Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Downtown Tulsa flashback

In fabulous Downtown Tulsa, what happens on the drawing boards, stays on the drawing boards! But what a wild ride in terms of vision! I give you a run-down of recent pipe dreams:


The competing proposal for the East End site (the developer ended up with the Nordam land over Global). This included the urban Wal-Mart we all heard about.


The ubiquitous river proposal that would solve all of Tulsa's problems. Very well may have. Would have had hundreds of residential units, tons of retail space. Would have made the river a focal point. Its baseball stadium would have had 22,000 seats, as well. Incentive package voted down by Tulsa County voters.


The 18-story tower bordering the proposed ballpark in Global's East End project. Would have included 800 units, 3 hotels, 600,000 SF of office, and more. Never really got off the ground. Global was never able to acquire all of the site.


The infamous Tulsa Channels project that made blogger headlines across the nation. The man-made islands in the Arkansas River, the environment-cooling pavilion, the canals, the 2,500 residential units, all the towers, and the single 2-lane bridge connecting it all to the "mainland."


The Greenwood Chamber's mixed-use proposal to revive the historic "Black Wall Street." Nearly got off the ground, was awaiting gov't assistance. Won't happen because the new ballpark has been proposed on top of this whole site.
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If anyone knows where I could get my hands on renderings of the old Westin at Garden Square (I must have deleted it on my Photobucket acct), the alternative Arkansas River revitalization project (that was much cheaper), or anything to further substantiate the past rumors of a Cherokee-Hard Rock Casino in downtown.. PLEASE tell me.

1 comment:

Keagan said...

Well it's been a while since you've been on here. About the Tulsa projects, I assume you are talking about the Tulsa Landing? There wasn't too much information on that one, all it was meant to be was to develop a section of the shore along the Arkansas River with retail and restaurants, basically a little riverwalk. But you probably already know all that don't you? And about the Hard Rock Casino in downtown, I haven't heard anything new.