Humphreys Ferris Wheel

[jbrown84]

This is Big League City development, kids.

[BDP]

That would be nice and would definitely reinvent the waterfront. I think such a development would also do a lot to change the city's image, as well. It would single handedly give it a much different "feel".

[MrBojangles]

Hope I am around to see all this changes........

[Luke]

Nice!

[Patrick]

Hate to be a pessimist, but i'll believe it when i see it. I'm still waiting for bricktown to become everything it was promised to become back in 1998 when the canal opened.

[kevinpate]

Can't share the debbie downer pill.

Re BT, it is still growing, slowly perhaps, but still growing. And, given what' little is along the river today, if even one tenth of what's shown in the above renderings came to pass, that would still be a significant development and a very major improvement worthy of celebration. If he can make it all happen, even better.

[metro]

Patrick, even you should know Grant Humphreys is NOT Randy Hogan and Jim Brewer. Has he given you any reason to doubt with his other projects? Additionally, Grant is an urbanist unlike our Lower Bricktown counterparts. Grant has vision and holds out for quality development.

[theparkman81]

I like those picture jbrown84, I can picture something like that on the Oklahoma River at the airpark, I think it would be great. Downtown OKC is going look a lot different in about 10 years or so.

[warreng88]

Breathing life into riverfront properties
by Kelley Chambers

The Journal Record April 15, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY – The 105-foot-tall Santa Monica Ferris wheel, purchased by Grant Humphreys last year, is coming to Oklahoma City one of these days. For now it is being refurbished in Wichita, where it was manufactured.

The Ferris wheel will be a focal point of Humphreys’ development at the former Downtown Airpark. He has dubbed the 86-acre site Waterfront Park.

Phase one of the project, which will include residential, office and retail space, is set to coincide with the relocation of Interstate 40 on the south side of downtown in 2012.

Humphreys and a group of investors bought the former airpark in 2006 for $7.2 million.

The project will not compete with Bricktown or Core to Shore, the city’s project to redevelop 750 acres between the central business district and the Oklahoma River.

“What we’re looking for at the Downtown Airpark is a mixed-use walkable environment that has some entertainment elements and some recreation elements that will be different from Bricktown,” Humphreys said.

The first Core to Shore projects are set to begin in 2014. Humphreys said with his project starting two years earlier, it can help test the market. The airpark is on the south side of the river along Western Avenue and not part of the Core to Shore area. The site is 1.3 miles from the central business district.

“The city can actually learn from our mistakes as we attempt to bring in mixed-use walkable types of urban density,” Humphreys said.

Humphreys knew the development would have to have a special draw.

“We needed something to bring people across the river,” he said. “We wanted to create something that was a unique experience.”

He found his answer last year while looking at online auction site eBay.

The Santa Monica Ferris wheel was up for sale. Humphreys won the wheel with a bid of $132,400.

It was shipped to Wichita, where 160,000 light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are being installed and the ride is being painted and refurbished.

Humphreys said he will bring the wheel to Oklahoma City in 2012 when the first phase of the airpark project begins. He said the project will take about 10 years to complete. It could include 950 single-family and multifamily housing units and have up to 400,000 square feet of office space and 300,000 square feet of retail space. Specifics will be worked out over the next few years, Humphreys said.

Humphreys spoke at the Urban Waterfront Development forum Tuesday hosted by the Urban Land Institute of Oklahoma.

Mary Margaret Jones, senior principal with Hargreaves Associates, a design firm with offices in San Francisco, Cambridge, New York and London, has worked on riverfront developments around the world. She said the ingredients for a successful waterfront project are simple.

“Food, water to play in, and a waterfront,” she said. “That’s all you need.”

Jones’ firm worked on riverfront developments in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Louisville, Ky., which she said could help Oklahoma City map its own plan.

A derelict area in Louisville along the Ohio River was redeveloped with a $100 million public investment that so far has engendered a private investment of $364 million. In Chattanooga a hotel tax was passed that helped fund a $65 million public investment. That project has spurred $115 million in private investment so far.

Jones said projects like Humphreys’ can only help to spur waterfront investment and do not compete with public projects or established entertainment districts.

“It’s a great opportunity to grow together,” she said.

The city’s Core to Shore development along the river is expected to take decades to complete and will require both public and private investment.

“We’re just at the beginning in the life of this river,” said Oklahoma City Planning Director Russell Claus.

http://journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=97714

[okcpulse]

Hate to be a pessimist, but i'll believe it when i see it. I'm still waiting for bricktown to become everything it was promised to become back in 1998 when the canal opened.

You can thank greedy Bricktown property owners for that shenanigan. I hope Steve grills them today for half-assing their promises. Bricktown would have a lot more foot traffic today if they didn't keep over-pricing their rent, hindering business to move in.

If Bricktown had more business and foot traffic along the canal, perhaps the banks would have warmed up more to potential development.

On the same token, some of these no-name developers should have had no business trying to get their foot in the door in Bricktown, because now you see the end results.

[metro]

http://newsok.com/ebay-purchase-to-a...ad_story_title

Ebay purchase to anchor Oklahoma River waterfront development
BY STEVE LACKMEYER
Published: April 15, 2009

For more than a year Grant Humphreys has kept a secret: What he was going to do with the Ferris wheel he bought on eBay from California’s Santa Monica Pier.


A Ferris Wheel that carried more than 3 million people while it was at the Santa Monica Pier in California will be the focal point of the "The Waterfront,” a mixed-use development on the former Downtown Airpark site south of the Oklahoma River along Western Avenue. RENDERING Provided by Grant Humphreys

Humphreys’ plans for the ride and for redevelopment of the old Downtown Airpark highlighted a presentation Tuesday on the future of the Oklahoma River.

"We want to create something that is a unique experience,” Humphreys told the gathering of Urban Land Institute members. "It needed to be something different from Bricktown, different from what Core to Shore is going to be, and yet complement both.”


‘The Waterfront’

Humphreys said the Ferris wheel, 105 feet tall, will be the focal point of a development dubbed "The Waterfront” that over 10 years will include up to 950 homes, condominiums and apartments; 400,000 square feet of office space; 300,000 square feet of retail space; and a site for a hotel.

The Ferris wheel is being restored in Wichita, Kan., and Humphreys hopes it will be part of a first phase of development ready in time for the estimated 2012 opening of the new Interstate 40 Crosstown Expressway.

Humphreys said it wasn’t until he visited Santa Monica for the ride’s final weekend that he realized its potential.

"It was more than an amusement ride for Santa Monica,” Humphreys said. "We went out to this pier, and it was the place everyone went to on weekends and evenings. And the wheel was the icon, the emotional heart of this community. They got engaged on the Ferris wheel, they enjoyed their first ride with their kids on the Ferris wheel. It’s nostalgia.”

Humphreys said the design is mean to be flexible with pedestrian-friendly streets that will connect to the waterfront. Hans Butzer, designer of the Oklahoma City National Memorial, has been hired to create design guidelines.

The market, Humphreys said, will dictate the project’s ultimate mix. He said the office space will be targeted at smaller users and will not compete with downtown office space. He said apartments probably will be built first, along with some retail around the Ferris wheel.

Humphreys’ development coincides with the city’s increased effort to acquire key Core to Shore parcels between the river and downtown and development of Boathouse Row.

Progress continues
Mayor Mick Cornett said the city has to balance its efforts to guide the area’s development with ongoing efforts to improve downtown.
"There are challenges galore,” Cornett said. "But there aren’t any challenges we cannot address and meet.”

Mike Knopp, Chesapeake Boathouse Foundation director, reported an annex boathouse recently was completed near Exchange Avenue and work is ready to begin on the Devon Boathouse as soon as city improvements and utility relocations are completed. He said funding is complete and design work is under way for the University of Oklahoma Boathouse.

Construction also continues on the riverfront American Indian Cultural Center. Funding is in place for a pedestrian bridge that city leaders hope will become an iconic image along the mostly submerged future highway.



VIDEO

Inline Article Video Player

[Pete]

Here are some captures from that video...

The bottom four I believe are the Devon/OCU Boathouse, which looks to have a quite large interior space that will be available for events:

[metro]

For those not familiar, please don't get the boathouses confused with Humphrey's Riverfront Park project. They are miles apart on different ends and sides of the river.

[westsidesooner]

Great looking project, I can't wait to see dirt moving on this development. I especially like the cut-ins along the shore, there need to be more of these along the river someday. They'd make the river much more useable for boat owners and break up the straight rip-rap shores. One of the articles stated that the project is set to conincide with the opening of the new I-40 in 2012, does that mean they will break ground then, or be well into Phase 1 construction?

[venture]

I really like the little inlet that they will add. I would love to see more of these to help, like Westside said, break up the boring straight lines of the Oklahoma River. Ideally, long term I would love to see the river rehabbed all the way to Lake Overholser. I'm sure there will be some issue with the size of the basin of the river further to the west past Dell, but I don't think that should slow anything down. Integration into Overholser would require another lock obviously, but nothing horrible.

Imagine evening cruises along the river to the lake. The ability for people to build homes, with some acreage, along the river and have their boat docked at their home. No longer needed to drag it to a lake several miles away.

Just a thought.

[AFCM]

The ability for people to build homes, with some acreage, along the river and have their boat docked at their home.

I love the notion of extending the rides all the way to the lake, but I'd rather keep the undeveloped part of the river as natural as possible. I dislike the concept of allowing a few to benefit themselves by permanently altering what limited aesthetic resources we have. Other than that, I love your idea.

[John]

Of the last four images Pete posted, I believe the first one is the Devon/OCU boathouse, but the last three appear to be the Bennett?/UCO boathouse. OCU's conceptual drawings had blue neon, OU - red, and UCO - yellow.

[westsidesooner]

Ideally, long term I would love to see the river rehabbed all the way to Lake Overholser. I'm sure there will be some issue with the size of the basin of the river further to the west past Dell, but I don't think that should slow anything down. Integration into Overholser would require another lock obviously, but nothing horrible.

Imagine evening cruises along the river to the lake. The ability for people to build homes, with some acreage, along the river and have their boat docked at their home. No longer needed to drag it to a lake several miles away.

Just a thought.

I have always wanted the city to revive the old string of pearls project in some form or fashion. I made numerous posts in other threads detailing some of my hopes. If you go to google earth and zoom in on the area there really isnt to much standing in the way of something like that happening. An old junk car yard just west of sw 15th and MacArthur (just south of some lake/ pond...privately owned I'm sure) and of course the city landfill which I've always hoped could be turned into something like this: Mount Trashmore Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not so sure about private acreages along the shore, but I'd be all for more cutout canals or lakes beside the river where that could be done. Something like ski island on steroids....or Venice Beach or Balboa Island, with a connection to, but seperate from the main riverway. There are several canal/waterfront developments in OKC that dont have access to the river (river bend @ council and 63rd) and they have done very well.

The river itself I think should be developed as park land with some retail mixed in. A project like this would connect all the bikers, joggers and everyday citizens who use lake Hefner to downtown via the trail system. Heres a couple of pics for visuals:




I tried and could not figure out how to paste a pic of the area in question from Meridian ave. to Overholser dam on Google earth for visual effects....I'd really appreciate it if someone could do that for me. Anyhow, thats what Id like to see in the future. My apologies...I know this is a thread about the ferris wheel but I view the entire river as one huge project. IMHO

[venture]

Alright. You guys got me on the development directly along the river. The cut out canals and lakes would be a great addition. I just love what they did with the Oklahoma River to actually have water in it now, and really feel it would go a long way to expand on that. Help build up the other rivers in the area, and also work on a canal system to connect the lakes.

I always enjoyed just taking the pontoon boat out when up at the family's cottage in Michigan. That area had 3 good sized lakes connected by canals to allow you to just cruise between each of them. This would probably be more of a project for the private sector to spearhead...but I would also see some benefit to storm water drainage for a system like this as well.

[Luke]

We could plant some hardy palm trees and have a Ft. Lauderdale on the plains.



FYI, this is a Yucca Palm near Penn Square Mall... A buncha these would work!

[PLANSIT]

^Um, sprawl with a canal. Brilliant.

[Luke]

^Um, sprawl with a canal. Brilliant.

I'll take it! Kinda like Ski Island.

[venture]

^Um, sprawl with a canal. Brilliant.

Who says that existing neighborhoods couldn't be transformed? Hell we dug up a couple streets downtown and did it.

[PLANSIT]

^And how much did that cost again? And who's doing the transforming? Developers?

^^ Well, hopefully that's not a consensus statement.

[westsidesooner]

I looked for some more detailed renderings but couldnt find any recent ones. And it looks like the plans have changed slightly since the original version of his plans for the airpark. The Humphreys Company Here is a clip linked from above showing a slightly different cove.
Any new renderings out there?

With the ferris whell, the ampitheatre, the small cove (the original plans show a small marina) I am curious. What kind of retail and commercial development do you think this project will attract? Or what kind would you like to see there that would compliment the above mentioned features?

Obviously this is all speculation at this point since it won't be built for a couple of years. Should they go after high end deptartment stores for an anchor or small boutiques? Or do they want more amusements to attract families with children?

Also I was wondering about the video Inline Article Video Player In it Mr. Humpkreys discusses a walkable riverside, the AICCM, the boathouses and other current and future projects going on along the river. Is there any renderings of everything planned. Including C2S, AICCM and the boathouses? A model of the rivers future would be awesome (and increase public enthusiasim for the new projects)