BUT --- after re-reading this entire thread I revert back to the fact that there IS a ton of land available downtown. Particularly in areas close to the east leg of the IDL. Yes, I know they are not commercially listed... but if we freed up twenty acres of land along the former path of the IDL - buying a parking lot is a competitor to buying newly created land. Parking lots are almost always for sale, at some price it makes sense to build a ramp, shuttle employees, or move away. Particularly when many of those lots are usually at 50%. Add to that available land that Nordam's downtown activity has been declining for years and years. Then add all the property in the Pearl that is available for redevelopment (ironically, even more of a competitor if the new land is opened up).
Now, looking at the map we are making amazing strides. Hodges bend has seen about a block and a half of empty land built on. The Blue Dome has not only seen a ton of redevelopment, but Hogan occupied a quarter of a block and if the Nelson group has their way - another entire block gets occupied. Following the IDL east leg to the south, another block is slated to be the new Unitarian Church. The GunBoat park area is just waiting for something awesome to happen. And, of course, the 6th and Peoria area has become very cool in the last decade.
This is where Tulsa is stuck in between a rock and a hard place right now is because we do have a significant amount of parking lots - however, these parking lots are owned by a VERY small group of owners that have not been willing to sell. 3/4th of the surface parking lots are owned by TCC, PSO, and the churches.
You do have a few key plays such as the Nordam site and the Blue Dome parking lot, but if you think about all the development that is currently underway and if we keep the pace we are going at there will be a significant land shortage for development in only a few years. This plan really is a long term vision of helping the downtown core grow and feed into surrounding neighborhoods.
Today I don't think there is a need for 100 acres of land to be available downtown, but in 5 - 10 years yes there will be a need. Do we plan for this now? Or let ODOT keep control of this land for another 30 - 40 years?
Other random thoughts on re-reading the thread:
- If the land was freed up, I'd only sell it to someone who had a development plan and funding approved. If we sold it to whomever wanted it we would have a ton of speculators sitting on vacant land for thirty years. Better to sell it for a little less and have it built upon.
I agree with this point, and I have though deeply about how to handle this. There are ways of putting restrictions on the land when it is sold to avoid this, similar to how the land around the ballpark has been managed.
Milwaukee did this successfully with the land they had under their control when they removed the freeway in their downtown. There is a large swatch of land that remains available for purchase, but it was put into an authorities control I think that is similar to TDA. They however, put so many restrictions on the land - like the project has to be built providing minority contractors work and low income household work and other restrictions that has made it impossible for a developer to make any project work.
I'd like to see some kind of streetcar proposal with a multi-modal downtown transit hub included with this next round of capital projects (which it sounds like we'll hear more about from Blake Ewing on 9/17), along with the Zink Dam rehab and whitewater chute. I think some kind of riverwalk along Crow Creek or unearthing Elm Creek would be worthwhile projects as well. Build the Jenks dam in a later phase or have the Creeks/Jenks foot the majority of the bill. Removing the east leg of the IDL could be part of a larger project to rebuild the BA and add commuter rail, which has been discussed for years. It actually makes sense if there is a downtown transit hub for it to connect to and the intermediate stations between downtown and BA are planned properly.
I also agree that if the east leg is removed and the street grid is restored with Madison becoming the boulevard it used to be through that area then you would need a "master developer" for all or parts of it to ensure that a bunch of people don't just sit on the land. This is how Austin did it with Mueller and Denver with Stapleton, both redevelopments of old airports. I'd be interested to see how other cities that removed highways handled it. OKC relocated I-40 to the south and doesn't have a master developer involved which is probably why development there has been so slow, although they are probably waiting for the central park project to be completed to kick off projects around it.
I think the transit hub could play very well into this proposal as well. I think a streetcar route could be constructed on these corridors connecting back into downtown and to other neighborhoods like Cherry St, Utica Square, Expo Square, Pearl, TU, etc. It would provide an opportunity to lay the tracks cheaper as the street-grid is rebuilt. I'm excited to see what Blake will be proposing in terms of the location of the multimodal station and if he will talk about any plans for streetcars, brt, or commuter rail in the near future.
As for a master developer, I think it would be important to bring in one big company like Trammel Crow who did Union Station in Denver for this project. I don't think they should have control over all the land, but something like 50% I don't think is unreasonable and would provide a high credentialed developer with proven ability to execute projects. Granted, this would depend on wether we did the full scale version of what I've proposed or a slimmed down proposal of just removing the East leg of the IDL. If just the East leg was removed, 1 master developer could be a viable option for the entire land area.
