Top 5 Community Development Stories of 2005

[Kiah]

Top Five Community Development Stories of 2005

1.   Maurice Kanbar and Friends Buy Downtown Tulsa.

California investors swooped into T-Town and gobbled up nearly a dozen chronically undervalued downtown buildings.  Let’s face it, much of downtown has essentially been for sale since the 1980s oil bust, but it’s quite reassuring that they’ve been acquired by investors with the means to really do something worthwhile.  To quote my favorite British Prime Minister, Francis Urquhart – Kanbar and Friends clearly have the wherewithal to “lay a bit of stick about.”

By all accounts, they also seem to realize that they’ll have no choice but to raise the community up with them if they hope to see many happy (and healthy) returns on their investment.

Now, the race is on to see if its newest owners can restore downtown Tulsa before the current owners destroy it . . . .

2.   Good Infill Happens, Despite NIMBY Nonsense.

Despite the histrionics of certain ‘neighborhood leaders,’ there was a lot of good infill development in Tulsa in 2005.  The Cherry Street Lofts, a booming Brookside, and, yes, even the Arvest Midtown, are all great additions to thriving neighborhoods.

If we don’t learn the fine art of discerning good (or even merely acceptable) redevelopments from the bad (and clearly unacceptable), we’re going to continue to squander perfectly good bile.  That just means we’ll have less to spew when we really need it.

Take a page, for example, from Michael Bates, who has welcomed Wal Mart (of all things) to his neighborhood – at the site of the deteriorating Mayo Meadow shopping center.  He knows that active retail – even exploitative mega-retail – is better for an adjacent neighborhood than chronic stagnation.  I’m sure he would prefer better (who wouldn’t?), but a parking lot full of something, in this case, is slightly better than a parking lot full of nothing.

3.   South Tulsa Citizens Coalition – Now There Are Some NIMBY’s.

Who were the NIMBY’s that mattered in 2005?  Without question, it was the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition, and their dynamic spokesperson, Michael Covey.  They single-handedly derailed a multi-million dollar bridge deal to group of County insiders and land speculators, and they sparked an honest-to-God debate on urban sprawl and County government accountability.

Sure they just want to close the gates behind their McMansions, but wow, what a fight!

4.   6th Street Task Force Submits its Plan.

After years of hard work, the grass-roots planning effort along the 6th Street corridor east of downtown is coming to fruition.  What’s more, since it’s tied intimately to a decidedly un-sexy flood mitigation project, it actually stands a good chance of securing substantial public investment (unlike Crutchfield) inside of a few decades.

5.   River Plan Prompts Funding Proposal.

Doing the River First?  Well, not quite, but the unveiling of the final phase of the Arkansas River Corridor Plan at least prompted the Mayor to propose a few million in the third penny sales tax extension for river development.  It won’t be sufficient or soon enough for those who still don’t realize that real river investment is primarily a private matter, but it’s a jump start that just might lure a bit of interest.

Others:

$9.3 million for downtown housing coming on-line, Main Street is now open for business, Council commits to update 30-year old Comprehensive Plan, and (to paraphrase Hee Haw) “if it weren’t Latinos, we’d have no growth at all” . . . .