The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Renovation happening at the old Antique Warehouse at 1207 S Lewis Ave.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50257050467_3d512fa8b3_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jz3wb8)
1207 S Lewis Property (https://flic.kr/p/2jz3wb8)

This area is really starting to become a nice little district, especially when the apartments across 11th are completed.

I remember when Renaissance built their building and how much trouble/hoops they had to jump through with the city to be able to build a street fronting building like that and I'm so glad they did. It really helped set the stage for how to do some of the surrounding infill.

Yes the development at the NW corner of 11th & Lewis will really tie everything that has been done around Mother Road Market together.   It also starts to pull new development to the north toward Whittier Square.  Hopefully it is able to move forward.

While Renaissance and the other new developments have been street-fronting you have the fairly recent building at 3rd & Lewis that isn't (and easily could have been).  The dentist office at 6th & Utica is one of the worst examples, still pisses me off when I see it.

The QuikTrip at 11th & Utica still makes me the most mad, because they essentially killed any leverage the city tried to get in demanding urban style development in that neighborhood.

I think it took Renaissance almost a year of working with the city to get them to approve the plans they built and it seems like such a no brainer now, so I'm glad they stuck with it because the examples you just mentioned didn't try very hard to get the city to allow them to build to the street front and where the city tried to require it, they just let developers and businesses to walk right over them to build whatever they wanted.

I believe the city is working on a new overlay for this area that will reduce parking minimums and ease some of the requirements for smaller infill projects. So I'm encouraged that we won't see too many more of those dentist office type developments in this neighborhood going forward. Reducing the required parking will help a lot.

I'd hate to start seeing this area turn into what's happening on Cherry Street where to get permits they're having to buy up homes nearby and level them for surface parking. It's really disappointing to see how far back the parking is creeping around those new developments on 15th. I'd wish the city or the businesses would pool together and come up with a parking plan to build a common garage somewhere so they can keep more of the existing homes/small apartment buildings from being razed.

Looks neat how they're keeping it virtually the same building shape, just upgrading aesthetics. I like those old warehouses like this with a small cottage attached. They look really nice when fixed up like at 918 Coffee. Glad people are taking risks like that and making the area better. It already looks good and a huge improvement. I'm also excited about the NW corner of 11th and Lewis. That will really turn the tide around there.

The Lincoln Plaza lots at 15th & Peoria offer the best chance for this.  An interior public parking structure partially funded by the BID and City wrapped by a private development that includes retail on the ground floor with apartments above would be a win-win for the area. 

I've thought the same thing, once you built a small one there then build a second one north of Roosevelt and Crushed Red on those lots (they could do valet parking for several months to the garage built at 15th/Peoria). Then finalize that with a third garage either on the SNB parking lots with retail facing 15th or on the vacant lots between 14th/15th off Utica. I've never got why Bumgarner has sat on that lot for years and not tried to do anything with it. He's secretly (ish) told people in the CRE community that he's ready to build 300-500k of office for a large tenant on the site and has been saying that for 4-5 years so not sure how serious he really is about that.

It'd make more sense to do a mixed use project there. Large public parking garage with retail facing Utica then have a small mix of office above, residential units, and to me it'd make a whole lot of sense to have an upscale hotel there. Something like a Westin, Hilton, Marriott etc. given there's no hotels in that area.

Then once you've built a garage at each end and then in the middle of the district - place an overlay that limits the tear down of existing homes/apartments for surface parking. I'm afraid if the city doesn't try to manage the situation in another five years there's going to be massive surface lots all the way up to BA except for the few parts where there's newer homes already built.

Building a garage on the Bumgarner site would make pretty good sense considering aesthetically, it's right next to the highway and kind of out of the way of the bulk of Cherry St.  I wouldn't think twice parking there and walking to the opposite end of CS, though I know that's a foreign concept to many Tulsans auto-oriented psyches these days.

Exactly, and I think a lot of people would be just fine parking and walking there as long as it was free. You'd probably have people complain if they charged and then had to walk to the other end of Cherry Street.

The businesses could pull together and have coordinated valet stations along Cherry Street and charge for valet for people who don't want to walk to cover operating expenses of the garage.