What's with the wide setback along Greenwood, for trees?
It
was for open space (and a few trees, according to the June 18, 2009 map shown on page 23 of
Volume 2 of the Downtown Master Plan).
The setback is a strip of land on the east side of Greenwood, forty feet wide, as I mentioned in a previous post.
The strip still may be intended as open space, but I don't know. Since 2010, there have been various negotiations/agreements between the TDA and Land Legacy, and among the TDA, Tulsa Open Space Alliance (TOSA), Yvonne Hovell ( Urban 8 ), and The Edge developers.
In June 2015, it seems to me after reading
this agreement, both TOSA and the TDA agreed to the sale of the north 220 feet of the strip (abutting The Edge property) to The Edge owners and the south 80 feet of the strip (abutting the Urban 8 development) to Urban 8.
The June 2015 agreement refers to a Valentine's Day 2014 contract between the TDA and TOSA, which I've not seen. However, the June 2015 agreement amended the February 2014 contract by deleting all references to "Construction Plans" in the 2014 TDA-TOSA contract. (In the June 2015 agreement, see item 2.g.) If "Construction Plans" in the 2014 TDA-TOSA contract related to plans for an urban park or open space or something similar, then those particular "construction plans" are no longer binding upon The Edge owners or Urban 8, as I see it.
If I can find the February 2014 TDA-TOSA contract, then I'll post what I discover. There were at least four amendments to the contract, as best I can tell.
Anyway, the strip very well may become a small urban park, eventually. From the assorted documents and
World articles I've found online, for at least seven years, an urban park seems to me to have been the intended "development" there. But I could be wrong, wrong, wrong about that. 25 years ago, I foolishly thought that
Helmerich Park was intended to be a
park, not an REI commercial development with a huge parking lot and buildings with blank walls facing the river.
Little did I know about Helmerich
Park. And little do I know about the 40 foot setback on the east side of Greenwood between 2nd and 3rd, but from what I've discovered today, I think issues related to buried fuel storage tanks and utility easements have arisen since the June 2015 agreement.
