn lanes allow cars that are slowing to get out of the flow of traffic and gives them a place to go that is not directly facing an oncoming car in a middle turn lane.

Zoning laws should require less direct access to business parking lots from major streets and push traffic to minor streets by requiring businesses allow flow between parking lots (not shut off their parking lots from other businesses) and push traffic to fewer street entrances. All of these direct access entrances slows down flow on major streets.

I live in far East Edmond and my family and I prefer to travel to BRICKTOWN and WESTERN avenue to go to dinner. Travel time to Western and I-44 is about the same as driving to downtown Edmond. We never venture past Broadway to go to West Edmond. YES - we take our tax dollars OUTSIDE of Edmond because of miserable traffic and dining/evening interest.

If traffic flowed better (timed and fewer business entrance disruptions) and we could spend an evening downtown, we would much rather leave our money here.

This pretty much sums it all up. I live in west edmond and I couldn't agree more about the medians staying just as they are. They are so much more pleasant then near my home. I live near BWW and the medians there have been ignored and abandoned to the point they are practically eye sores. recently the city cut down some dead trees. I have to think that Walmart had some kind of responsibility for them but instead did nothing to enhance the look. It's not that hard. Look at cities like McKinney, etc and take the hi points and run with it!

[stlokc]

I would also encourage Edmond planners to look at Webster Groves, Missouri and Kirkwood, Missouri. These are suburban cities with urban, thriving downtown cores. Not exact parallels to Edmond. But their mix of retail, restaurants, office and residential in a walk able, small-town-ish setting could be emulated. These are some of the highest quality neighborhoods in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

[LuccaBrasi]

Isn't the Public Safety Center supposed to help be a catalyst for future development between downtown and UCO? After several years of discussion, the tax stipulated that facility would be located on city owned property all near the admin and police building.

[Hollywood]

Isn't the Public Safety Center supposed to help be a catalyst for future development between downtown and UCO? After several years of discussion, the tax stipulated that facility would be located on city owned property all near the admin and police building.

Let's hope so. Would be nice to see the rest of the city offices; especially the court building and council chambers relocated to a new facility which was designed with some visual appeal and class.

[Frustratedoptimist]

Rumor has it Edmond tax payers will be dishing out millions in infrastructure to help a developer build hotels and a conference center at Covell and I-35. I can see some economic value, but not even close to the value of investing in downtown, near UCO or near Arcadia Lake. Sure, the public safety center is investment, but it won't directly generate sales tax.

At least the Mercy Health CEO is ready to invest in a trail connecting the populated part of Edmond to Arcadia Lake.

[Spartan]

Whatever happened to the sites near downtown Edmond that were evaluated for the Edmond convention center?

[Frustratedoptimist]

Not sure Spartan. They must have paid for a study only to have it collect dust. Developers are making the decisions on this one. That's the only explanaiton I can think of that makes any sense.

[Hollywood]

Rumor has it Edmond tax payers will be dishing out millions in infrastructure to help a developer build hotels and a conference center at Covell and I-35. I can see some economic value, but not even close to the value of investing in downtown, near UCO or near Arcadia Lake. Sure, the public safety center is investment, but it won't directly generate sales tax.

At least the Mercy Health CEO is ready to invest in a trail connecting the populated part of Edmond to Arcadia Lake.

The 35/Covell development would bring in some much needed tax dollars. The city's presence along the 35 needs to increase. Have spoken with many people who saw the Walmart at 15th and thought "well Edmond finally got a Walmart." most underestimate the size of the city simply because of the rural nature of the 35 Corridor. The 35/Covell develop,emt would be a big boost.

[Debzkidz]

This exactly. As I think I've mentioned on here before, I have relatives that have passed through Edmond regularly on their way from TX to KS. When we moved here they all thought we were moving to some little town. My sister was shocked when she learned the population of Edmond and that we had 3 high schools. She thought I had to drive into OKC to grocery shop etc.

More development along the interstate would definitely bring in more tax dollars. As far as restaurants etc, when we are traveling and looking for a place to eat, get gas, whatever, we never venture off the interstate. As for all those little signs out there telling you that there's a Starbucks McDonald's or whatever at the next exit, if we can't see the sign from the road, we don't get off. We're trying to get from point A to point B and we aren't in the mood to go exploring some town we aren't interested in. Honestly, even living in Edmond, there are times when we leave home on a trip somewhere and we need to grab something to eat but we won't eat in Edmond. Because we live near I-35 and there's no food between us and the interstate, we get on the road and then stop at something in Moore or Norman or the McDonalds on the turnpike. Kind of silly I realize, but we don't like the idea of having to drive a couple of miles the wrong way just to get to a burger when we can just zip off, grab something and zip back on. We aren't the only people out there like this.

Really Edmond does need more sales tax revenue and more upscale shopping and dining along the I-35 corridor would help. Even things like Best Buy or Sam's (maybe not them exactly, but as an example) would be great at this point. There's nothing like this in Edmond. We have to go into OKC for these types of stores. It's silly to be giving them all our sales tax dollars.

[Frustratedoptimist]

I agree, there is no doubt that sales tax is desperately needed. We're talking about 2 types of customers, travelers and actual visitors. Personally, I would rather see precious incentives for I-35 travelers spent near 2nd down to 33rd, rather than 2 miles north where the city would have to extend miles of utilities out to an area with rough, rocky terrain and thick forest. Clustered developments feed off each other and the 2 new medical centers are terrific anchors. The east side of Covell & I-35 will have Francis Tuttle and the city has some offices out there, so heavy commercial or retail is less-likely to cluster on all four corners

For actual visitors to Edmond, I'm a firm believer that conference centers, no matter the size, should be walkable to downtowns and in this case, near UCO, OSBI, the forensic science center, and loads of restaurants, etc. I hate going to conferences or kid's sporting events where we can't walk, bike or take transit and instead have to drive for every meal, shopping and sight-seeing. Edmond has good transit in the core and its free which is a great amenity for citizens and visitors alike. The impact of taking people's shopping and conference dollars to interstates is what is partially to blame for killing small downtowns.

[Hollywood]

Edmond has to cater to two levels during this time. Old Edmond and New Edmond. Yes the Covell project would be out there for the time being but it's also the center of town and won't be out there for much longer. I will concede though that more should be done "in town" but then you run into the lack of space. When it comes down to it, the City Council needs to realize the city isn't "small" anymore. Heck, there is more land east of the freeway than there is west. We need to strike what is going to best enable the city to fund resources to cater to the increasing population and territory. Yes utilities will need to be ran but emergency services are going to need to expand as well. For fire/EMS, calls are still "out there" and quite a drive from Stations 4 and 5. On the police side it's even worse as staffing levels leave zero officers east of the freeway. That's half if not more of the city unpatrolled with no physical presence/deterrence.

It will be interesting to see what the coming years bring, just hoping the Council embraces it in lieu of squashing the growth to maintain some of the status quo as it will do no good for the city's future.

[kevinpate]

Maybe one solution is for east Edmond to break away and no longer be part of Edmond. Become New Edmond, Eden, Hillmond, whatever they decide to call themselves. Sounds like a lot of city services are not really out there as yet, so it's not like they would be walking away with a lot of infrastructure.

Once separated, Original Edmond could start growing upwatf since space is limited and New Edmond, Eden, Hillmond, whatever could decide whether to be a sprawling rural workd or begin to become more urban itself.

[Hollywood]

Maybe one solution is for east Edmond to break away and no longer be part of Edmond. Become New Edmond, Eden, Hillmond, whatever they decide to call themselves. Sounds like a lot of city services are not really out there as yet, so it's not like they would be walking away with a lot of infrastructure.

Once separated, Original Edmond could start growing upwatf since space is limited and New Edmond, Eden, Hillmond, whatever could decide whether to be a sprawling rural workd or begin to become more urban itself.

Sure it is a joke but never happen. To much infrastructure already in place.

[Frustratedoptimist]

Really hate to read this from Newsok.com:

EDMOND— Capital Projects and Financing Task Force members this week recommended approval of a proposed budget that includes $11 million for the Covell Road and Interstate 35 project, despite questions about the city's involvement in a private-public partnership.

http://newsok.com/task-force-recomme...ne_edmond-news

[ChaseDweller]

OK, I've lived in Edmond nearly all my life and the long post above about Downtown hits it right on the head. We ate at Vin Dolce the other night and loved it. Great wine, great small plates and great music. But it wasn't crowded. The crowd was across the street at Italian Jims and the glass blowing. While I love Italian food, I like a glass of wine with my meal, and I couldn't get that at Jims. I kept thinking about how downtown Edmond could be a great little destination district for wine bars music, art and funky shops.

What I think needs to happen:

1.Eliminate angle parking and widen the sidewalks. This allows outdoor seating and much more of a sense of community. Even parallel parking is better than staring at the grille of a car while you eat.

2.Start to move out the non-conforming businesses. As some mentioned, this doesn't seem fair, but a tag agency and an appliance store just don't do anything to add to DT Edmond. I agree with the thought of tax incentives or direct assistance to help them move to a new location.

3.Develop more off-street parking that is close and safe. Nuf said.

4.Develop the arts programs nearer to downtown. Add a theater, a live venue and someplace for art shows.

5.Push push push to get more restaurants, bars and upscale clubs down there so people will come on a week night after work, come on a weekend night and stay and enjoy the area.

6.Maybe even consider closing the street from second to just north of Main on weekend nights to allow for more outdoor events and pedestrian traffic.

I know a lot of this has been mentioned before, but I think we are wasting a major opportunity to make DT Edmond one of the coolest little entertainment districts around.

Just my .02.

[cjohnson.405]

1.Eliminate angle parking and widen the sidewalks. This allows outdoor seating and much more of a sense of community. Even parallel parking is better than staring at the grille of a car while you eat.

This would be a huge positive for Downtown Edmond. It made an enormous difference in Downtown McKinney when we lived there. The whole area went from dead every night to hoppin'. More restaurants moved in and eventually there was live music coming out of every establishment. It has become a great scene and money flows like crazy. I keep mentioning the money part because that means tax dollars.

If I was designing it, I would keep the parking but cut four lanes down to 2, add speedbumps, and make the sidewalks much wider so that Othello's, Italian Jim's, Cafe Evoke, Vin Dolce, etc can all have large outdoor patios. People feel less threatened when there is traffic roaring by them. It makes for a much more lively scene downtown and attracts other restaurants. And more people brings theatres, art galleries, etc.

Broadway only extends one more mile north. Why do we need four lanes for that? This is a pretty cheap no brainer. Edmond can do this.

[Spartan]

Not sure Spartan. They must have paid for a study only to have it collect dust. Developers are making the decisions on this one. That's the only explanaiton I can think of that makes any sense.

Then the question is how far must these "developers" have their head in the sand to not think downtown can make money? It's hard for me to even roll out the term "developer" with a straight face if all you've built are some tract houses and a low-impact 7/11 strip center. The opportunities that Edmond is piddling away make their current "cash cows" look like the small potatoes they really are.

Personally, you guys know I'm on this board almost exclusively to talk downtown OKC development and I regard anything north of 63rd as pretty much BFE or any other topics as extraneous. That said, Edmond has the bones to easily woo me over for an occasional visit, I have disposable income that I like to spend in classy environs which Edmond could potentially grow to be. I just don't understand how a city with all the advantages that Edmond has could be so incredibly myopic. They've got some work to do that probably won't ever get done before anything in Edmond can compete with downtown OKC for cultural and lifestyle amenities.

The 90s are over, there is a broad consensus that downtowns are simply superior to high-end suburbs for quality of life, and instead of attempting to create that kind of synergy Edmond's leadership is absolutely blind to urban development trends since the 90s.

[Hollywood]

Then the question is how far must these "developers" have their head in the sand to not think downtown can make money? It's hard for me to even roll out the term "developer" with a straight face if all you've built are some tract houses and a low-impact 7/11 strip center. The opportunities that Edmond is piddling away make their current "cash cows" look like the small potatoes they really are.

Personally, you guys know I'm on this board almost exclusively to talk downtown OKC development and I regard anything north of 63rd as pretty much BFE or any other topics as extraneous. That said, Edmond has the bones to easily woo me over for an occasional visit, I have disposable income that I like to spend in classy environs which Edmond could potentially grow to be. I just don't understand how a city with all the advantages that Edmond has could be so incredibly myopic. They've got some work to do that probably won't ever get done before anything in Edmond can compete with downtown OKC for cultural and lifestyle amenities.

The 90s are over, there is a broad consensus that downtowns are simply superior to high-end suburbs for quality of life, and instead of attempting to create that kind of synergy Edmond's leadership is absolutely blind to urban development trends since the 90s.

Sadly the answer to the questions you posed will always be "because it has always been this way."

[Soonerinfiniti]

Why does everyone want public involvement in downtown? If the market is there, the appliance store, etc. (lower tier retailers) will leave. I think Vin Dolce and Cafe Evoke, as well as Jim's (despite their no-wine policy) will help go a long way in revitalizing downtown Edmond. Most tenants along Broadway do not pay that much rent. If a restaurant/hip retailer, etc. really wanted to, I am sure they could find space. Give this area some time. I think Sunflower Market is going to help shape this area more than people realize.

[onthestrip]

As far as suburban downtowns go I'd say edmonds is in pretty good shape. Everything is looking nice and there appears to be little vacancy.

As soonerinfiniti said, it's hard to force things. You have to let the market work, the city can't really force a restaurant to open here or this store go there.

[Spartan]

Why does everyone want public involvement in downtown? If the market is there, the appliance store, etc. (lower tier retailers) will leave. I think Vin Dolce and Cafe Evoke, as well as Jim's (despite their no-wine policy) will help go a long way in revitalizing downtown Edmond. Most tenants along Broadway do not pay that much rent. If a restaurant/hip retailer, etc. really wanted to, I am sure they could find space. Give this area some time. I think Sunflower Market is going to help shape this area more than people realize.

So what area should public involvement go to improving if not downtown? So far it's essentially going everywhere else.

We're not talking about the city opening up a new restaurant. I'm not some green 3rd grader, been around the block a few times with regards to how urban development works (Edmond clearly has very little experience here). We are talking about the convention center going to Covell and I-35 and not downtown Edmond.