The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Normally sub shops take over abandoned QuickTrip stores but in an odd reversal it looks like the Bill and Ruth's at 15th St will be demolished to make way for a new Quick Trip store.

This is entirely inconsistent with a plan by city engineers to rebuild 15th from Denver to Harvard to improve walkability and install bike lanes.  They want to tear down a half dozen buildings to install this oversized out-of-place suburban style gas station.  It looks like the zoning is already in place so neither the planning commission nor city hall will be able to provide input.  It'll be up to QT to be good corporate citizens to either change the location or try a smaller footprint or urban format, and we all saw how well they took that advice at 11th and Utica.  Just a bad deal all around in my opinion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Dqzlhdnu6jV3hJMDJDLU56ZWc/view?usp=sharing

Nice!  Another pretty thing taxpayers funded with no teeth and little chance of being implemented. 

Is there really not a way the city can jump in due to the increased traffic count at this intersection?

The pisser in all this is it was a much more pedestrian design 30 years ago when the Delman Center was still there.  Even the Safeway was built up to the curb on Lewis.  IIRC, there was a pocket neighborhood where Reasor's is now which was built up to 15th St. With a restaurant on that corner.  I guess it is hard to claim QT is incongruous to the intersection when you have three good size commercial properties on the other three corners.

Circle of life.  
This was originally QT #15... currently a sub shop...   being reclaimed by a yuge QT.

QT simply does not care about any plans or goals or hopes anyone has to make any part of Tulsa more dense or walkable.  QT has zero interest in thinking creatively to make a store blend into an existing neighborhood, rather than clearing houses and buildings to make way for it.  QT only wants to plop down its predesigned next generation suburban model anywhere and everywhere it operates.  It’s a for-profit company and it has that right.  The fact that Tulsa is too timid or cowardly to say “no” to this approach in a few select locations in mid-town is on us and our leaders.

Yes, much damage has already been done at 15th & Lewis so it is not worth falling on your sword now.  But then, neither was 21st & Harvard.  Or 36th & Peoria.  Or 11th & Utica.  Communities are rarely destroyed in large sweeping events, but in small diminishments repeated time and time again until nothing is left worth saving.

I believe a QT will be very successful there.

Reasor's had a gas station across the street that they demolished in favor of parking. Wonder what information QT has that this is a good spot. They already have 5 giant QT stores all within 1.5 miles
15th and Denver 1.5 miles
11th and Utica <1 mile
21st and Harvard 1.5 miles
11th and College <1 mile
Admiral and Delaware 1.5 miles

Sad to say, in this case, "clearing houses and buildings to make way for it" will allow this this store to blend into the existing neighborhood.

A couple of years ago I lobbied an acquaintance of mine who works at QT on this point. He totally got what I was saying, seemed to agree with this group's views, and said that they were working on an urban model. Take that for whatever it's worth.

I have no doubt it will be successful.  Of course, those who tore down old empty buildings downtown to build surface parking made more money than if they'd sat on those empty buildings for 30+ years waiting for downtown's revival. 

I nominate the 36th & Peoria location for the first trial version of the "urban model".

That would make a lot more sense than 15th & Lewis.

Probably need to paste the previous thread on this from here: 
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=17044.msg319572#msg319572



QT spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said the plan is to also purchase the Duffy’s restaurant property next door and then build a QuikTrip Generation 3 store.

Thats their biggest store design.  It does seem a bit out of scale for that location.

That's their only store design.

That style store could be pushed to the sidewalk with half the number of pumps and fewer parking spaces on a much smaller footprint and be a plus to an urban area.

The pumps are on 15th, the store is on Lewis.

And Reasor's tore down the gas station because they suck at it. They didn't build it in the first place.

If you could sell that to QT management, I’m sure there would be a long line of people waiting to give you a big sloppy kiss.

Considering their business relationship, it would have made sense for QT to simply take over Lil Reasors.  It was an appropriate size for a midtown gas station and the alternative was unused pavement, as it is now.  But QT has apparently decided they can't make money with fewer than 24 pumps and 6000 sq. ft.  It's just insane to me.  They probably also knew they were going to take over the entire corner across the street eventually.

Ew.   8)

QT sees themselves as more of a convenience store / fast-food establishment..
Which makes the huge pump requirement a bit more baffling

It was always my understanding QT uses petro as a low margin item to drive foot traffic to sell the high margin food & beverages.

QT would build a giant suburban Gen 3 store on Guthrie Green if they could buy the land and thought it would be a profitable location.  QT will modify its template suburban store design only if and when a city makes them do so.  Tulsa has not and appears unwilling/unable to offer any resistance to QT anywhere in Tulsa.

Yeah, they have no interest in doing something like that unless the market absolutely demands it. In Atlanta, they had to make an urban version to get in to the trendy Midtown neighborhood: https://atlanta.curbed.com/2016/6/23/12010170/qt-quiktrip-peachtree-street-6th-midtown-atlanta (https://atlanta.curbed.com/2016/6/23/12010170/qt-quiktrip-peachtree-street-6th-midtown-atlanta)

If Tulsa had standards like that to drive (limit) development standards, maybe QT would build there. I don't foresee that happening any time soon. We don't really have the ultra-high end walkable neighborhoods here where this would make sense. Maybe eventually if downtown increases its population by about 3,000, then it could have the kind of density that would warrant a QT urban store.

Who knows if this concept even worked well for QT. It probably did, but their margins are probably so high at other stores that there are probably plenty of lower hanging fruit out there where they can expand their market share without the sky high rent/real estate.

Being able to pull off a street i am already traveling on to buy gas is pretty convenient.

This is their stated objective but I find it hard to believe when there have been times gas was selling for .20 cheaper in OKC with higher transportation costs (there is no refinery in the OKC metro I am aware of these days).  With the way QT plays their price changes, it is clear they are concerned with making a profit off of it.  I have no clue how many times the prices have changed since I moved away in mid March, but the price at our two stations here in Cimarron have remained the same on all grades for over five months.  Even with Harvey this past week, they remain the same.  

The usual gas price game goes on.  Checking gasbuddy shows your price for regular in Cimarron at $2.49/gal for regular.  We recently had two price increases from $2.05 to $2.19 and then to $2.39 per gallon of regular.

They raised it from $1.93 the minute they heard their might be a hurricane.  Pre-gouging?

FWIW, a 15th & Lewis store might actually be a good thing if it werent a mega-store. 

I forgot the timing on that increase.

Costco was still $1.99 this afternoon.  (Thur 31 Aug)

I paid almost $3/gal today in texas with a $25 per vehicle cap. It took a few stops as I drove like 700 miles today.

At least you could find gas.  We were in Dallas over the weekend and maybe 10% of the gas stations even had gas.

I was in Bedford and had NO trouble finding gas.  All I needed.  And I paid $2.39, same as I paid here in Tulsa before i left.  Of course I saw the QT stations that had gas for $2.75 but didn't stop there.   

It could indeed, but that's pretty irrelevant to a discussion of the 15th & Lewis area.

Let's just agree that redevelopment/infill should create more density, not less.

Some people are more dense

One of the discussions on Nextdoor.com opined that having a 15th-and-Denver-sized store would be good for neighborhood crime because they always saw police there.

That site mostly makes me angry

Does that logic also apply to the Admiral & Memorial Wal-Mart?

dunno... constant police presence...   Drain on the police force.    Supposedly the highest loss Wal-Mart of them all.  Due to all the theft....   Was closed for several months due to "plumbing issues"

This QT in Fort Worth is placed at the corner, with the pumps in the back. It's not perfect (there's no entrance facing the sidewalk, and it's obviously the back side) but it's a lot better than what they do to our street corners here.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4347/36674476840_04985fe110_c.jpg)
1101 Hemphill

And this is the famous gasless, urban QT on Peachtree in Atlanta. It has parking behind the building, meets the sidewalk, includes plenty of transparency (windows), etc.
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/P_fbXpohQtHuiAC6PTie18zy2Jg=/0x403:3264x2224/1200x800/filters:focal(1371x963:1893x1485)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49932869/WP_20160623_002.0.jpg)

They also have better landscaping in cities that require it.

We need to figure out what to do with our growing collection of dead or abandoned QuikTrips scattered throughout the city, each of which has deed restrictions preventing other fuel sales. The new one at 15th & Lewis will be there only 20 years or so before they decide to abandon it for the southwest corner.

From Tulsa World (http://"http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/old-quiktrip-sites-create-real-estate-opportunity-for-businesses/article_82e98eee-0711-5727-84fd-fdfc40877c41.html"), May 11, 2014:

They build for expediency, for quick profits, then dump their locations when another corner at the same intersection opens up, complete with deed restrictions and boarded up windows, neighborhood be damned. County property taxes be damned. Competition be damned.

They are not the kindly, thoughtful, generous company they try to make themselves out to be. "Hey, don't think about us bullying your neighborhood and trying to skirt the City's rules on lighting, landscaping, or fencing - we just gave $3 million to a park! We're awesome!"

They exist for one reason: to sell candy, cigarettes, and gasoline; and they don't care what effects they have on anyone else around them.

It's easy to outsell the competition when you own almost every corner in town.

Has anyone tried to map all their abandoned stores?

Its pretty much a dressed-up back wall
https://goo.gl/maps/ZdH4CL5ATJ92
but the Atlanta example would be promising if selling gas to Broken Arrow Expressway traffic weren't the primary goal here.

Apparently people on NextDoor.com are still being told this will not be the mega-QT (Gen. 3) but a new, smaller design.
I would totally love to see that but, as pointed out here, QT is only building their biggest model these days.
...and the plan announced from the beginning was for the big store with a big sign you can see from the expressway.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/retail/quiktrip-planning-new-location-at-th-and-lewis/article_fda66471-547a-58c2-be2d-cc3d7f4c0e52.html

A follow-up.  I heard from a gentleman who was able to attend an Aug. 29 meeting who said QT now plans to debut a new small scale 1800 sq ft prototype store at that location.  No pictures or link to the plan, and it isnt what QT filed with the city.

The initial presentation says QT wants to serve the neighborhood but the plan appeared to show them using the neighborhood to serve the expressway.  Did they reverse course?

One can hope that being a good corporate citizen they did.

So...QT intends to get developmentally responsible in the same city it has demanded 80,000 square foot plots and closed residential streets for a business which on most days needs half that space to exist. SRSLY?

Im skeptical that a totally new design that contradicts their stated goals emerges in response to some loosely-organized neighborhood concerns.
Now if they were to put their money where their mouth is with some public filings before the city...

I sat down with the neighborhood group a few days ago for their meeting with QT's real estate project manager Daniel Chambers, where they previewed a Generation 3 model they say is 1000 square feet smaller.  That didnt alter their overall footprint there, as the size and number of their fuel canopies remain the same.  

The store faces the big empty lot of Office Depot on Lewis ave. while the two canopies and fuel tanks jut into the neighborhood facing 15th.  
At one point I asked if they would consider eliminating the east canopy from their plan, which seemed to come as a shock.

The neighbors were hoping QT would eliminate the curb cut that emptied traffic into the neighborhood from Lewis Place, but that struck me as an expendable that QT was using as a dangling carrot.  The slide the project manager showed wasnt in a form that could be submitted to the city, and he did confirm to the neighbors that it wasnt what was submitted.  He refused to make the sketch publicly available when asked, so at least we know it existed on paper at one time.  

He mentioned the plans would change with the widening of Lewis ave. for turn lanes, and promised QT wouldnt move on this until the existing business leases expire in 13 months, so we will see how that goes.  Of course, the street construction could kill off Bill and Ruths before then.

thanks for the update (I work a block away)

QT should have this be their first urban concept store.  7-11 has a few of these in Denver.  This is one is at W 38th & Harlan in Wheat Ridge (Denver suburb), not a particularly walkable street but this helps:

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kPqBd8ZOqJhbzI3Xq76SfTdP3BPL9_b4rnbCxNWxTHtHFPsvB0R4J-MfzVSzpDaa6OSLpTNMkL7AC3h2BWbPHtbHaBMulyX1MxUJQnMBL1_ReAToi_4xGOM4Gq9BwIOOlvgf0sDN2LWtYuQjaWNATXdhWxwPx5HLYhV3DxjuJA1T-lz7EM6JHtnpo2awyj168UGPnLCCkLIVXnj9gRUj2m1kgVWDQKjhSMINoZdWqW6YSCfG4NQKNidny55G2m8l5WQHV-b-UuYg8BeJ5F7CvYW3gN56AHcz9kbmErSFzj-vbkShhfH6qaPy5JXH-y5fNAPqb7vKfn7E2amg34Kt3FIRI32nW9pwVY8PQbLl6vyBl7ktSgCL0qBGdXuUys8FniTTeB9-NCl1ZHJb2FfyFNQ_Pk34Ac-_EvAJsE36tHK5YZr-aJ_afCJndkjQpdozceZ1WIvAQZ60S4XewQX764mzEmj0yzdh9AJodDE6pof5MJsIipklLzYSRvGdphl7yWPVCcTiCPPvOJ88keCUcL6xh7hcBy0uWgSXO0hWE2JFDkkdt89mQa7L_UxvSvffNoeC4gyTP6vdwx2fusb_XPoyefMea1buhPxSqA=w1534-h773-no)

The biggest issue for QT might be the two sets of doors, one at the corner and one facing the pumps. 

Gen 3 stores have 4 sets of doors (each end and both sides of counter). 
Some gen 2 stores have a back entrance  (21st and Harvard for example)

I believe their biggest issue is that the parking lot is less obvious and so their customer might drive by and pull into their nearest competitor.

QT may believe a simple reduction of interior space by 1000' makes their current design "urban," yet the outdoor sprawl is the same.
They also have front and back doors.

Maybe in some markets but QT is king in Tulsa.  Just put a big red square QT sign at the corner and no one will miss it.  If anything having a presence at the corner will draw in more customers, especially in more walkable urban areas.

i'm two blocks away...  will be walking
luckily I don't need to cross at the intersection.  
The city needs to fix/add walk buttons.   not every corner has two buttons...  if trying to get to the opposite corner, it's easy to get across the 1st street, but no way to get across the 2nd.
I'd document which corners have which buttons, but that'd be a pain in the rear due to the inability to cross the street.

It doesnt help when some of the crosswalk buttons are placebos.

(added)  https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/07/24/ahead-and-press-that-pedestrian-button-makes-you-feel-good/1krGOm2CfeZBvIkEkNm5rL/story.html

Okay, that's some good stuff right there.

Has anyone ever been in the 11th and Utica QT when that 80,000 square foot lot has been completely filled up and with traffic waiting to get in?

I didn't think so.  Such a waste of space.

I am not disagreeing about the amount of space, but I have absolutely seen that QT lot full (or damn close to it) in the morning.  Even more amazing to me is that it is common for each fuel pump to have a vehicle in it.  However, I doubt it is that busy throughout the day.

That might have been a poor example for me to pull out of the ridiculous parking requirements COT imposes in it's zoning and development.  I'm still not a fan of that parcel nor how QT bucked the Pearl Small Area Plan to pull that off.

My wife called in last week that the crosswalk light wasn't working and it looks like they're working on it today.  Also, that article seems misleading and limited to high density areas in bigger cities.  The cross walk lights in most of Tulsa do not speed up the cycle, but they at least tell you when during the cycle pedestrians are supposed to cross.  They are helpful, when they work.  The one at 15th and Lewis should be working again soon.

While I am not a fan of the amount of parking required, QT does very well there. I frequent that store more than most of the others and it is always full.

As much as I want Tulsa to feel walkable, it is still very focused on convenience for cars and drivers. Everything Tulsans can do, they want to do it with a drive-thru.

And yet, I'm never on your QT Christmas gift list.

The key is to provide an alternate, more walkable option in the older, urban areas of the city.  As Tulsa gets more density in the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods the corresponding development should cater to pedestrians, transit and bicycles, not just cars.

QT locations at 11th & Utica, 11th & College, 15th & Lewis, 15th & Denver and 36th & Peoria should be more pedestrian-oriented.  QT's at 71st & Yale, 51st & Sheridan, 101st & Memorial, etc are different stories because those areas are already mostly auto-oriented with little chance for any change. 

I use the one at 36th and Peoria multiple times a week, and it frustrates me every time I see it.  I love that it is there, and is very convenient.  But they could have built a cool street-fronted store that adhered to the look of the neighborhood and put the pumps in the back, etc.    Doing it the way the did it certainly hasn't hurt their business, but it would be nice to see QT care a bit more about the asthetics of their Tulsa stores.

I have a love/hate relationship with this topic when we talk about QT being more pedestrian-friendly.  They are a gasoline retailer, which by the principal product they sell, they aren't really promoting pedestrianism.  Call it an irony if you like.

Here's the issue for a gasoline retailer:  If that is the main part of your business, it has to be easy for people to pull in and pull out and not have to trundle down a side street to get in and out of the business to get your fuel.  Hiding the pumps in back decreases the visibility of the existence of the pumps.  I get your point and in a perfect world, I'd love that too.

I hope they're at least thinking about how to adapt to electric

In Springfield, they have Tesla chargers.   Well, the competition does anyway.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2016/06/08/macadoodles-tesla-superchargers-coming-north-springfield/85529714/

I don't know if it has been mentioned anywhere on here but the North garage that is used for TAD parking has a couple of spots to charge vehicles.

Not to derail the conversation any further, but my program has worked to get EV chargers in several downtown garages. So far, we have have:
• 2 in the West Garage
• 2 in the South Garage
• 2 in the North Garage
• 2 in the OTC garage
• 8 at Central Library's new garage (4 each on the ground and plaza levels)

The houses surrounding the new location have been bulldozed so this appears to be moving along.

No smile...???

Not verified, but a rumor on Nextdoor.com has the Sonic on Lewis Ave. bulldozing the remaining residences to their north and demolishing their present store to expand and re-align a new, larger Sonic with the new mega-QT this fall. 
The new store would include outside seating, so I dont know how that jibes with QT's announced plan to have greenspace to their south.

Sounds terrible, hopefully the neighborhood fights that. 

I confirmed with Sonic staff that this is happening by October.
The greenspace QT promised to the neighbors?  "It will be one big parking lot" from 15th to 16th streets, says the drive-in.
 
I guess you can say any damn thing you can think of to neighborhood groups.
 

F*cking horrible that this is even allowed to happen.  But it's consistent with the awful Office Depot, the Walgreens and Reasor's that have ruined what could be a semi-urban, walkable part of the city. 

The Office Depot is actually a re-worked Safeway store which is technically a "walkable" urban model with the exception of the wide curb cuts on Lewis.  Oh, and that south parking area which is never used aside from delivery trucks.  Back when the Delman Center was where Walgreen's is now, it was pretty much a walkable utopia.

I’ve seen pictures of what it used to look like and it’s sad to see what it looks like now.  Lewiston Gardens and Yorktown are such nice neighborhoods too.

IIRC, The Delman theater was a burned out hulk and there was damage from the fire to the rest of the structure on that corner. It sat after the fire with the roof and other parts open to the elements which caused water to leak into the other businesses.

Damage, roof repairs, replacing all of the HVAC equipment and asbestos are what did that corner in. The repairs and asbestos abatement were more than the buildings were worth. 


https://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/the-end-being-shot-at-delman-tulsa-theater-coming-down/article_7e767f89-69d1-5a29-9909-002699497427.html (https://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/the-end-being-shot-at-delman-tulsa-theater-coming-down/article_7e767f89-69d1-5a29-9909-002699497427.html)

I didn't remember a fire there and it was lost on me that it sat vacant for 9 years, funny how we forget things.  Wasn't Massad's in the part of the building which paralleled Lewis to the north of the theater?

Yes, Massad's. I shopped with ex-wife #2 and a couple of other women I dated there. The owner was always complaining about the roof leaking when it would rain, and it had a kind of musty mold smell to the place.

You could see scorch marks along the window openings of the second floor and west side of the theater I think in about 1983 or so, and they just boarded it up. It's sad, but at that time big theaters were dead except for the Bowman Twin and it's life was short at that time. The Southroad's, Village at Admiral and Garnett, Woodland Hills, Fox, Parklane were being devided into two screen houses, The Continental, Will Rogers were gone, The Brook fortunately was saved, I remember going to see "Brookside Babylon" comedy play in 1982. Everything else was shoebox size theaters, and the only drive ins were The TeePee in Sapulpa, The Admiral Twin (which was falling into disrepair and the one on 71st in BA.

Maybe QuikTrip can install one of those corner signs like the "Pearl District" sign at 11th and Utica.  They can call it "Concrete Corner".

https://tulsaok.tylertech.com/EnerGov4934/SelfService#/permit/484dc307-f13f-463d-9137-45739fd2b471

Then goto "Supporting Docs" and look at ZON_LOD_21865 Quik Trip.doc.pdf
 
Commercial Architectural Plan Review 
"Our review has identified the following code omissions or deficiencies..."

This is what QT should've done at this intersection.  Hopefully this is a template they can use for urban locations in the future, or to rebuild existing QT's in urban areas like at 15th & Denver, 11th & Utica and 36th & Peoria...

QT in downtown Ft Worth
(https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5622AQHD9Om48mvn6Q/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0/1691027831934?e=1694044800&v=beta&t=Z8WIYDrKlL0GMLVmYzRZPwveuIbBYv-zNBqniGJccvk)
(https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5622AQEhL6_l7xG_jw/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0/1691027828572?e=1694044800&v=beta&t=FV3aD0B9uzIU-_hjV2viPoLeSXSQHUAXN1SuhRDL3bo)
(https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D5622AQGC0zIzSCuiow/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0/1691027831909?e=1694044800&v=beta&t=n3Qmfex679C3ud467aagrjhwtMavRpgVdixoYLdQaQo)

Is it ADA compliant?  I don't see a wheel chair ramp.

I don't know that I consider 15th and Lewis "downtown". But also I'd argue that meets ADA. The main entrance is with the pumps or the ADA parking spots on the non-street side. ADA doesn't mean that all entrances have to be wheelchair accessible. There is a way for people for people at the stair entrance to get into the building via public sidewalks then turning into the parking lot as well. It's definitely not ideal, but texas requires plan reviews to go a separate office of accessibility and they are more strict than anything I have encountered in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, or here in Oklahoma.

Quite a change from this up until about 2019:

https://goo.gl/maps/MXwaWgK32mXiYwtg6

But, they insisted this was impossible at both 11th and Peoria and 15th and Lewis. I guess they care more about other markets than their own home market of Tulsa. They also know planning will just roll over for them no matter what they want to do anywhere in this city.

Likely a combination of designers not caring/knowing to push this to their client QT and our outdated planning regulations that allow this type of development in urban areas.  Kudos for Ft Worth for getting this built.  I know we have the C-store only QT in the BOK Tower and Atlanta has a streetfront C-store, I'm not aware of any other QT's with pumps behind the corner store?

Not a QT, but I happened upon this gas station (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0166474,-83.0120921,3a,75y,322.61h,96.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1SZ4hKVc7v40378XozmjXQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) on N High Street in Columbus, Ohio that has the store fronting the street with the pumps behind.  It can be done!

That's fantastic, probably the best one I've ever seen.  Bravo Columbus!

How odd....none of the pics showed up in my screen until I clicked to reply.  Then the links to the pics showed up, so guess I don't need to ask where the pics are now...