Re-urbanizing Downtown

[Plutonic Panda]

Rover doesn't have to admit anything. If he can do it, by God, everyone else can. We're all just a bunch of wusses who don't want to walk.

Not trying to be argumentative here, but do you really feel uncomfortable walking from DD or Midtown to Downtown or vice versa? I walk it. I've been with friends walking it. I know a few people who walk it. No complaints from anyone.

[bchris02]

The fact that JTF doesn't live in OKC really does show when he tries to say that MBG doesn't have anything going on. There is always a lot going on every time I am down there, and that is without the Clayco development, the convention center, and the Cox block in place.

[Just the facts]

Yes I have been MBG since it re-opened. Who cares if parking garages front the park so long as retail lines the sidewalk? As Jane Jacobs wrote in Death and Life of the Great American City, public spaces need residential fronting them to create a level of safety. If people don't feel safe they won't go there. By placing residential along the park, and putting parking in the center of the block, it produces what she dubbed 'eyes on the street'. Crime studies have shown that people don't even need to be present to discourage criminal activity. Just the possibility that someone could look out their window is enough to discourage criminal activity. That will never happen with a parking garage, an office the closes down at 5PM or even a restaurant that close at 10PM. Criminals don't operate at night because they just aren't morning people. They operate at night because there are fewer people watching.

[BoulderSooner]

If only Rover used the same logic on skybridges and the underground.

MBG was to be the center piece of downtown OKC. It was the place where people were going to gather and enjoy all the benefits of civic life. It was going to have restaurants open after 2PM, and it was where children were going to play. If that was the goal then at some point OKC leaders have to realize that doesn't just happen by accident. You can't surround it with parking garages, convention centers, and office towers, and then expect people to come to it. No where in the world is that happening. Rover's idea that you can lump all of downtown OKC and adjacent neighborhoods into the same bucket and call it mixed-use just doesn't work. If that logic is used lets just lump all of metro-OKC together and call it all mixed-use. The urban core of OKC is made up of multiple districts, neighborhoods, and corridors and each one needs to be as diverse as possible.

The pedestrian-shed is typically 1/4 mile in radius. If there are not people living in this radius people will not walk to the center on a regular basis and if the core of downtown can't compete with the adjacent neighborhood cores then we can write downtown off as being a 24/7 hub no matter how cool the Oklahomans video board is. The Clayco residential buildings will fall within the Film Row pedestrian shed which already offers more the downtown OKC does from a pedestrian perspective.

it is the center piece of downtown right now .. with a blank wall to the east empty lots to the south and empty buildings and lots to the west ..... amazing it is full about every night .. and with the new construction it will be even more activated .. how is that possible?

because most of what you post are total generalities that don't apply 100% to okc .. and the environment and realities that exist here.

[heyerdahl]

Here's an interactive slider showing the 'deurbanizing' of downtown from 1954. Amazing what was lost:

60 Years of Urban Change: Oklahoma and Texas | The Institute for Quality Communities

[bchris02]

Yes I have been MBG since it re-opened. Who cares if parking garages front the park so long as retail lines the sidewalk? As Jane Jacobs wrote in Death and Life of the Great American City, public spaces need residential fronting them to create a level of safety. If people don't feel safe they won't go there. By placing residential along the park, and putting parking in the center of the block, it produces what she dubbed 'eyes on the street'. Crime studies have shown that people don't even need to be present to discourage criminal activity. Just the possibility that someone could look out their window is enough to discourage criminal activity. That will never happen with a parking garage, an office the closes down at 5PM or even a restaurant that close at 10PM. Criminals don't operate at night because they just aren't morning people. They operate at night because there are fewer people watching.

Why do you keep saying parking garages are going to front the park? You know that isn't the case. Parking garages a block away catty-cornered is NOT fronting the park. You are simply jumping into hyperbole to advance an agenda.

[PhiAlpha]

Yes I have been MBG since it re-opened. Who cares if parking garages front the park so long as retail lines the sidewalk? As Jane Jacobs wrote in Death and Life of the Great American City, public spaces need residential fronting them to create a level of safety. If people don't feel safe they won't go there. By placing residential along the park, and putting parking in the center of the block, it produces what she dubbed 'eyes on the street'. Crime studies have shown that people don't even need to be present to discourage criminal activity. Just the possibility that someone could look out their window is enough to discourage criminal activity. That will never happen with a parking garage, an office the closes down at 5PM or even a restaurant that close at 10PM. Criminals don't operate at night because they just aren't morning people. They operate at night because there are fewer people watching.

Where will parking garages "front" the park?

Also, I have trouble believing residential not immediately fronting the park will create a situation where people don't feel safe and therefore, don't go there. How do you explain people frequenting it at all hours of the night right now with nothing but an empty lots on the south and west sides (or up until a few months ago, empty lots and an empty stage center surrounded by homeless people). Would it be better if the residential buildings fronted the park? Sure, but placing them an extra 200 feet west hardly dooms it to becoming the massive failure you keep describing.

[Anonymous.]

Not trying to be argumentative here, but do you really feel uncomfortable walking from DD or Midtown to Downtown or vice versa? I walk it. I've been with friends walking it. I know a few people who walk it. No complaints from anyone.

I think he is more referring to the fact that generally people in the OKC metro do not want to walk. I know multiple people who live in DD and drive to work in the CBD. It is actually ridiculous.

OKC has to lose the mindset of 'everything vehicles' before we get true urbanism. It is just how it is. Babysteps.

[PhiAlpha]

Why do you keep saying parking garages are going to front the park? You know that isn't the case. Parking garages a block away catty-cornered is NOT fronting the park. You are simply jumping into hyperbole to advance an agenda.

Not even catty-cornered. There will be an office building with street-level retail on the corner of Hudson and Sheridan.

[bchris02]

Not even catty-cornered. There will be an office building with street-level retail on the corner of Hudson and Sheridan.

Correct. It's a block away catty-cornered. It should barely be visible if at all from the park.

[Just the facts]

If you look at the site plan for Clayco the frontage along MBG (starting at Sheridan) goes parking garage, office building, parking garage, skybridge, parking garage, office building, parking garage. There is as much parking garage over-looking the park as there is office building.

[AP]

I know multiple people who live in DD and drive to work in the CBD. It is actually ridiculous.

So do I and I will never understand.

[Anonymous.]

JTF, you mentioned something in this thread that I had not actually considered with tons of thought... If I had to choose the current most walkable/bikeable place in OKC in terms of actual infrastructure (crosswalks, sidewalk quality, trashcans, bikeracks, etc.) The answer is by far and gone, Film Row. The Clayco block will help liven this area up and hopefully spill business into the district.

[Just the facts]

I think he is more referring to the fact that generally people in the OKC metro do not want to walk. I know multiple people who live in DD and drive to work in the CBD. It is actually ridiculous.

OKC has to lose the mindset of 'everything vehicles' before we get true urbanism. It is just how it is. Babysteps.

So do I and I will never understand.

I'm trying to tell you why. It's not a mystery. You have to build a place people want to walk in and there are very basic and well known ways to do it - and OKC ISN'T doing it.

[CuatrodeMayo]

Here's an interactive slider showing the 'deurbanizing' of downtown from 1954. Amazing what was lost:

60 Years of Urban Change: Oklahoma and Texas | The Institute for Quality Communities

This makes my stomach churn...

[bchris02]

I'm trying to tell you why. It's not a mystery. You have to build a place people want to walk in and there are very basic and well known ways to do it - and OKC ISN'T doing it.

Your problem, Kerry, is you see everything in terms of ideals and theory when there are other factors at play in reality. It's not much different from the way ODOT engineers only consider number of cars moving in and out of downtown or retailers look at OKC's spread out wealth and opt for Tulsa instead, considering no other factors. It would be much more constructive if you would back off your hand-lined dogma and try to understand OKC, the culture here, and consider how best to fit urbanism into that culture in a way that will be accepted and embraced by the people in this city.

[hfry]

Your constant fabrication of "facts" is growing quite annoying.
Yes, there is a slim piece of the parking garage that sits back from the back but it is hardly fronting it. Clayco has 2 office buildings fronting the park plain and simple, if you want to argue for a parking garage fronting it you can't omit that the residential towers will be able to see the park on their most north and south corners which would then agree with your cliched, over exhausted rhetoric you keep spewing on every thread possible.
And just as Bchris stated and you promptly blew you, the park is well used, it always has something going on right now with people from every shape of life enjoying it. Would residential immediately fronting it help? Of course it would and no one would argue with you but you can't keep twisting facts however it suits you and I think that despite the fact that it has the tallest tower in Oklahoma fronting it, the blank walls of the cox center, and hole in the ground of what was stage center and massive parking lots where I40 used to be, its doing quite well to be constantly full and constantly used.

[Just the facts]

I guess then if you guy are happy with the direction the core of downtown is taking there isn't much left to talk about. Enjoy your new city.

[Plutonic Panda]

Here's an interactive slider showing the 'deurbanizing' of downtown from 1954. Amazing what was lost:

60 Years of Urban Change: Oklahoma and Texas | The Institute for Quality Communities

I actually prefer the newer downtowns.

[PhiAlpha]

I guess then if you guy are happy with the direction the core of downtown is taking there isn't much left to talk about. Enjoy your new city.

How can we not be generally "happy" with the direction of it? Overall, things are going great! Could they be better, sure, but there is no urban disaster occurring here. It is not going to be the perfect paradise of urbanism, but things are moving in the right direction. The two most recently announced developments got much of the equation correct with retail spaces pushed up to and fronting the streets, that's more than can be said of the Devon Tower. It would be better if they would keep more of the historic urban fabric in place, but unless a miracle occurs, that doesn't seem to be in the cards. The Clayco proposal includes a lot of residential and with the Dowell Center and First National sitting empty right now, more could be on the way right in the middle of the core.

Our main argument was that despite what you seem to think, MBG is currently vibrant at all hours of the day even with all the factors working against it. It will be better, not worse off when these new developments are complete, even with residential sitting 200 feet back instead fronting it.

[hoya]

The truth is that while the ClayCo developments and the new Preftakes building are not perfect, they will add substantially to the appeal of Oklahoma City. They're both fairly wasteful when it comes to how they use their space (all 4 ClayCo buildings could go on the Stage Center block with no problems). But they also represent a new stage of investment in OKC by out of state companies. It's another step towards where we want to be. I'm not entirely pleased with how everything went, but it's much better than it not happening at all.

[PhiAlpha]

This makes my stomach churn...

The destruction of Main, Sheridan, California, and Reno and the CCC's domination of the south side of DT really stand out...

[BoulderSooner]

I guess then if you guy are happy with the direction the core of downtown is taking there isn't much left to talk about. Enjoy your new city.

Thanks we will

[no1cub17]

Wow - both sides need a chill pill methinks. JTF is spot on with quite a lot. OKC has a looooooooong way to go, and sadly probably will never be as urban and walkable as Center City Philadelphia. If we could shrink EKG, Broadway, Sheridan, etc to 1/3 their current size, that would help a great deal, but then people would whine about where to park! A prime example of how far we have to go - read the most recent interview published in the Daily Disappointment re: Fassler Hall - one of the first questions asked is "what about the parking". As long as we let parking haunt us, it's going to haunt us. A fundamental change in our mindset is needed and we're a long ways off from that. There is no parking shortage in downtown, only a shortage of usable transit options. But what so many here don't seem to get is that fundamentally, downtowns and walkable districts (not even going to say urban here because something can be "walkable" without being "urban" - go to any small town in Japan for example) are built around the person, not the car - so that means no 6 lane roads dividing buildings (hello HSC) which sit empty for 95% of the day.

Which reminds me - why, when you're walking up Broadway in AA, don't the walk signs automatically turn to walk when the traffic lights turn green? That is so stupid it boggles my mind. Not only that but when you get to a "stop" signal and push the button to cross - even if the traffic light is green, it won't change to walk. So frustrating!

[boitoirich]

I understand what everyone's saying here. I just want to come to JTF's defense a little bit. We absolutely need people just like him to keep a watchful eye and to advocate for the best city we can have. What he is saying has been said by many others in the OGE thread and Preftakes Block thread, especially about the prominence of the parking garages. Why wouldn't these garages go underground? That would actually be a better use of TIF money. We'd get more ready-to-develop land next to the park, and a more attractive public environment.

Besides, this thread is about urbanizing downtown. Could we get back to ways of doing that?