Bricktown Shakeup

[Urbanized]

Still cracking up on "Internet tough guy." There's people all over the Internet threatening to whip/kill people over inane BS, and I'm an "Internet tough guy" for telling someone their post is a dramatic overreach. I guess that is a recommendation for the overall civil tone standard on this board.

[Just the facts]

Since these places are closing has anyone heard if they plan to reopen else ware?

[David]

LOL now I'm an Internet tough guy.

As for me knowing what does and doesn't work in Bricktown, yeah, I'm personally pretty certain of that. I have a huge amount of time and experience in the district, as a consumer, as a business manager, as a business owner, and as a volunteer and longtime (now former) board member of the association. I'm also a former Main Street manager in the Automobile Alley District and served for a number of years as a board member of the Automobile Alley Main Street Program. I actually have some formal training in downtown development revitalization, believe it or not.

In Bricktown I have spent years watching places succeed, and watching places fail. I have spent years stepping over vomit outside of clubs, watching fights spill out of them, watching victims of violence carted off in ambulances. I have talked with a multitude of cops, some while hanging out on the street next to their black and whites at one in the morning, some over coffee, some in meetings. I have gotten to know everyone from bicycle cops up to the Chief of Police, during a club-fueled crisis that created the current approach to policing in Bricktown.

I have stood on sidewalks during hot nights in July as a Bricktown board member at club closing time answering questions of news reporters on camera after episodes of violence. I was standing outside of a nightclub, BTW. I have feared for my employees as club brawls erupted on sidewalks. None - NONE - of these activities have involved bars/pubs/venues. They ALL involve nightclubs.

So you can choose to dismiss me if you wish (you already have obviously) and hold fast to the notion that you know what's best for Bricktown because you've partied with Thunder players (I hate to break it to you, but so have I), and because you USED to go to clubs before you married your "hot" wife and no longer liked dragging her past the peanut gallery that congregates outside clubs to start trouble.

Personally, I hope people listen more to PhiAlpha than either of us. He's the demographic Bricktown and OKC need to be pursuing, and he's obviously got his head on straight on this matter.

+1

[LakeEffect]

From an urban design perspective, I hope the Club 115 building is demolished. The building is not historic to the district and presents a very awkward pedestrian presence along Sheridan. A full tear-down and rebuild has the potential to bring something much greater, especially considering the Bricktown UDC design regulations and guidelines and the usual tenacity of the BUDC members.

Also, Karchmer may be trying to capitalize on his properties to do some growing, but let's not also forget that he is aging and not always in the greatest health. That may be playing a roll - not wanting to be a landlord, etc. Also, let's not forget that Tom Ward is an investor, and that Andy Burnett is playing a big part of this. Andy knows what is, and what isn't, generally going to be acceptable.

[bchris02]

Since these places are closing has anyone heard if they plan to reopen else ware?

I don't believe so but it would be nice. I would love to see the club scene in OKC locate somewhere besides Bricktown (though still in the urban core). Everybody would win that way. OKC could keep its club scene and Bricktown could focus on becoming the mixed-use neighborhood that it is inevitably progressing towards.

[AP]

nm

[Just the facts]

I don't believe so but it would be nice. I would love to see the club scene in OKC locate somewhere besides Bricktown (though still in the urban core). Everybody would win that way. OKC could keep its club scene and Bricktown could focus on becoming the mixed-use neighborhood that it is inevitably progressing towards.

It will be interesting if they crop up else ware or just fade into history. The situation is not unique to OKC. Here in Jax a number of nigh clubs opened up downtown along Bay Street but as the number of residential units in the area have increased the local residents are becoming more vocal in their opposition to them. Some of the clubs have even closed recently citing among other things "crime in the area" as if their clientele are in no way responsible for that crime. Jacksonville Beach will be another area to watch as it went from 'beach bar' to 'night club scene' to 'high density residential' in just a few years. My guess is that the beach bars will survive and the clubs will go away. Surprisingly, the residents don't like getting their cars damaged by people leaving the clubs pissed off because someone danced with their girlfriend.

From my observation what seems to work best is just having one dance/night club per neighborhood. As soon as a second one goes in problems seem to start cropping up. Jax has several neighborhoods with only one club and I seldom see or here negative news stories about them.

[bchris02]

It will be interesting if they crop up else ware or just fade into history. The situation is not unique to OKC. Here in Jax a number of nigh clubs opened up downtown along Bay Street but as the number of residential units in the area have increased the local residents are becoming more vocal in their opposition to them. Some of the clubs have even closed recently citing among other things "crime in the area" as if their clientele are in no way responsible for that crime. Jacksonville Beach will be another area to watch as it went from 'beach bar' to 'night club scene' to 'high density residential' in just a few years. My guess is that the beach bars will survive and the clubs will go away. Surprisingly, the residents don't like getting their cars damaged by people leaving the clubs pissed off because someone danced with their girlfriend.

From my observation what seems to work best is just having one dance/night club per neighborhood. As soon as a second one goes in problems seem to start cropping up. Jax has several neighborhoods with only one club and I seldom see or here negative news stories about them.

Great points.

Charlotte has four major dance clubs in its core but none of them are clustered together. I think that makes a huge difference. Each one is in a different neighborhood/development. I think it was Sid that said it takes a metro area much larger than OKC to successfully pull off a club district.

[Urbanized]

Great perspective, JTF. Obviously the challenge is not unique to OKC/Bricktown. I agree with the point you make about club owners scratching their heads and saying "boy the crime problems sure are bad all around us..." This very thing happened in Bricktown when a club owner relocated from one part of the district to another telling people "we want to get away from all of the trouble over there," and of course the trouble only followed them to the new location, which had previously been an oasis of calm.

I think the point you make about one club vs. many is also excellent. Perhaps part of the problem is that multiple clubs in a district puts over-served clubgoers on the streets traipsing between them, and puts them on display for the hecklers, peanut gallery, and other clubgoers who catcall their girlfriends or don't care for the particular hat they are wearing or people they are associated with.

[Urbanized]

From an urban design perspective, I hope the Club 115 building is demolished. The building is not historic to the district and presents a very awkward pedestrian presence along Sheridan. A full tear-down and rebuild has the potential to bring something much greater, especially considering the Bricktown UDC design regulations and guidelines and the usual tenacity of the BUDC members...

Completely agree. If there was ever a building in Bricktown/downtown that was ripe for demolition/redevelopment it's this one. What a positive change that could make for the Sheridan frontage, regardless of tenant.

[Pete]

That Club One15 building was constructed in 1966.

[Urban Pioneer]

I wish there were a "like" button on these posts because I agree with many of them. As someone who lived in Deep Deuce 13 years ago and frequented clubs in the early years, things are definitely changing. PhiAlpha's comments are right on. I will admit that I am looking at this conversation retrospectively and might not have had these opinions when I was in my early twenties. However, no one can dispute the murders and other carnage taking place down there.

If I had any one concern, it is that I hope that there is somewhere else for those folks to migrate to. The Plaza seemed overwhelmed with the "Affliction shirt" crowd wandering aimlessly in wonderment displaced from their natural habitat last Thursday night. Sorry for the broad brush. lol

[Pete]

^

Except none of the clubs are open on Thursday, right?

[bchris02]

If I had any one concern, it is that I hope that there is somewhere else for those folks to migrate to. The Plaza seemed overwhelmed with the "Affliction shirt" crowd wandering aimlessly in wonderment displaced from their natural habitat last Thursday night. Sorry for the broad brush. lol

That is definitely a concern. Just because the clubs close doesn't mean that crowd is just going to stay home. That is why the best scenario would be for the club scene to simply be relocated or scattered as it is in many other cities.

[warreng88]

If I had any one concern, it is that I hope that there is somewhere else for those folks to migrate to. The Plaza seemed overwhelmed with the "Affliction shirt" crowd wandering aimlessly in wonderment displaced from their natural habitat last Thursday night. Sorry for the broad brush. lol

Hopefully they go to Groovy's or Baker's Street up on Memorial, you know, places I don't go to, so they don't impend on my comfortable Plaza/Midtown experience...

[Midtowner]

The concerns about violence, I think are overstated. A couple of homicides at clubs doesn't make a trend. Especially when the offenders are caught. Thousands of people go to the clubs and are probably in more danger driving to and from than they are of being harmed while clubbing.

That said, the taxpayers made Bricktown what it is and paid for an entertainment district--not a corporate park with a few chain restaurants. As it is, the clubs are on the NE side of Bricktown, so the family crowd and the club crowd don't really intersect or occupy the real estate at a similar time.

Finally, residents who choose to move to the area aren't doing it blindly. If you don't want 20-somethings walking down the sidewalk and being loud at 2AM, don't live in the middle of an entertainment district.

[Just the facts]

Another reason for having one club per neighborhood is that it allow for time diversity and the sharing of public capital expense. The more hours in a day public space is used the less it cost per capita and eliminates the need for duplicate expenditure. For example, one of my favorite areas of Jax is San Marco. Its day starts about 5:00AM when the coffee shop opens and the opening staff for restaurants start arriving. At 6AM the early riser, dog walkers, gym members, and the first wave of downtown commuters start arriving. By 8AM the restaurants are in full breakfast mode. At 9AM the retailers are open and the stay at home moms are out in force. At around 11AM the lunch crowd arrives and that last until about 2PM. Then the focus is back to retail until about 5PM. At 5PM the early dinner crowd arrives and by 6PM the retailers are closed. Dinner goes until 8PM and then the bar/wine/movie crowd arrives. That goes to about 11PM and the the club crowd (one night club) arrives. That group stays in the area until 3AM. The city comes in and cleans the neighborhood until about 5:00 AM and the process repeats.

All the sidewalks, streets, public parking, street lights, benches, park space, etc get used 21 hours a day by someone. The constant 'coming and going' of a variety of users keeps things safe and the streets lively. Even when the area is dominated by the 'club crowd' a very small police presence is more than capable of keeping order because they simply don't have a large area to patrol. When club goers leave there is no where else from them to go but home. Since the club attracts the same demographic there is no incompatible club-goers down the street or next door to get in trouble with. As an added bonus, the neighborhood has a great range of housing options, from $500/mo studio apartments to $10 million houses so a large number of the neighborhoods patrons walk there. It just provides a very safe environment.

On edit, let me add that the night club in San Marco is on the second floor of a building so there is no blank dead space during the day on the sidewalk. The ground floor is a restaurant.

[hoya]

The Plaza seemed overwhelmed with the "Affliction shirt" crowd wandering aimlessly in wonderment displaced from their natural habitat last Thursday night.

Like

[warreng88]

It will be interesting to see what happens with Club Albee, Candy and other nightclubs once the Steelyard is built, full and that area is no longer considered the end of Bricktown. I would think there would be a lot more young people walking from that area down Sheridan and the scene could change drastically.

[bchris02]

Finally, residents who choose to move to the area aren't doing it blindly. If you don't want 20-somethings walking down the sidewalk and being loud at 2AM, don't live in the middle of an entertainment district.

Agree 100% with this. If people want a guarantee of quiet and peaceful surroundings all hours of the day, they should stay in Edmond rather than relocating to the core. As much as urban living is promoted on OKCTalk and as many advantages as it has, it does have its disadvantages - and those disadvantages i.e. noise should be something somebody considering moving to the core takes into consideration.

[Just the facts]

The concerns about violence, I think are overstated. A couple of homicides at clubs doesn't make a trend. Especially when the offenders are caught. Thousands of people go to the clubs and are probably in more danger driving to and from than they are of being harmed while clubbing.

That said, the taxpayers made Bricktown what it is and paid for an entertainment district--not a corporate park with a few chain restaurants. As it is, the clubs are on the NE side of Bricktown, so the family crowd and the club crowd don't really intersect or occupy the real estate at a similar time.

Finally, residents who choose to move to the area aren't doing it blindly. If you don't want 20-somethings walking down the sidewalk and being loud at 2AM, don't live in the middle of an entertainment district.

That is about as ridiculous as it gets right there. I guess everything should never change or progress (or regress for that matter). Everything should just stay the way it is right now forever with nothing ever changing. No one should ever have to adapt and the current generation of people should be 100% bound by past decisions that they didn't make or have any part in making.

[hoya]

There's absolutely a market for low end dance clubs that cater to Affliction-shirt wearing, tribal tattoo having, faux-hawk sporting, roided-out douchebags.

I'll be perfectly happy when the clubs that service that market are not in Bricktown. Likewise we don't need strip clubs, bingo parlors, casinos, go-cart tracks, or other "entertainment" options that don't fit in with what we are trying to build in Bricktown.

[PhiAlpha]

The concerns about violence, I think are overstated. A couple of homicides at clubs doesn't make a trend. Especially when the offenders are caught. Thousands of people go to the clubs and are probably in more danger driving to and from than they are of being harmed while clubbing.

That said, the taxpayers made Bricktown what it is and paid for an entertainment district--not a corporate park with a few chain restaurants. As it is, the clubs are on the NE side of Bricktown, so the family crowd and the club crowd don't really intersect or occupy the real estate at a similar time.

Finally, residents who choose to move to the area aren't doing it blindly. If you don't want 20-somethings walking down the sidewalk and being loud at 2AM, don't live in the middle of an entertainment district.

I'm sorry, but one or two companies using the upper floors of several buildings does not = a corporate park. If they try to take over the ground level then I would have an issue with that. I'm not overly thrilled that Harding and Shelton uses the canal frontage as office space at the street level but at least they didn't take the canal level space.

It isn't a family crowd vs club crowd issue. It's a club crowd vs every other kind of late night crowd issue. The clubs aren't even open most of the time that families are around. You are missing the point on the biggest issue and that is the dead canyon that clubs create during 90% of the week. Why are you holding so tightly to this when the clubs, as they currently operate, are clearly detrimental to the district? That area may be on the NE side of Bricktown but it's now across from 3 large hotels, soon to be a 4th and a large decently upscale apartment complex. If they aren't going to be open and function in another capacity during the week, they shouldn't be clustered together on a main corridor. That's almost beyond arguing.


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[adaniel]

For the most part I agree with you, but it's hard to say that they diversify the place when they made up the majority of the venues there for a long time (and still really). As far as what young professionals want, I'm speaking from experiences with the groups I hangout with. Seeing as how were in the same field, in the same industry, I'm sure they overlap at some point. My biggest issue with candy, Albee, city walk, doll house, social (or whatever they call it now), etc is that they are basically empty store fronts for 90% of the week. ..... Not enough diversity in the club scene with too many lower quality clubs, clustered too closely together, with too few hours of operation.

As far as Brady/blue dome vs Bricktown. While Bricktown has been more all inclusive, it's gone to the opposite direction of Brady and blue dome. Too many clubs and bars aimed at the younger/graphic tee club group, not enough aimed at the yuppie crowd that Brady/blue dome caters to. While I agree that those districts are not perfect, my friends from Tulsa and I go out in Bricktown and think that something is missing as well. While I think it's great that we have a club scene and Tulsa doesn't, Bricktown definitely lacks some of the cooler yuppie type bars and live music venues that they've built. There has to be a happy medium somewhere and with the influx of people to Bricktown brought on by the increase in residential and office space, I think we are starting to see that balance out.

All good stuff here. I will definitely admit that Sheridan can really be a ghost town on the weekdays, even during events.

Maybe its just me, but I always assumed that Plaza, Midtown, and 23rd were aiming for a Brady/Blue Dome feel, and that allowed for Bricktown to have some level of creative freedom in what they wanted to do. Is it fair to say that is changing?

A very similar conversation is happening in Uptown Dallas. Tit for tat, uptown is far more bar-heavy, and IMO it is MUCH douchier than anything in Bricktown. Uptown also has a much larger residential population and many more people own their properties than in BT/Deep Deuce. And yet nobody is talking about throwing them out to the extent they are here.

That kind of brings me to my next point. What will happen when people start complaining about the bars? After all, both bars and clubs serve alcohol and that's usually where trouble starts. When I lived in midtown, I didn't have a lot of problems but when McNellies did any big event like St Patricks day I knew there would be trouble. One time a drunk idiot smashed his truck into a power pole on Harvey and knocked out my power! Another time some asshole tried to climb over my building's security fence and nearly got himself impaled. Weekends in the summer I would hear people walking down my street screaming at 2-3 am. More troubling than that, my bedroom window faced Harvey and I could clearly see people swerving, squealing their tires, etc. as if they are drunk driving.

I definitely would hope that there is more balance to what is offered in Bricktown. Balance is always good. With that in mind, there definitely seems to be a throw the baby out with the bathwater attitude. As if all of Bricktown's problems will be solved if we just get rid of clubs. That's what disturbs me, and I've long since grown out of the club scene. Maybe this conversation would be better if we distiguished what kind of nightclubs are good and bad instead of just saying to hell with all of them like some angry grandpa shaking his fist.

Ultimately this comes down to what kind of core do we want. Do we want one that is inclusive to all people and deal with the problems that arise from that on a case by case basis? Or do we want a core that only appeals to a much narrow audience because we don't want to deal with those problems at all? Its up to the powers that be. But if this city goes down a path of eliminating a legitamite entertainment option for a lot of people then it will only have itself to blame when said people label the city as boring (Rembember Charles Barkely's jabs) and ultimately leave this area.

[Romulack]

You don't know **** about me, Junior. And you also don't know who I do or do not hang out with. I know VERY WELL that Thunder players like to go out. I know WHERE they go out. I know who they go out with. I'll take my chances on the Thunder fielding a competitive team even if the bulk of the dance club scene moves to a place other than Bricktown. Your lack of perspective is astounding.

Does anyone know where the Thunder Girls hang out?