Del Mar Gardens

[Pete]

As the food truck scene continues to heat up in Oklahoma City, a second food truck park looks to follow in the footsteps of the popular Bleu Garten in Midtown.

The new project is to be called Del Mar Gardens and would be located just north of the Farmer's Market building and adjacent to the newly opened Power House bar.

The name is a reference to a former amusement park, beer garden and entertainment complex that was located very nearby in the early 1900's. For more on that park's history, read this excellent account by historian Doug Loudenback: Delmar Garden & Wheeler Park.

The project will convert an existing parking lot into an area where local food truck vendors can rent space and have a static location from which to serve the surrounding community. A large portion of the existing asphalt parking lot will be excavated and replaced with a bed of compacted gravel with several planters and general lanscaping. A large covered seating area will be comprised of wooden timber and a metal roof.

An original 1931 1 ½ ton vintage pick-up truck will be placed for visual interest and signage, as well as decorative weather vanes and extensive wooden fencing.

Del Mar Gardens is being led by Bud Scott, the lead developer for the Farmer's Market properties.

[bchris02]

Great news.

In my opinion, this concept seems like a great fit for that area, possible better than Midtown. Will be interesting to see how it does.

[Pete]

There is room in the OKC market for both locations, and the parks will help spur even more food trucks.


There are some really cool buildings directly east of this site that are crying out for adaptive reuse:

[gopokes88]

The guys at the powerhouse mentioned something about this. (Great bar btw). Looks awesome.

[Pete]

Area has just soooo much potential:

[Urbanized]

Super cool! I love the name reference. Extra-appropriate.

[Zuplar]

I want something like this out closer to me, maybe somewhere near the outlet mall.

[Pete]

One huge advantage of the Farmers Market area: No one lives anywhere close, which means you can bands and DJ's blasting outdoor music just about any time.

There is also tons of parking scattered around.

This area could turn into something completely different and unique in OKC.

[CuatrodeMayo]

Cool! I'm pretty sure that's where the food truck court was for Better Block in 2013.

[yukong]

I think this is great...but I would like to see something in the core of downtown that is similar to what they are doing in Portland. In Portland they have taken several empty parcels of land right in the heart of downtown and created this sort of thing, but in stead of food trucks that drive out every night, they have trailers/trucks like what we see at the fair. The trailers/trucks are semi-permanent. They rent a space big enough for their trailer, park it there and it stays put day after day. One such spot was a full city block square and it was ringed by said trailers. There were dozens and dozens of them. Something like that just a couple of blocks or two from the center of downtown would be great. Because of the numbers at this spot in Portland, you had nearly every type of food possible. It was great. And it was heavily used during lunch times every day. Some even operated in the early evening.

I think this new one is great, and I like Bleu Garten. But this one at the Farmer's Market is too far to walk from the CBD, and heretofore, the times I've visited Bleu Garten, there were just a handful of trucks and there wasn't much variety. Hopefully more and more entrepreneurs will utilize these concepts to try more types of foods.

[Pete]

I think this is great...but I would like to see something in the core of downtown that is similar to what they are doing in Portland. In Portland they have taken several empty parcels of land right in the heart of downtown and created this sort of thing, but in stead of food trucks that drive out every night, they have trailers/trucks like what we see at the fair. The trailers/trucks are semi-permanent. They rent a space big enough for their trailer, park it there and it stays put day after day. One such spot was a full city block square and it was ringed by said trailers. There were dozens and dozens of them. Something like that just a couple of blocks or two from the center of downtown would be great. Because of the numbers at this spot in Portland, you had nearly every type of food possible. It was great. And it was heavily used during lunch times every day. Some even operated in the early evening.

I think this new one is great, and I like Bleu Garten. But this one at the Farmer's Market is too far to walk from the CBD, and heretofore, the times I've visited Bleu Garten, there were just a handful of trucks and there wasn't much variety. Hopefully more and more entrepreneurs will utilize these concepts to try more types of foods.

If you read the article, it explains that this project will rent a "static" spaces, which means the same trucks will be there most the time.

[yukong]

If you read the article, it explains that this project will rent a "static" spaces, which means the same trucks will be there most the time.

Yeah, I did see that...but again, I would prefer to see something like this closer to or in the CDB. Walking distance for most of the folks downtown. It was interesting to read in today's paper about the effort to expand retail in the Park Avenue area. The numbers of folks that work in that area, or within a couple of blocks was pretty big. Those folks, like me want something within walking distance. And something that is static. So you know from day to day what will be there with a certain degree of certainty.

[Roger S]

Walking distance for most of the folks downtown.

I'm not an urbanist so I'm curious what walking distance is?

I park at my office and walk to the Chesapeake, for Thunder games, which is 0.9 miles (less than 15 minutes walking) and I see this project is located 1.2 miles from downtown OKC.

I'm not trying to be a smartass here and genuiniely want to know what walking distance is or even a general amount of time you are looking for to walk to a location.

[yukong]

To me, because of time limits on lunch times due to meetings and hearings, etc, I mean a walk of 5 to maybe 10 minutes at most. For you, from what you say, walking to the new Delmar Gardens site would be roughly 18 minutes one way. That means 35-40 minutes round trip. That won't work for a lot of us. It won't work for me and those in my office. If it could be walked in 5-10 minutes where a round trip is less than 20 minutes, then that is more workable. And I didn't read your response as "smartass." just so you know.

[sooner88]

I'm not an urbanist so I'm curious what walking distance is?

I park at my office and walk to the Chesapeake, for Thunder games, which is 0.9 miles (less than 15 minutes walking) and I see this project is located 1.2 miles from downtown OKC.

I'm not trying to be a smartass here and genuiniely want to know what walking distance is or even a general amount of time you are looking for to walk to a location.

My guess would be he is referring to walking distance during the week... that may be cutting it close for an hour lunch. Regardless, I am excited to see this area growing.

[Pete]

Farmers Market is between downtown and the Wheeler District and has great access from Western and the boulevard, plus plenty of parking.

It will take some time, but this area is very well positioned and pretty unique.

[Roger S]

To me, because of time limits on lunch times due to meetings and hearings, etc, I mean a walk of 5 to maybe 10 minutes at most. For you, from what you say, walking to the new Delmar Gardens site would be roughly 18 minutes one way. That means 35-40 minutes round trip. That won't work for a lot of us. It won't work for me and those in my office. If it could be walked in 5-10 minutes where a round trip is less than 20 minutes, then that is more workable. And I didn't read your response as "smartass." just so you know.

Ok... so you are looking at it from a working downtown point of view and not a living downtown point of view... Got ya now.

[Motley]

I was curious if anyone has done a study on the matter. I found a NYTimes article that indicated most people want to walk no more than 30 minutes at lunch to leave 30 minutes to eat ( I work for a Fortune 10 company and it recommends 30 minutes for lunch for non-exempts). I also looked up the average walking speed of humans, 3.1 miles per hour. So it would take approximately 23 minutes each way to walk to Del Mar and leave 14 minutes to eat.

[yukong]

Ok... so you are looking at it from a working downtown point of view and not a living downtown point of view... Got ya now.

Absolutely. Walking distance if I lived downtown would be irrelevant. In fact, when I come to Thunder games, I always park in my agency garage several blocks from the arena. It's about a 15 minute walk from the garage to the arena. But I can park for free and would rather walk a few more minutes than pay 10-20 bucks to park. But for lunch during working hours...my agency asks us to try and keep our lunch time around 30-45 minutes. So, I don't want to spend 90% of the lunch time walking.

[yukong]

We are about 5 minutes from Blue Garten, and I really like that spot, but since the trucks aren't static, it's hard to know what is there until you arrive. At least that's been my experience. And one or two times we have gotten there and there was just 1 truck. It has so much potential, but it needs to be more static.

[shawnw]

A Spokies station at 21c and another at Farmers Market would go a long way towards making getting there quicker for downtowners an option. Might also need one between 21c and the Library station, so the east end of Film Row would be perfect, unless you just split the difference and put one on the west end of Film Row and one at Farmers Market. Haven't looked at the distances, but I know we try for .5 mile intervals. Library to 21c seems like it might be closer to .75 (again without looking).

In general, where is the Spokies expansion we were promised? (not seeing it so far, but sure hope it's coming)

[Bullbear]

We are about 5 minutes from Blue Garten, and I really like that spot, but since the trucks aren't static, it's hard to know what is there until you arrive. At least that's been my experience. And one or two times we have gotten there and there was just 1 truck. It has so much potential, but it needs to be more static.

Does Blue Garten post on the website a schedule of who is going to be there what days for both day and evening?

[shawnw]

yes but it changes very frequently

[shawnw]

have gone there expecting four trucks but then there only being two due to a last minute change. not a knock on Bleu, but if there's a weakness, that's it (unpredictability of the food options).

[Teo9969]

Bleu should gain more consistency and traction after having a full spring/summer/fall cycle to build some continuity. I get the sense that's been one of their biggest hurdles to date.