The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wpx-energy-m-a-devon-energy-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-shale-producer-devon-in-talks-to-acquire-peer-wpx-sources-idUSKBN26H115


I'm not sure what to say about this except it's too bad for Tulsa.  450 well paying jobs, a company with high growth potential, and a new headquarters.... all headed either down the turnpike or up in smoke.  We've been through worse, but this one is no fun.  

If this happens, they will likely have no presence in Tulsa.  Devon has a massive amount of vacant space in downtown OKC so no reason to pay any rent in Tulsa.  At least the building is out of the ground.  Maybe BOK is ready for its new headquarters, or a new company could move in.

At least this leaked before the deal was done.  If WPX's institutional investors are happy with the transaction, it will go forward.  If not, it may not.. but if the deal doesn't make, WPX will still be an acquisition target and likely to be snatched up by one of the Texas firms looking for opportunities.  

Tomorrow's news will tell the tale.  

Edit: Modified to reflect that the acquisition is moving forward

The people I know familiar with the deal expect maybe a 1/4 of the Tulsa workforce would transfer to OKC.  The rest would remain in Tulsa.  Assuming it is approved of course.  Good opportunity for other companies to move into a nice new office building in the most vibrant section of downtown.  I would bet some of the GKFF spin-offs like Atento Capital would be interested.

(Posted this on the wrong thread last night, oops)

Why does it seem that everything is too good to be true as far as major business developments around here? All those American Airlines jobs that got us excited are down the drain pretty much, and now this, not to mention the legacy of so many other companies that have been HQ'd or present here only to pack up and leave suddenly.

At least we'll have the building... not that we are light on office space, but it could help attract something else, maybe?


This morning the details have come out. It looks like WPX is being bought for just over $5 per share? They were trading higher than that just a few weeks ago... something smells really fishy about this deal.

https://tulsaworld.com/business/devon-energy-to-acquire-wpx-bloomberg-reports/article_e97a76f0-017d-11eb-9021-23514d5af443.amp.html?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_TulsaWorldBiz&__twitter_impression=true

Sounds like all employees would be moved to OKC and the new HQ here in Tulsa will be sold. Such a shame. WPX was touted as a good company dedicated to Tulsa.

Very exciting for Devon Energy. Now they can lay off hundreds of employees annually from two companies instead of one.

I don’t know I see this as a great opportunity for a new company not affiliated with oil and gas to move into a beautiful new building in the middle of the Arts District.  Seriously the location couldn’t be better in downtown Tulsa across from Guthrie Green and a easy walk to so many places. 

There's the silver lining. If WPX chooses to sell the building outright, I'm sure it would be for a good price. The city could toss in some incentives and it would make a very enticing offer for any mid size company to relocate here.

Shifting away from oil and gas should always be the goal, as those jobs are way too volatile and will only shrink in the future, but for the time being its unfortunate as WPX was a well run company, growing, and paid well.

They could very well just lease out the building to several small tenants though.

A bummer regardless of how you look at it.  At least the building is going so it can't be scrapped. Will be interesting to see what they decide to do with it.

I smell a Oneok Tower 2.0 in the works

^Nah, construction is too far along. The building size as it is makes sense if it will be repurposed anyway. It's a big building, but not huge. Sizeable enough to be a HQ for a medium sized company or split into multiple large units.

Exactly, they will finish the building and either lease it out or sell it outright.  Now if they were just getting started they might consider scaling back but that isn't the case. 

I don't understand the "too bar along" argument.  
Oneok tower was at 16 of  37 floors when they decided to stop.

WPX is currently on floor 3 of a planned 11-story building..
What's stopping them from doing a Oneok or Pythian?

There's no way they'd get their money back at this point if they decided to cap it off early. The building layout wouldn't make sense. It would be a stub of a building with a massive underground basement. There's no reason not to finish construction and keep it on the balance books for the time being as a non-oil related asset to leverage.

They’re going to finish the building and most likely market it as spec space.

The question is in what quality will they finish it... will the outside look like Cimarex Tower 2.0 or will they be using all the same materials as planned. It's also possible they might chop off a few floors. They'll have to build most of it, but they can still downscale it some and it's very possible the exterior will look nothing like promised which would be a huge shame.

The city really should get out and court some major tech companies and maybe get this building to act as a regional post for remote workers in this region. That's likely the future of the office market is regional hubs where remote workers come in for meetings 1-2 times a week then work from home the rest.

Tulsa sits in the central point of 6 million people. It's about an equidistant drive of OKC, NWA, SWMO, etc. and if tech companies or other companies set up a regional office in Tulsa they could recruit in a wide radius around Tulsa for remote workers.

Only good thing is with remote working becoming more popular is hopefully some of WPX employees can continue to live in Tulsa and just commute 1 or 2 times a week to OKC for meetings.

How useful or important is that 6 Million number?  One has to draw a radius of 175 miles to capture the 6 million people of which Tulsa is in the central point.  Using the same radius, Des Moines is at the center of 5.5 Million people. Springfield Missouri is in the central point of 7.2 million people.   Joplin, Missouri is in the central point of 7.2 million people.  Kansas City: 6.2 Million.  St Louis:  7.8 Million.  And of course the big kahunas of the region:  Dallas: 10 Million and Houston: 9.7 Million.  And our most recent nemesis, Austin:  12.2 million!

Tulsa is obviously hub for its region.  The goal is to make it more of a national hub considering we're only a metro of ~1M.  I look at the cities in the next tier and think with the right foundation in place we could get to that level within the next decade if we can continue to diversify the economy and our population starts to grow faster.
40. Jacksonville, FL
41. Oklahoma City
42. Raleigh, NC
43. Memphis, TN
44. Richmond, VA
45. New Orleans, LA
46. Louisville, KY
47. Salt Lake City, UT
48. Hartford, CT
49. Buffalo, NY
50. Birmingham, AL
51. Grand Rapids, MI
52. Rochester, NY
53. Tucson, AZ
54. Fresno, CA
55. Tulsa

Well, yes, Tulsa is obviously the hub for its region.  The question is, how big is that region?  There is not really much of a case to be made for the Tulsa-centered region having a radius of 175 miles.

As to the rest of your post, yes, I suppose it is fair to say that IF Tulsa can get the right foundation in place and IF Tulsa can continue to diversify its economy and IF Tulsa's population can grow start to grow faster, it might move up to the next tier of cities.  And IF I were 7 feet tall, and IF I had been coordinated, I might have been a good basketball player.

I look at that list of cities in the next tier and it looks like an attainable goal to get in that mix.  I don't see any except maybe Salt Lake City and Raleigh that are clearly a head above us in not only population but national perception.  New Orleans is well-known but doesn't have a particularly dynamic economy, same with Memphis.  If our metro even just stays at its current 6.5% growth rate we'll catch up to and pass Rochester, Birmingham, Buffalo and Hartford.

I suppose so.  1) surpassing the likes of Rochester and Buffalo is not much of an accomplishment and 2) I wouldn't exactly say that doing so would advance Tulsa to a higher tier of cities.

For what it's worth, assuming the growth trends of the past 9 years continue, Tulsa is on track to surpass Rochester in another 9 years, moving up to #54.
By 2046, we are on track to move ahead of Birmingham, Hartford and Buffalo, except also by that time, Greenville, SC, Omaha, Albany, and McAllen are on track to displace Tulsa, moving us back to #55.

It's pretty useful and I never see the city or chamber ever try to leverage it which kind of blows my mind. Because you have OKC, NWA and SWMO all within a pretty easy drive (it's shorter to drive to NWA from Tulsa than it is Dallas to Ft Worth most of the time with traffic). This makes the recruiting ground/trade area of Tulsa much larger than most people unfamiliar with this part of the country think it is.

Right now Tulsa isn't functioning in a capacity as a regional hub as it could. And yes, you can draw circles around most cities and get large populations but what's a bit more special about Tulsa is that there isn't really a dominate city in this region currently. The reason why Dallas, Austin, Salt Lake City, Denver, etc. have all boomed in population and job growth has been because that they established themselves as a regional center. These other cities took advantage of having other large cities in close proximity like with Denver you have Colorado Springs and the entire front range area and they built a massive airport that became so big because they could pull in passengers from surrounding metros and allowed them to add additional non stop flights. This is just one example of how being a regional center can benefit the principal city. Dallas did the same thing when they built DFW so many years ago. They were able to pull in people from Oklahoma, Tyler, Waco, etc. and then that feed into them being able to become a hub airport and expand infrastructure that now pulls in major corporate relocations. Salt Lake City did the same thing and was able to pull in from Provo, Logan, etc. and now that area looks and functions as one metro area with Salt Lake as the primary regional center. I'm just using airports as an example, because it does play into business recruitment with having so many nonstop flights, but it goes into attracting retails, etc. when you have a large trade area.  

Oklahoma City is closer to Tulsa than it is to Dallas. NWA is closer to Tulsa than it is to Dallas or KC, same with portions of SWMO - it's similar distance from Tulsa as it is to St Louis or KC. So, if Tulsa had a larger airport for example you'd be able to draw in from these other large metro areas in close proximity. Even Wichita is about a similar drive to Tulsa as it is to KC.

So, if say Google, Facebook, etc. set up a regional office in Tulsa - they could in theory recruit from NWA, OKC, etc. very easily. With remote working likely becoming more prominent, you wouldn't really have to pay relocation costs as they could still live there and commute into Tulsa once or twice a week. That would be much easier than trying to recruit from Dallas to these areas because that's a 4-6 hour drive versus 1-2 hour drive.  

I wonder if we had put Muncrief's face on the driller if that would have helped?

But as I mentioned above, you have to draw a radius of 175 miles to capture those 6 million people.  In what world is Tulsa the hub for that size of area?  Tulsa's recruiting ground/trade area is just not as big as you are pretending. A good chunk of that area is closer to KC than to Tulsa. A very large chunk of that area IS the OKC metro area.  As much as we would like to think otherwise, Tulsa is in no sense the hub of anything for the population of OKC. Another big chunk of the area is closer to DFW than to Tulsa. The 175 mile radius takes in Wichita which is nearly as close to KC as it is to Tulsa and surely more commercially and culturally connected to KC than to Tulsa. (Let's face it, if the drive is fairly similar, who is going to come to Tulsa rather than Kansas City?)  

Just removing the populations of the OKC metro and Wichita metro areas from the sphere takes us down to 4 Million.  Remove Springfield and we're down to about 3 1/2 million.  Remove the parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Kansas that are closer to DFW, OKC and KC no doubt takes us down to less than 2 1/2 Million that are in Tulsa's sphere.

As I also demonstrated above, there is nothing particularly unique or impressive about being able to draw a circle with a 175 mile radius around Tulsa and come up with 6 Million people. Davenport Iowa's 175 mile radius circle takes in more than 17 Million!


No dominant city in the region????  Your 6 million person circle brushes up against the 4th largest metro area in the country  (and includes part of DFW's combined area; includes the outskirts of the 31st largest metro areas in the country and completely includes the 41st largest.

The reason Denver has a giant airport is not because of Colorado Springs and Boulder. It's because of their mid-continent location, huge tourist trade, and lage Denver metro area providing a large and solid O&D base.  OKC being closer to Tulsa than to Dallas is worth what?  How is Tulsa ever going to have an airport that can remotely compete with even Will Rogers, let alone DFW and Love Field.  Not. Going. To. Happen.

We're seriously suppposed to recruit companies to Tulsa on the basis that it's an easier commute from OKC to Tulsa than from OKC to Dallas?  Or on the basis that it's slightly easier commute from Wichita to Tulsa than from Wichita to Kansas City (which is not even true)?

There is a reason the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce has not pursued this path.  It's nonsense.  It might make some sense for recruiting warehouses, but not much else.


FWIW , the The Ranally city rating system is a tool developed by Rand McNally & Co. to classify U.S. cities based on their economic function. The system is designed to reflect an underlying hierarchy whereby consumers and businesses go to a city of a certain size for a certain function; some functions are widely available and others are only available in the largest cities. Ranally categorizes Tulsa as 2-AA "Major Regional Business Center". One notch below Oklahoma City and equal to Wichita (in other words neither Wichita nor Oklahoma City are in Tulsa's trade area.  Tulsa's trade area extends to Coffeyville Kansas, Muskogoee, and Bartlesville; maybe a bit into northwest Arkansas, and that's about it. (Joplin and even Miami, Oklahoma are in the Kansas City trade area.)

nm

Back to WPX, unfortunately that is what energy companies are forced into doing right now to survive.  If it wasn’t Devon it could’ve been Apache or another larger company.  OKC has had one of its largest companies file for bankruptcy (CHK) with a workforce that is a fraction of what it once was.  Same for Chapperal Energy, Sandridge and others. 

Energy is a volatile industry and there have been other Tulsa companies negatively impacted while our midstream companies are relatively stable.  I like where GKFF is heading with its economic initiatives, these are the type of industries that could easily cluster in Tulsa:
1. Virtual Health
2. Clean Tech
3. Drones
4. Cyber
5. Analytics

Hopefully the building gets built, as I believe it can act as a dynamic focal point for the districts in the area.  So far seems like that will be the case.  Fingers crossed.  

 Course it's not good to lose all the jobs, but on the other hand, oil is a dying industry period, not just in Tulsa, and businesses, and governments, should shift attention towards a cleaner, brighter future and the businesses that will be the businesses of tomorrow.  Whatever oil companies that are still here, will continue to leave or die until they are pretty much all gone in 15-20 years. So there should be no surprises in that regard.

You completely missed the point I was making, but ok. The point is Tulsa has the opportunity to market itself different and BECOME a regional hub. We do a very poor job at taking advantage of our location and surrounding metropolitan areas. We get stuck in this we are a very small city of only a million when other regions have figured out how to capture from larger trade areas.

If a Louis Vuitton opened in Utica Square and someone wanted to see it in person and lived in OKC, where are they going to go? Dallas or Tulsa, they will drive to Tulsa most likely because it's closer. If Tulsa's airport was bigger and had a direct flight to London and someone in OKC or NWA or Wichita wanted a direct flight where would they go, Tulsa. Not Dallas or Denver if quickest drive time was the deciding factor.

Seems like your arguing just to argue when the only point I'm making is Tulsa sits in an area of a bigger population than most think and we do a very poor job at taking advantage of it while other cities like Salt Lake, Denver, Dallas, etc. have done so very well and it has paid off in being able to attract a lot of good jobs and economic growth. Do you disagree with that? I'm not really even sure what point you're trying to make.


Why do you think the BOK Center has been so successful and one of the top arena's in the globe in several years. It's because we sit in an area where we can draw in people from beyond just the Tulsa MSA... like OKC, NWA, SWMO, etc. So when there's a concert in Tulsa they want to see they are willing to drive here given it's the closest arena. If the same band was playing in Dallas or KC, Tulsa is the closest drive. That's not a hard concept to understand and there were many people who thought Tulsa couldn't support the BOK Center and that it would be empty all the time. Infrastructure and Civic investments where we have a bigger vision can pay off and is shown to in other cities too.

That brings in the question of WPX and the future of Tulsa. We have got to stop thinking small and take advantage of our location and given the office market is likely to ruction very differently post COVID and shift to more regional offices with more remote workers. If we don't plan for this, I can guarantee you NWA and OKC and others will and Tulsa will again be left in the past.

No, I didn't miss your point, AT ALL.  I'm just living in the real world, not the imaginary, delusional world you are inhabiting.  It is not just a failure to think big that has kept Tulsa from having a bigger airport and a Louis Vuitton store. It has a lot more to do with the fact that we aren't a 6-million-person market. Pretending to be a 6-million-person market is not going to magically cause such things to happen.

I hope you don't work for the chamber or economic development, keep living in the small town mindset. It's gotten Tulsa really far so far. Don't take into account the world is change over the next 10 years or that this region has changed in the past 10 years.

Don't be such an d*** to people who have a different vision for the city or different perspective. Calling people delusional is not needed, take a chill pill and step away. It's really not that serious for other people to have different thought, good grief. I will not be responding to you again.

Wichita to Downtown KCMO: 195 Miles
Wichita to Downtown Tulsa: 176 Miles

Joplin to Downtown KCMO: 158 Miles
Joplin to Downtown Tulsa: 113 Miles

Springfield to Downtown Tulsa: 181 Miles
Springfield to Downtown KCMO: 166 Miles (10 mins faster)

source: Google Maps, check it.

COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL AND FALSE I TELL YOU. There's no hope in ever marketing Tulsa from a regional perspective ever!! LOL  ::)

Let's hope our chamber of commerce and other economic development people are not wasting their time trying to recruit luxury retailers, airlines and potential business relocations on the basis of an imaginary 6-million-person market.  Providing verifiably false information tends to be counterproductive.

This and Santa Fe Square should be the last office space projects for the foreseeable future. Downtown should then focus on becoming a true neighborhood with infill focused on housing (mid-scale housing preferably to the mega complexes that we've seen recently), grocers, retailers, dry cleaners, drug stores, things that stay open through the evening for local residents to do their daily things and that can also attract outsiders for shopping or unique needs. I know there are barriers to that, but I am still a dreamer that downtown could be a real mixed neighborhood throughout the entire IDL.

The WPX building vacancy must complicate Santa Fe Square. Last I hear they were needing an anchor tenant to move forward. Any potential anchor tenant could now just move into (or buy!) the WPX building. Until proven otherwise, I expect this WPX move sinks Santa Fe Square for at least another 3-5 years.

Santa Fe Square's office portion will probably be scrapped after this announcement. You have the office building at Archer/Greenwood under construction and I don't think they have a tenant yet so that's going to be another 50k to 100k of space (I can't remember what the size of that building will be)

There's also a big chunk of BOK space that's coming on line from the Williams I & II towers - I think they are consolidating into WPX's old space so they can have everyone under one building. So there's easily going to be 500,000 sq ft in Class A space on the market and that will take a couple years to back fill if we can't get any out of market tenant to expand in Tulsa.

This will be the biggest hole in the CBD market since the city bought One Tech and took it off the market.

Even citywide, it's not looking great for the office market for a while. You have the Unit Corp building too that has a lot of vacant space, if Unit Corp even survives much longer.

Office space in general is going to be a tough sell for a couple years due to so many people working remotely.  The above factors certainly don’t help but it does present some good opportunities for companies looking to expand in Tulsa.

And already more than a quarter-million square feet negative absorption in the first half of 2020, just in the CBD; more than 1/2 million market-wide.

Small town IS our reality.  We - meaning Oklahoma in general - have put up barriers for decades from pay roads in an out, to small town parochial attitudes that made companies 'jump through hoops' to get to play in the sandbox.  I remember a few years ago a company considering a move to Tulsa and after the dust cleared, the people said no.  They literally said it was like dealing with a bunch of kindergartener's.

That is what we have to change. 

Plus, places like Dallas were brilliant at getting thing like the Dallas Market - decades ago!   I remember going there with family for a local store in the early 60's.  Automatic draw for a LOT of people!

Exactly, the Dallas Market is a great example to how Dallas built itself into a regional hub. At one point there was a debate of wether Tulsa or Dallas would be the south's 'big' city. We've obviously seen how that turned out given Tulsa's leadership over the past few decades being less aggressive and having a small town mindset. We let Houston pick off oil company after oil company and just pointed fingers instead of actually doing anything to increase the quality of life in the city to make us more competitive. That's why I'm more hopeful than ever for Tulsa is largely because of Kaiser's investments in the Gathering Place, education, etc. Can we capitalize on it is the question. The efforts for Tesla made me hopeful as well, but that seemed to be a lot of outside effort beyond the chamber and typical business development people - some might label them as delusional too I guess... the old mindset of Tulsa was why should we even bother instead of why not take a chance.

The reason why I brought up regionalism in this thread is because the WPX site is rather unique being right in the middle of an entertainment district and frankly can't think of a similar site outside of H&R's KCMO HQ in Power & Light or developments down in Dallas/Austin in states immediately around Oklahoma. Also a few blocks from a coding school (Holberton). It's a great opportunity for someone with the city to cast a wide net and maybe with some tailwind from the Tesla campaign we might snag someone.

I personally believe going after some Austin based companies that are expanding rapidly (like Indeed.com and VRBO) who could use some cheaper office space for entry level positions is the best chance for Tulsa. Both of those companies have built several large offices in Austin in the past five years. Office rent in Austin is getting near $50/sf or more on Class A new construction. Tulsa is still an easy drive between the two cities and it would be logical that we could convince some airline to set up direct flights to Austin from Tulsa. Austin still is 'cheap' to California companies where rent for new office in San Francisco is nearing $100/sf, so it would be more better to pursue a company that might see Austin as expensive versus 'cheap'.

Austin and Dallas to an extent started off as 'cheap' back office or entry level job office locations for companies and through that demonstrated they could recruit talent to these locals and invested in quality of life project to get to where they are now, Austin is almost as desirable of a local as San Francisco is for tech and Dallas is eating everyone's lunch including NYC and other much larger cities (JPMorgan Chase, State Farm, ToyotaUSA, Uber, etc.). Denver would be another good example of markets we should target - looking for Denver based companies who could use additional space, but could use a cheaper option than Denver as companies from California drive up rents. Not for full relocation, but small expansion spaces. The more of these we get and demonstrate we can recruit talent, the easier it is to sell full relocation or larger secondary hq or regional locations to companies down the road.

If someone opened an office location in Tulsa - they could recruit people from NWA, OKC, etc. wether it was a partially remote worker or full relocation requirement - those aren't exactly difficult moves for someone to come to Tulsa from NWA or OKC. Austin was able to leverage it's location near San Antonio well and at one point Austin was not as desirable as San Antonio - so it's certainly not delusional to use as a selling point for someone looking at Tulsa to discuss it being in the middle point between OKC-NWA-SWMO which is a much larger population than many people think. Also includes more universities to recruit from (U of Arkansas, Missouri State, Wichita State, etc.) and not exactly a hard sell to get someone from U of A to move to Tulsa either.

Final point, is another thing I rarely see people discuss when trying to sell Tulsa is the actual MSA of Tulsa doesn't include Bartlesville, Muskogee, or Pryor. Mid-America has even discussed this as a hurdle to some companies and why we haven't made a bigger point to Census officials to designate these areas as part of MSA is beyond me. Low hanging fruit that would push the population up for the MSA to well over a million. Part of it is they are more self contained and not a bedroom community as much as typical suburbs. Also, Grand Lake is something I see ignored by most which is highly tied to Tulsa. The average home price along Grand Lake is almost $400k (twice the state average) and has a full time population of 200k+ (larger than BA/Owasso combined) as it's a huge retirement location for wealthy Tulsan, and Tulsa is the primary large city in relation to Grand Lake. So the immediate Tulsa area is much larger than a lot think (closer to 1.3-1.5 million when including Grand Lake). Is it easier to sell a market of slightly under a million or closer to 1.5 million?

We have also had some of the things Dallas had along the line.  Theirs reached 'critical mass' and ours kinda wandered off into the weeds.  Companies like Texas Instruments.  Started out as Geophysical Service - oil, of course.  We had REDA doing downhole oil pumps since the 20's and while it is still doing ok as part of bigger company, TI took off like a rocket.  Something about Tulsa just didn't "click" probably during the 60's.  International Petroleum Exposition was here for quite a while as were so many of the companies around it.  The IPE building was built just as it died....now the QuikTrip center.

Lots of those kind of things move around to push/pull areas in one direction or the other.   Today, Dallas is an attraction on it's own.  Tulsa isn't.   I have pushed people for years to come visit, move here, get the company here.  Something as simple as good size conferences/trade shows even.  The only question asked is what is there to do there?   Big events want Disneyland, Las Vegas, or amusement parks....we don't have the scale needed to attract.

Grand Lake has been 'big' for a long time...it's where the rich/elite go to get away from town.  Or used to.  Don't think it has changed that much.  Had a friend with a nice little business here who bought a helicopter to commute with.  Did that for years.  Rich area surrounded by a lot of meth.  Like a lot of Oklahoma.


Mid-America is plugging along doing very well.  They lost a big RV bus manufacturer years ago, but they have google now.  And it seems to expand regularly.  And new companies seem to pop up there regularly.   Not that many people work at google, but it is a big 'presence' in the area.

Not having a nonstop flight to Austin would hurt, maybe Delta as they build up their focus city there or Southwest will eventually start that route.  Until then Denver and Chicago should be primary targets because of easy and plentiful nonstop flights to TUL.  Denver especially has built itself into a tech hub but housing and office costs there are extremely high for a non-coastal city.  Kansas City seems to be a popular place for people escaping Denver and, while obviously smaller, we aren’t that different than KCMO.

"What is there to do here?"  Isn't that interesting that that comes up with companies. One side note that didn't get any attention but caught mine was something the Tesla people said when talking about the site in Austin was "It's right next to a trail system."   How is it that "unbusiness like", unfinancial, "fluff" things like that even rank a mention?   Of course the numbers have to work, but once that factor is addressed then it is "Quality of life, what is there to do here, is it a fun cool place where I can be happy (even if its illusion and  what is the perception of others)?" sort of things come into play.

The Gathering Place with its Childrens museum and the whitewater components will act as a solid quality of life component.

Downtown  is getting there (Hopefully the WPX building gets built as it will connect and anchor different districts) and the building up of different museums/attractions in the area will get us to a critical mass of "things to do" in that area.

Route 66 has the potential to be a fun quirky thing that can act as an anchor for multiple fun attractions/things to do.

Music/club scene for the young folk.... I am past that phase so not sure how that is in Tulsa these days lol. But it usually takes care of itself based on demand.

Restaurant scene is quite good, (keeping fingers crossed that things survive during this covid crisis)

Shopping (strolling down a street spending part of a day,( aka breakfast to lunch, or an evening, with friends, a date, your partner, out of town visitor...)  sucks in Tulsa. Woodland is getting sadder and sadder, Utica Square...rotting in place, Brookside & Cherry street are small and do not have a critical mass of shops. Downtown, nothing really and what there is terribly disconnected.  And we have no real arts shopping district ta boot.  And I have found that the "powers that be" with the city don't get the importance of this lifestyle factor, don't understand how it works, and or don't care enough to do anything about it.  The WPX building or the Santa Fe Square development could turn that around downtown if they get in the right mix of ground floor restaurant/retail.  Which is my main hope for the WPX building.

Have to disagree about Utica Square.  Still seems as lively as ever even with COVID taking its toll on some of the retail businesses.  Am I frustrated Petty’s/Miss Jackson’s hasn’t been redeveloped?  Of course.  And Utica could be an even more vibrant center if there was more mixed-use retail/residential built on the periphery.  With a few key improvements I think that could be the half-day shopping/dining district you said we lack.

I understand the frustration, but I have to ask, what local business/businesses can you attract to Utica Square that would provide that kind of draw? I can remember when someone in the family had a doctors appointment at the Utica Square medical building when it was there, and we would have lunch and window shop and spend some time there. Same for downtown when Renberg's, Vandevers, and I think JC Penney had stores downtown, along with Thomas Cadillac, Parrish & Clark Dodge, Fred Jones Ford, Jim Norton Buick Opel, City Chevrolet, and Bill White Chevrolet. There were various drug stores and soda counters and specialty clothing stores, as well as places to eat.

I remember when Frougs had a store downtown and in Crystal City, and you had Otasco downtown, BF Goodrich and Good Year car service centers.

Having been back a few times in the last three years, that's the one thing that I mis from growing up in the 60's and 70's was the local and regional stores, and since the meltdown in the economy in 2007, most national businesses have cut back on expansion or closed stores.

In the 60's and 70's Tulsa had HQ's for most every oil company in the world. It also had McDonnell Douglas, North American Rockwell, and Telex. Telex was a big gov't contractor for the electronics for the cruise missile program as well as building computer equipment for companies around the globe. They were on par with IBM at the time. McDonnell Douglas was building assemblies for Boeing for the 747, they built things for the space program as well as North American Rockwell.

Tulsa didn't piss it away, it was a victim of contraction of industries in the 80's and 90's, and Tulsa couldn't or didn't react fast enough to the changes.

I think if Tulsa had been able to attract companies like Honeywell, Motorola, if Telex hadn't sat on their donkey, back in the 70's it might be a different landscape now.

I have to say that being back a few times recently I'm glad to see the rebirth and new growth downtown, and I hope it continues, but Tulsa is still stuck in the oil industry of the 60's mentality.

Just my two cents as a native.

AMEN!  All of it. 

One other question.  If not for the Chamber of Commerce, would we be Paris, TX?  The reason I ask is that the Tulsa Chamber gets best chamber in the nation awards on a seemingly regular basis.  Yet, in the last 10-15 years at least 20 major corporate headquarters or big regional offices have left here or been bought out and left.  If not for the Chamber,  would it be worse?  Or am I not understanding its role?  Is getting the "BEST" award the thing?  As I've put forward before , it seems like Tulsa does study after study after research project after research project and they just collect dust --- like the study is the thing not a result.  It's kind of like empathy.  Empathy from a politician without doing anything to improve constituents conditions is acting --- useless.  Frankly, we could also use some fire in the belly big money types --- thin-skinned, gaudy builders -  Jerry Jones types.  The people willing to do outlandish things --- like buy useless swampland in Florida to create Disney World (he'd be a billionaire today) in addition to our urbane, social equity, Ivy League wealthy who are as appreciated as it gets.  But is anyone willing to do what Atlanta did when it got the Olympics --- big game-changing gambles.  Realize I've likely lost you by now.  It's just that Tulsa was once a trend setter and now it's a "me too" and has been for 20-30 years.  We mimic other places and usually 5-10 years later.  On Utica Square --- it looks like it could use $3-5 million in deferred maintenance.  It's nice, but dozens of other centers/places around the country that play the same role in their cities are nicer.  Little unique about Utica Square anymore. I think a partnership with a national developer could be good to make it a mixed-use destination - if Helmerichs are tired of it, let the Bumgarners take it over.  As a place, we are not aggressive and there may be too few hands in the pot who can really affect change.   

Somebody with authority and/or bank account, should be knocking on doors of Disney or COMCAST CEOs and pitching Tulsa as a natural mid-country location for a 3rd Disney park --- maybe Route 66 theme or a Universal park.  There's a game changer.  If you like studies, commission one or buy an existing study showing where visitors to their existing parks come from --- is there a market for middle of country who may not be able to afford a week on either coast and only go to Disney or Universal once in a lifetime?  Couldn't be a Six Flags or similar regional park, would have to be Disney or Universal. Behind that, bring in corporations w/ quality of life perks.  Crazy? Maybe.  But my experience is Tulsa suffers from thinking too small, not from thinking too big.  Just an idea.     
           

I answer that question repeatedly with a long 'laundry list'.  And there are a lot of things to do here - some similar to other areas, but for some reason I get TEGO.... their eyes glaze over.

I feel like our outdoor recreation activities get overlooked compared to other southern/midwestern cities.  Places like Turkey Mountain for mtn biking, rock climbing in Chandler Park, hiking in the Keystone Ancient Forest, jogging and cycling along the miles of river trails, Gathering Place, big lakes all around the city not to mention the Ozarks only a couple hours to the east.  

The Arkansas River whitewater flume will be a cool amenity and if the new Zink Dam allows more boating (kayaking/SUP) on the lake behind it that will give us even more water recreation options.  Lake Bixhoma is already a great spot for this and a hidden gem in the Conjada Hills south of Bixby.  The Keystone Ancient Forest is another gem; Chandler Park has similar topographical features and a ton of land to expand to its west.  I’ve had people visit Tulsa and have remarked how many outdoor activities can be done in and around the city.

Oh yes, I get so frustrated with the "me too" lets create a plan that will in  5 or 10 years see us where other cities are now... not willing to look at the fact that those cities will have themselves moved ahead 5 or 10 years... leaving us STILL 5 or 10 years (at least) behind.  We are constantly that way.  Constantly too afraid and weak politically to do what it would take to leapfrog us ahead. And they don't look at the trends of where things are going demographically, business wise, technology wise, generationally, etc. and do what it takes to be in a place to take advantage of those trends, or compete.  

One big thing we are going to have to contend with is demographics.  Current projections have most developed countries including the having slower and slower population growth and even seeing declines. (not helpful that we seem to be in a time where immigration which could save us from that decline, is itself being ever more cut off)  Not all cities in the US will lose population, but if over all the US is... that means the losers, will run the risk of reeeeally losing big.  That should scare some people into thinking we need to take drastic actions, especially with the way Tulsa has been losing population already, and the surrounding areas growth slowing (as we saw Tulsa do before it began losing, the downward trend is there) but you never hear our political class talking about it.  Do they think ignoring it or not talking about it is a good thing perhaps?  Don't want to scare anyone and get bad publicity?  But I think the worse danger of that is, that the average person/voter thinks things are ok on that front, and thus no changes need to be made to change that, let alone any big or difficult changes.

Telex is a very over looked historical point and makes you wonder what might have happened if Roger Wheeler wasn't shot to death. We've had two points where we could have made a significant pivot to technology and we could easily have been in Austin's position now... somehow we just keep coming back to O&G though. For a while our city government seemed to have a defeatist attitude during some of these swings.

The other point in time was the dot.com bubble when we had WorldCom, WilTel, etc. which crashed and burned. Tulsa has a history of being able to be competitive in the technology landscape we just seem to forget about it very quickly. Even though the long-term viability of these businesses didn't work (and I know these are different types of 'tech' than what is growing now) it doesn't mean Tulsa can't recruit talent to the area, grow companies, and facilitate the resources needed for these companies and various industries. We just need someone or a company to take a chance. All it'd take is someone like Google to open a small regional office and demonstrate it's possible to recruit and retain talent. We almost need someone to just give away the whole house for free to get a big fish into town to set the precedent that it can work here again/today.



The 'me too' isn't always bad, we just have to make sure whatever we do is quality, the BOK Center is a good example. Leadership failures here resulted in several rushed proposals that delayed a new arena far beyond what it should have been, but at least in the end we gained something that has been a huge asset to Tulsa and is top quality. OneOk Field is a good example too. The Arts District investments stemmed from wanting a Tulsa Bricktown (which Bricktown is the height of 'me too' given it is a much crappier version of San Antonio) but we at least have been able to take that idea and make it into something that is uniquely Tulsa with emphasis on neighborhood assets like the Cain's and building on music/arts. We just have to be careful to not fall into the trap and make sure what we do is not just a carbon copy of another city, but use other cities as inspiration.


Agreed, we have almost as many nature attractions close to the city as you see in places like Austin, but for some reason there's just not that much credit given to Tulsa for these and we get very little attention for it nationally. It's 100% a perception issue and again it's something I don't see the city 'sell' much. Austin has higher quality trails and water activities on Towne Lake than we do near our CBD and I think that's what tends to overshadow the overall area attractions we have. I mean I'm not sure how many cities the size of Tulsa or larger have a trail system where you can live in BA (a major bedroom community) and bike on separated trails almost 100% of the way into the CBD. Or rock climb within 10 minutes of downtown (Chandler Park) or mountain bike and hike within 15 minutes of downtown (Turkey Mountain) etc. We also have Skiatook and Keystone within 30 minutes of downtown. At some point I'm hopeful those will become more developed and have things like Oasis that's on Lake Travis that would help bring more people out to those lakes. We could also use some better beaches and gathering spaces along those two lakes and that would make a huge difference, right now if you can't afford a boat or lake house it's hard to make a day at the lake work. Unlike Lake Travis with Hippie Hollow, etc. that you can drive out to and make an entire day of just chilling on the shoreline with friends.


I think the chamber this has a lot of the good ole boy system - it's not that they're bad, they just don't have a lot of vision in my opinion to think outside the box. If you compare them to business recruitment from similar entities in Houston, Dallas, etc. there's not even a remote comparison. They tend to stay in their lane here and that's not what we need if we want significant change/growth. They do what they need to in order to win awards like you said but that has little meaning to being great as business recruitment and retention. Seems like the chamber is full of the OilCapital type. I'd take a chamber that never wins an award and more concerned about perceptions amongst other chambers and is able to land a new employer that brings in 1,000 new jobs each year (or several of those a year) that isn't a distribution center or call center.

We've never leveraged Tulsa's influence on Hollywood. There's a lot of talent that comes out of this area for the size of the region. Why we don't beat down their door and try to get more studios/production here is beyond me. Some of it is a political issue with the state government and the 'Hollywood Liberals' which really does us no favors. I've always thought a Universal Studios type things would work great here as a mid-America location. The Osage Casino site could make a great location for a production studio/theme park - close to downtown and in a pretty area. Maybe one of the tribes will be able to make something like the work in the future. I'm not too hopeful that the state would be much help in this regard ever. Austin was very successful in leveraging this to create a new national image.

Tall Chief Cove beach and Cross Timbers marina are good spots at Skiatook.  Would love to see Cross Timbers built up with some more dining options, the sunset views from there are amazing.  And it’s 20 min from downtown.

Yes. Agree.  We are too insular.  4-5 names control most everything and are happy to have a second home in Colorado or on the coast and keep Tulsa relatively the same as always.  If we had a P.T. Barnum type or three, there are enough sleeper things here to gain attention and growth.  The new Gilcrease is a step backward if you ask me.  Just came to mind.  Seems that could really be taken advantage of - 450 acres.  That statue - The American could have been a spark.  Also, there are some of the most famous people in their fields from Tulsa and unlike most other places, we do relatively little to take advantage of it for outside attention and city pride.  The most listened to person in the history of radio, Paul Harvey, was from here --- that's a little dated, but you wouldn't know that unless you knew it.  OKC takes advantage of Mickey Mantle --- he was from this part of the state, etc.  And its noted residences.  Enough complaining - people will say get off your behind and do something.  I don't know what you do to entice business creators not to cash out, but instead build a long term empire here --- unless love of place.  They all cash out. Understandable.  But other cities keep and grow a lot of their creations --- seems more than us.  We're happy to say, oh, that's Dallas, that's Kansas City, that's Walmart territory and now, well that's OKC.  We can't do those things.   

Spot on.  Your spot is the same one I thought of --- grab 3,000 acres out there and inadvertently give north Tulsa proper a new life.  Also, think of this --- its crazy and even I don't think plausible.  But daydream.  Build HollyFrontier a new refinery off the Port of Catoosa on the way up to Claremore - unlikely another refinery will be built anywhere --- but maybe it's a hybrid energy facility.  Then take the old Sunoco Refinery and it's 800+ acres for Disney's Route 66 America ---- becomes huge tourism district to include a Branson Landing or mixed-use on site of old Sinclair refinery including a corporate HQs and housing, museums, hotels -----  A huge Cabela's -like facility with sports facilities.  The River West Festival grounds could be a huge Tulsa Landing type thing with hotel, etc.   --- just a daydream and in changing times probably even more remote than a daydream.  But Downtown would take off --- monorail to CBD & BOK Center/Convention Center.  I like Arts District, but my, oh, my what you could make out of south downtown and uptown.  Build a Klyde Warren Park over sunken B.A. from Boston to Cheyenne --- unite downtown and uptown as an expanded downtown.  Ring Veterans Park with condo/apt. towers, plush hotel.  OK.  I'm done.       
     

Good ideas.  As you can probably tell I'm more of an outdoor recreationist so more park space close to downtown and a river we can use would be a better amenity IMO.  My dream would be to see the Mid-Continent concrete plant transformed into a larger River West Festival Park with wide open spaces and also tons more trees planted, but also preserving some of the industrial pieces like the batch plant towers and the red-tiled roof office (which would make a great community center for the neighborhood).  Add to that better access to the river with a dock area and enlarged boathouse where you could rent kayaks, SUP and paddle boats.  On the other side the cove completely redevelop the Waterside Apartments into a denser residential community fronting the river and next to OSUHSC.  Some kind of mixed-use portion around the cove next to the docks would be a good place for a couple restaurants with outdoor seating on the water, the skyline views from that location are fantastic.  Finally...replace the SW Blvd bridge with an iconic new Rt 66 bridge that bookends the north end of Zink Lake, and open the old Rt 66 Avery bridge back up for pedestrian/cyclists. 

Here is an article from the Tulsa World in 1996 when the curtain fell on Memorex Telex. Roger Wheelers death did have some impact on Telex, but that was a small part of the story. I also remember WilTel/Worlcom, that was one of the smartest things Williams did was to use shut down portions of the pipeline network because the pipelines were at end of life, to then run that new technology of fiber optics across the country.

https://tulsaworld.com/archive/flood-of-changes-drowned-memorex-telex/article_fd4d1325-7e35-5564-9908-47bab722f342.html

Vyvx, WilTel's fiber network has an intersting story as well. It was acquired by Century Link, who's history goes back to good old Ma Bell days thru Qwest/US West/Mountain Bell, Level 3 Communications and Global Crossing, and is now part of the Google Cloud Network.

https://tulsaworld.com/archive/vyvx-expands-internationally/article_b04df63f-0d7f-5845-a0aa-ae0d2525371e.html (https://tulsaworld.com/archive/vyvx-expands-internationally/article_b04df63f-0d7f-5845-a0aa-ae0d2525371e.html)

https://tulsaworld.com/business/technology/level-3-sells-vyvx-llc-for-129-million/article_3451bc56-772b-54bb-84e6-4e2323638bd8.html (https://tulsaworld.com/business/technology/level-3-sells-vyvx-llc-for-129-million/article_3451bc56-772b-54bb-84e6-4e2323638bd8.html)

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/level-3-combines-vyvx-services-with-global-crossings-genesis-solutions-to-expand-international-video-fiber-platform-131582138.html (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/level-3-combines-vyvx-services-with-global-crossings-genesis-solutions-to-expand-international-video-fiber-platform-131582138.html)

https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3823424/centurylink-connects-vyvx-media-service-into-google-cloud (https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3823424/centurylink-connects-vyvx-media-service-into-google-cloud)

https://tulsaworld.com/archive/tulsa-based-vyvx-to-provide-super-bowl-fiber-optic-link/article_a9bb5810-25bb-5e3f-8e33-29ff56e6f144.html (https://tulsaworld.com/archive/tulsa-based-vyvx-to-provide-super-bowl-fiber-optic-link/article_a9bb5810-25bb-5e3f-8e33-29ff56e6f144.html)

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20051213005713/en/Vyvx-Ranks-Among-Industry-Leaders-in-World-Teleport-Association-Top-Teleport-Operators-Awards (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20051213005713/en/Vyvx-Ranks-Among-Industry-Leaders-in-World-Teleport-Association-Top-Teleport-Operators-Awards)

Check out the new DECOPOLIS Discovitorium and TulsaRama! on Route 66!  

It's basically a teeny tiny, itty bitty, microscopic version of what I would like to build Disney park scale. TulsaRama Town Square with its Art Deco streetscape and an Art Deco Museum (could eventually be the National Art Deco Museum), Mesmer Island with its volcano, caves, dinosaurs and tikis, FableRealm with its fantasy theme and art deco castle, the Discovitorium with its Sci-fi Steampunk/Art Deco, time travel theming, etc. We even have the start of our own stories (Wizard of DECOPOLIS, Lindy Hopper & Wildcatter Will, the Discovitorium) and cartoon character series (TulsaRama Gang!)

Started off with a 20 square foot space in a Jenks Flea market, moved to a small space downtown in which we started exploring and developing our theming and stories, started the small art deco museum, then moved to a larger space (in a big rush due to certain circumstances) and now we have had the chance to take our time and design/build up from start to finish our new spot.  Next few years will be anchoring things in and getting the business to make good money (I am not hand building everything the next round lol) along with some other synergistic projects we are working on.  Next phase will be to buy our own property and start the real thing!

Support and help promote DECOPOLIS and I will keep plugging away towards that big dream!  

I still don't get it...why we can't get more 'traction' in attracting companies.

There are some big things that I have heard from people about Oklahoma in general.   First, turnpikes in particular Tulsa.  Can't go any major direction without paying to get in or out.  Second, our ongoing bouts of national embarrassment.  We just keep doing such stupid stuff, it's tough to get your head around it.

But....  We aren't the only ones with turnpikes - New Jersey has a lot of them and they have companies that build $510 Billion in GDP.  $57,000 per capita GDP.  We have a little more than half the population they have and we only have $197 Billion GDP (noticeably less than half) or $43,000 per capita GDP.   Plus, New Jersey has it's own particular kind of 'rep' that I would think make it less desirable than us.  But I have also known and talked to a LOT of truckers who actively avoid going through Oklahoma specifically due to the turnpikes.  But cruise through NJ without a thought.   NJ does have much nicer rest areas and turnpike facilities, though.

National embarrassment - well that ya just can't fix.  It's the whole "can't fix stupid" thing.   But again, other states have their stupid, too.  SC has Lindsey Graham.   Kentucky has Moscow Mitch.  And we still have Jim Inhofe...that may be a big part of it - he has voiced many 'national embarrassment' things in the past.

When do we start?

You got it. Let's do it.   I bought 3-4 coffee table books and 3 Tulsaopoly board games from your Boston Ave. location a couple years ago.  Still there too?   I'd like to take a mile of 11th street and take it back to 1945-50 Rt. 66 --- like a visual time tunnel --- a real life movie backlot w/ the modern stuff behind the facades.  From buildings to street lamps and billboards...

There is definitely something structural here that KC, OKC, Dallas, NW Arkansas don't have.  I don't know if its that Tulsa is not actually welcoming --- it's a who you are and who you know place.  Don't know, but its not good. OKC had to get real --- that place had largely devolved into a sewer and the people there acknowledged it and said enough.  That's not who we're going to be.  Tulsa has never been anywhere near there - but do we admit stuff? Seems we like to think we are something and live in some bubble of unreality.  Winning Chamber awards, etc. must mean we're there - Idk.  There's something lacking.  That 31st & Peoria mixed-use thing is deader than a door nail.  We can't do simple things.  And we live in the past too much, maybe.  Things are controlled by 2nd, 3rd & 4th generations of the city's founders - a caretaker class, not a creative dynamo class.  This could all be misguided blather.  Gathering Place is incredible --- but everyone thought it was a game changer.  Has it been that, so far --- COVID issues excluded?  Other cities have parks --- maybe not as nice, but they exist and many are very impressive.  OKC's new park gets the job done.  Anyway... 

I was with Vyvx for 14 years. Very interesting but stressful job and extremely difficult to explain to people when they ask "what do you do for a living?". Small bonus - got to check "win an Emmy" off my bucketlist.  ;D

This is my impression as well.

Telex was the ultimate "me too".  They did not innovate, they copied.  As did the others you mentioned - WorldCom, WilTel, etc..  They took the innovators idea and said, "me too".  Telex was NEVER on a par with IBM, not even close!  Regardless of the issues IBM has had over the decades, they were always ahead of Telex across the board.  Roger Wheeler alive would have made no difference.  By that point they were already in DeLorean mode - in financial trouble and flailing wildly.  And yeah, there was even a 'cocaine mode' of operation there for a while.

Google has a local presence.  In Pryor at Mid-America.  Has been there for years.

It would be awesome to have a Google office in this new building.  Maybe something that focuses on cyber security or drone tech that ties into the programs at TU and OSU.

I wouldn’t put in past GKFF to be involved somehow.  They have invested millions in the Arts District and this will be a showcase project, along with their own building over on Boulder.  Some type of coworking space like 36 Degrees North would probably do well especially for remote workers needing a temporary office space.  

I don't doubt the notion that IBM was far better, but it always seemed that when he was killed it seemed to make things unravel faster. No doubt that it very likely would not have changed the outcome.. but you do see some companies find a way out from unhealthy cultures and founders. AMD was long thought for dead until Lisa Su took over and is now eating IBM's lunch in the chip market. There's plenty of Chesapeake's, WorldCom, Telex, etc. versions of it too that are alliterated due to leaderships poor choices. If one of these companies in Tulsa managed to hold on and be more viable long term it could have changed the course of Tulsa being considered a 'tech' city in this latest tech growth spurt. We've had some pretty epic collapses from all business groups (SemGroup, Semson, etc.) in corporate history here. Even the one's that halfway survived like Wiltel were acquired/sold off.

Yes, Google has had a presence here for a while, which is why I've mentioned them a few times since they are familiar with this area already. I feel like of any of the biggeest San Fran Bay Area HQ'ed firms they might be the easiest to recruit to open a regional office and would be close to one of their largest data centers. I've always been really shocked that we haven't seen more data centers built in Oklahoma too, not sure why that is. They tend to cluster near each other and Google is kind of on their own here. BUT, data centers do not employee many people so outside of property tax collections they don't have much of an economic impact compared to if they had a corporate regional office of 100-500 employees with $100k salaries.


Drone tech is something that is yet another thing we seem to fail to capture on, OSU has one of the best undergrad drone programs in the nation. Why we don't have advance degrees at OSU Tulsa for this with research partnerships with Amazon, CVS, etc. which are all exploring aerial delivery tech is beyond me... let alone why we aren't seeking partnership with military partners like Lockheed, etc. that are in the drone business. I know I've ranted about advanced degrees before but there are a ton of programs at OSU that are very well known nationally but the school gets docked in rankings for lack of advanced degree options and research. Why our politicians can't see the value of pumping money into research at OSU/OU is beyond me when they can plainly see what the payoff is in Texas for the amount of money that comes in UT, A&M, etc. from oil taxes and better funding. Drone tech seems like low hanging fruit to go after with OSU have established and a highly respected program and lots of vacant land on the OSU Tulsa campus for a few office buildings for research offices and drone/aerial divisions of these big companies.

A lot of discussions I've had with people under 40 and didn't grow up here - it usually goes into everyone knows you can't be mayor of Tulsa unless your family has a park named after you. One of Bynum's big themes when he first ran was his family was one of Tulsa's first, blah blah. I like Bynum for the most part and he's leaps and bounds better than Bartlett and some of the others. Bartlett did a lot of damage in business stagnation with his political antics that really stalled being able to do simple things through the council. When we could barely get a budget past that doesn't send a message to the outside world we're open for business. Thankfully he's gone.

Unfortunately Tulsa has political issues given the amount of old money here with very deep pockets that is one of the cogs on the wheel of the big issues on being able to recruit firms with high wages and high growth. Seems like every mayor of Tulsa has felt like they would be Inhoffe's successor (outside of Taylor obviously) and when you have a mayor who is more concerned about political reputation than actually getting things done you get what we have here.

TYPro's and others have been great at trying to break through this old money structure in our city government. I've been more hopeful about this with Bynum up until recently, he seems to still be more concerned about playing politics when it's not needed because he has an eye on that senate seat even though he likes to claim he doesn't publicly. It's pretty obvious when half his closest staff was from Inhoffe's office and campaign...

I think down the road with removing political parties from the city government races where you aren't running as Dems or Repubs will be beneficial. They do seem to be trying to change things structurally that will be better for making the city function better in the future. The council seemed to have an awakening during Bartlett that the city was broken and something needed to be done. Turning a ship around takes a while though, just hope it keeps going and we don't revert backwards.

I like the thought process but unfortunately this one is a bit behind the curve.  This program already exists under the Aero/Mechanical Engineering degree program in Stillwater.  The Grant dollars are there along with the research/development lab facilities and the flying/proving ground.  If you want to see what they are doing go for the day when they have their spring fly-off (aka Speedfest).  

If you're interested this was my daughter's team/capstone project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_sXPi8uWSY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_sXPi8uWSY) which won the competition, scored on presentation, time around a measured course, max speed, payload accuracy, landing distance, and radar signature.  As I recall they designed/constructed and tested 5 prototypes with the surviving ones being further developed and tested by graduate students under a military grant program.

Its a truly excellent undergrad program with many going on for masters work, good luck trying to dislodge it.  



 

Oh, I'm not trying to say we should move the program at all (especially undergrad programs). I do feel like this is how leadership in Stillwater seems to think/be afraid of is that a bigger Tulsa campus will somehow eat away at Stillwater. Being an OSU alumni I can tell you even if my degree had been offered in Tulsa I would have still went to Stillwater for undergrad. I however could not do my masters at OSU because they have a very limited amount of advanced degrees in the field I work and was interested in at that time. I would not have wanted to stay in Stillwater past undergrad either, I wanted to get a masters degree and work at the same time and that usually not an option in small college towns. So I went to a different school in a major costal city where I could do both. If OSU had a masters program in Tulsa, I would have just stayed at OSU and moved back to Tulsa.

Just from my personal experience and many of my friends, this was the reality we faced. I could be wrong, but I think that aero mechanical program at OSU does not have a masters or PHD option right? I was thinking it was only undergrad at OSU. Even if not, I do feel that expanding the advanced degrees in this field and having both in Stillwater and Tulsa would only be a benefit to OSU. I can tell you this is a problem for OSU across the board on other programs of having limited advanced degree options and is one of the things that hurts OSU the most in national rankings because the overall advanced research/degrees at OSU are limited compared to other major universities including OU. It would be prudent for OSU to grow these types of things in Tulsa or even in OKC where they can recruit people who need or want to work while getting advanced degrees. I'm thrilled they are expanding the medical programs here because if OSU Med could become as big as OU Med in OKC in the next decade, it would be a huge economic boost and having the facilities so close to downtown/in downtown is a major bonus. 

OSU expanding both its undergraduate and especially graduate programs in Tulsa would benefit both OSU and Tulsa.  They are already expanding the health sciences and medical programs, the next step is the building up the Greenwood campus and research programs/facilities in Tulsa.  More similar to the way CU operates with their Boulder and downtown Denver campuses, along with the health sciences center in Aurora.  Luckily for us in Tulsa all of the OSU facilities are clustered downtown.

Telex actually did quite well in the mid to late 80s.  Then it went downhill fast.

Graphic I came across showing Tulsa's tech ecosystem, obviously it's fairly small but growing fast and mostly located downtown.  The WPX building would be a good spot for some of these companies and for more co-working space

(https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E22AQFropOz1y_yMQ/feedshare-shrink_1280-alternative/0?e=1605139200&v=beta&t=DK2JSND2gps2-FeTjs8HEfbgUy-W2nGU4mNffx0tFyo)

I wonder who put that together?  The "Corporations" box is a little odd - 4 of the 12 have either left Tulsa or are on their way out (I don't think SemGroup has much left here), and it seems a bit of a stretch to include Kitchen 66 in the "Tech" ecosystem.

Atento Capital, which is funded by GKFF.  I agree that needs to be updated.  Vanguard was bought by Enterprise which is based in St Louis and Dollar Thrifty was bought by Hertz and based in Florida.  SemGroup was bought by Energy Transfer last year but still has a Tulsa presence.  We know about WPX..  They could easily backfill those with aviation companies like NORDAM and FlightSafety, or while not based in Tulsa have significant operations like Spirit Aerosystems, Triumph Aerostructures, Honeywell Aerospace and Lufthansa Technik.  Not to mention heat exchanger companies based and manufactured in Tulsa like AAON.

I have used a lot of AMD devices in the past including memories they made long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away!  Good stuff!   But IBM is not really the competitive place for them.  Intel is, and they are certainly a very viable clone but they are less than 20% of Intel in the x86 market.

Telex was unraveling even with Wheeler.  Delorean was similar, just faster acting.

I had not heard of Google in Tulsa...when and where was that??  Mid-America facility has been there quite a few years and has expanded quite a bit.  There just aren't that many actually people needed to keep servers going.  Not like a manufacturing facility....

As for the state encouraging education - well, we have seen for always, with plenty of research to back it up, that the less educated a group of people is, the more conservative they vote.   Very easy cause/effect connection there.

Drones are just the latest piece of technology that has not fulfilled it's promise as an economic engine in the US.   Solar cells, and associated technology was thrown away a couple of decades ago, and it is a huge thing worldwide now!  We should have had that, but for lack of progressive ideas and approaches.   But even the 'leftovers' are big enough that there are over 150,000 new jobs a year on average just in CA for renewable power.  (Compared to about 17,000 total coal mining jobs in the entire country - and declining.)

Not yet but it's coming.  If a company like Amazon figures out home delivery using drones you will see the industry explode, and Tulsa could potentially be at the epicenter.  Robotics, drones and AI are industries that tie in well with our existing base of aviation and industrial manufacturing businesses.

I suspect home delivery is a sucker bet rabbit hole that won't go very far any time soon.  Like self driving cars...

The rest of drone world...?  Absolutely!  I am saving up for one - I have some thoughts about crop monitoring on the farm that will help with things like irrigation, fertility, germination, plant density, ground temp, moisture level, etc.  I can get same info in 10 minutes fly time that takes hours now.  There are some tractor videos out that have some drone work and I am amazed at what I can see in some of them.  And the guys doing the flights don't even mention it.!   HUGE agriculture possibilities!

We will, as a nation, most likely implement the heck out of drones.   But we won't be very well 'vertically integrated".  China is gonna make them and gain from all the associated 'core technology' advancements.   We started drones from info we got from Germany and started down that path big time after the war.  (Had an uncle in Air Force killed in a drone test event at Coronado - piloted fighter jet with ground control, passed back and forth.  Things got out of hand and did not end well. 1955.)

Long running pattern - do the ground work then let someone else run with it.

Tulsa may have had offices of most every oil company in the world in the 60s and 70s, but it certainly never had the Headquarters of most every oil company in the world. Once you get past Skelly, Cities Service/Citgo, what other oil companies of any size were headquartered in Tulsa?

Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Shell, Gulf, ARCO, Amoco, Chevron, Phillips, Conoco, BP, Total, Occidental, Unocal, Sunoco, . . . I'm pretty sure none were headquartered in Tulsa.

I think you are confusing Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas when it comes to building assemblies for the Boeing 747.  Rockwell did so in Tulsa (and that operation eventually evolved into Spirit Aerosystems). 

Phillips was Bartlesville.  Almost close to Tulsa...

Originally we had Mid-Continent Petroleum (Cosden Oil & Gas), was headquartered in Tulsa.  By the late 40's it merged with Diamond DX oil company.  By 1962-ish became Sunray DX Oil Co.  1968, Sun Oil (Pennsylvania) bought it and then became  Sunoco.

Very close friend designed the DX Circle station at 51st and Yale.  I also got to drive my first bulldozer on that lot while dirt work was being done!  At way to young an age...  First pic on this link;

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/482237072590124580/

You're right on the Douglas/Boeing/Rockwell. As for Sunoco, they were Sun Ray DX, Sun Oil Refinery, and the Sun building at 9th & Detroit. And while they weren't 'headquartered" in Tulsa, they did have a major presence. Amoco had their research facility at 41st and Yale, Sinclair had a place at I-44 and Darlington, Chevron had a building downtown, and someone else had one on the SE corner of 21st & Lewis, Shell had offices at 66th & Yale across from the St Francis medical center buildings.

Yes, as I acknowledged, many  of the world's oil companies had some offices or facilities in Tulsa.  But they did not have their HQs here (which is the claim you made).    Outside of Skelly and Cities Service/Citgo, and until 1968 Sunray/DX, were there any?

I think you and I are looking at "headquarters" in a different way from each other. I was thinking in the terms of regional HQ not main HQ. I was going on the thought that so many companies had offices/HQ in Tulsa because of the pipeline network that centers around Cushing. They may have had their pipeline/transportation HQ in Tulsa while the corporate main HQ was elsewhere. By the same token, they may have had drilling and exploration in Dallas, and refinery HQ in Houston to take care of the Gulf Coast area.

Back in the 70's and 80's who was where and what operations were where became a blur with consolidation and companies buying or merging with each other IIRC. Production in the US went up after the Arab Oil Embargo, and then in 1984 when OPEC flooded the market with cheap oil it became survival of the fittest or pray to God you look good enough to be bought.

When I lived in Oregon there were two stations in the little town I lived in. There had been three but BP pulled out. One was a Chevron, the other was a 76. But if you looked at the 76 sign it also said ConocoPhillips under the 76 logo.


Wish I could find my book "Oil In Oklahoma" by Bob Gregory as it has a lot of info about the people and the companies that founded the oil industry in OK.