With just some of these new ones currently under development, we will exceed 2,000 rooms. (I'm apparently missing several hotels from the following list and I'm already above 2,000 room.
Courtyard 119
Aloft 180
Ambassador 55
Fairfield 80
Holiday Inn 220
Hyatt Regency 454
Mayo 102
Best Western 79
Doubletree 417
Hampton Inn 125
Holiday Inn Exp 105
Garden Inn 134
2070
Was that study meaning that downtown needs 1,800-2,000 rooms? Because there are far more than 2,000 rooms already at the dozens of hotels around the city.
It looks like downtown will have maybe 2,500+ rooms when all is said and done. I wonder if they redid the study now with increased activity downtown, if Tulsa could support more hotel rooms.
Based on what I've seen there are far too many hotels being developed and far too few condos. If Tulsa downtown really wants to take off, it needs citizens with an ownership of downtown. And affordable places. Not just price ranges of $200k for 1000ft2 or $500k for 1800ft2. There need to be condos people with a relatively common salary (50k-90k) can afford. Just about any other major city has far more condos downtown than Tulsa. Central Park condos are old and not what I'm talking about either. More like the GreenArch but with buyable condos.
People who buy condos will take an ownership of neighborhoods and fight for a more walkable community. A mortgage is a much bigger commitment than a year lease. Until you have homeowners populating downtown, I don't see things like grocery stores or a huge uptick in retail being feasible. Look at how awesome Decopolis, Dwelling Spaces and Made are. That is how incredible you have to make a store to survive in downtown. Very few people can manage places like that. I've seen some really neat stores open and close quickly downtown (Bison & Bear was great with a cult-following and only lasted 2 years). Then go to a places with far more foot traffic or in areas surrounded by residential and see the low quality stores which stick around for years (not necessarily Tulsa, although the malls are an example, I mean low quality stores populate the streets of many big cities, especially in walkable areas).
Adding apartments and hotels is nice. Hope more investors will see the value in condos.