No doubt the conglomeration of buildings is a challenge, I recall significant water problems during the 80's expansion project that buckled the new wood floors which was traced to unknown issues with the existing buildings. However; I also have a bunch of personal emotion on this one. Gilcrease has always been a special connection for my family as my Father was City Attorney when the collection was acquired, he negotiated the deal with Mr. Gilcrease, wrote the original ballot/bond issue (which he admitted needed a little post election help from the State Supreme Court) that bought the original Collection, museum building and site essentially for free. Plus the original curator was a long time family friend and over the years my mother donated several pieces to the collection so I'm invested, excited, cautious and really hopeful this project will be something special to showcase the collection and draw new visitors.
Kirby Crowe
That's really neat your family was so closely tied to that.
Overall, this sounds like the only option and a necessary one for the future of Gilcrease, but I think a lot of people are disappointed after being told there was a "matching gift" of $55 million from TU (gone), plus a big expansion that would put this up there with Crystal Bridges. Now we're supposed to be thankful they even saved Gilcrease. The craziest thing about it is that Gilcrease just went through a $28 million expansion in 2014!
http://www.newson6.com/story/26462158/tulsans-get-a-sneak-peek-at-gilcrease-28m-expansionIt isn't just this one disappointment with the Vision 2025 stuff:
* The Pedestrian Bridge is held up and is far under-funded vs what the citizens voted on.
* The BMX construction on the Fairgrounds was completely botched and old usable stadium (for which there was income-producing demand for soccer games) was demolished to be a sinkhole of lawn maintenance and no prospects. The new BMX facility ended up costing around 50% more than what it was supposed to cost.
* Zink Dam seems nowhere near starting even though it was slated to be constructed in 2019 (
http://kotv.images.worldnow.com/library/37be184c-5714-4df5-99b9-f600852ef67d.pdf)
* The cuts to 911 15 staff right after voters approved adding 16 positions (
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/city-officials-defend-cuts-to/article_c856782f-5f58-5fca-be53-c3e88ada47f4.html) (The ol' bait & switch with funds)
* Public Safety: Has crime decreased at all? In any categories? I keep seeing Tulsa creep up the most dangerous city lists with astonishingly high violent and property crime rates. Looks like some neighborhoods are safe from violent crime but petty theft is common while other neighborhoods are drowning in crime. Do we even have more police or fire fighters than before 2016?
* Education: Once again no measurable or visible improvement. Families still flock to the suburbs while the majority of inner city schools are proving they cannot and will not educate students. Teacher retention kept dropping more and more over the last 4 years. Nothing about the teacher retention fund seemed to help.
I haven't heard updates on most of the Vision 2025 projects. Are any of the big items being constructed yet? We voted for this stuff in 2016 and 4 years later there is almost no progress on any of the big items! This is pathetic. Tulsans were foolish to ever think giving the government more money would create any "big visionary" changes like we were sold before voting. One of the easier things to implement in the package (BRT) took over 3 years!
Then the mayor dropped the ball on siding with the people for the 71st and Riverside debacle where the previous mayor gifted a developer around $10 million worth of real estate for nearly free. That should've been corrected by the new mayor to differentiate himself as someone who supports the citizens and stands up for what is right. Giving away prime parkland on the river for a wasteful shopping center with massive parking crater is shameful. That's old Chicago-level corruption.
I guess the government wants to teach Tulsans an important lesson: Life sucks and then you die. Or more specifically Tulsa sucks and the city will keep throwing your money away to make sure it always will.