I'm certainly glad that Speck is coming back to Tulsa. And I'm ever hopeful that the DCC is starting to "get it." Of course, the DCC has hired other consultants in the past and ignored them. We've also developed a Downtown Master Plan that the DCC voted to support... except when certain individuals don't feel like it. (Not that they ever read it...)
Blake's comments in the article are spot on. Speck will certainly recommend implementing an urban overlay, which Bumgarner and a few others don't understand, and, thus, opposed vehemently. Who knows...maybe a $70k education will help him understand why his development on Boulder is an example of what not to do.
I could save the city $70k. Here's my proposal for a walkable downtown. Let's see how many of these ideas are included in the professional recommendations.
Connect entertainment and employment centers by restoring the urban fabric along dead spaces (especially, surface parking lots). This can be achieved by sacrificing a couple rows of parking to build shallow liner buildings, with ground floor retail spaces.
Ground floor retail needs to be human-scaled, attractive, and have at least 70% transparency on the first-floor frontage (aka: windows and doors).
Downtown buildings should be mixed-use, with residential over commercial to activate the space and create synergies 24/7.
Large buildings should use different facades to break up monolithic spaces. Architectural detail on the first two floors matters. Make the first 30 feet nice, and save money up higher where no one will notice.
Pedestrian amenities include sidewalks, streets trees, deep awnings, flower beds/planters, benches, artwork, water features, gentle lighting, and comfortable places to hang out and chat. Tactical urbanism projects could transform dead spaces into locations for public art, street performers, and concerts.
Permanent food truck stations or street market kiosks with infrastructure for water, electric, shade trees and benches could be used to line certain parking lots to simulate a street frontage and activate the space. (This is the pupae stage of urbanism for entrepreneurs without tons of capital: provides affordable, first-generation development of the space. Later, real buildings will replace these spaces.) Trucks/kiosks must be positioned to line the street without gaps to complete the street face.
All streets should be two-way, and lanes should be narrowed to slow traffic. "Bump outs" at intersections make pedestrians more visible to drivers and shorten the distance people have to cross to make it safely across the street. Bike lanes and dedicated bus lanes further calm traffic and make other modes more efficient. Back-in angled can also be used to create more parking and further narrow the street width.
All buildings in downtown Tulsa should be built up to the sidewalk with activated ground floors. Any parking should be located behind the buildings and screened from the street. This means wrapping parking garages with ground-floor retail, or surface parking lots with liner buildings. Any surface lots that don't include liner buildings should be screened using low landscaping and canopy trees.
Certain uses will be prohibited downtown: gas stations and drive-thrus.
re: how to create liner buildings around surface parking lots:
Implement a design overlay and re-establish the parcels so small developers /entrepreneurs can fill the blanks and restore the tax base to these wasted places. Churches could also do with with their lots, and use the spaces to build affordable housing and commercial spaces for developing entrepreneurial skills among under-served populations, recent grads, elderly, minority owners, etc. TCC could partner with TTC to involve students in the building and development process for credit. Use the finished space for student housing, recent grad housing, job incubators, etc.
That's it off the top of my head. Let's see what the professionals come up with.