Development that will make Dallas and KC Jealous?

[TU 'cane]

I sadly found myself drawn back to this after my post above...

However, I was just thinking of what could make Dallas AND K.C. jealous, and my answer is Tulsa's Gathering Place currently under construction.
I'm not sure that either Dallas or K.C. have an interactive green space near the scale of A Gathering Place?

Obviously, that's Tulsa, not OKC. But it made me think if it was some mega park or something that maybe OKC was thinking about pursuing?
But, I thought some more, and that wouldn't make sense with the C2S park slated to start in a few years (I think?), which will be large enough and hopefully interactive enough, but I'm still not sure it'll be on the scale of A Gathering Place.

Thoughts?

[Plutonic Panda]

I've already said that. FYI, from the pictures that I've seen, KC looks like a cool city, but it is not on my list of cities to visit anytime soon.

I think the park in Tulsa will be awesome for what it is. It can not compete with the Central Park in OKC because the parks are two different animals and have nothing in common with each except that they are parks. They are in two different environments and will draw two different kinds of crowds. The majority in Tulsa will likely drive to the park as a destination and the park in OKC will likely be utilized as a part of the existing community and another draw point for people that are already there for something else. Also, the Tulsa park is in a more secluded and natural area vs. the OKC park that is going to be surrounded by mid or high-rises.

Dallas also has the Trinity River Trails and Park that is a huge corridor project. I really never go there nor do I keep up with it, so I'm not sure of the current status, but here are some renderings and images.







Trinty River Corridor Project

While someone from Dallas might look at Tulsa's park and think "wow, that's neat," I highly doubt it will make anyone jealous or envious. When I think of something like that, I think of something like Disney World or perhaps a space port. Something huge. Dallas has been starved for a skyscraper lately, so I would think the Devon Tower made a few who keep up with development a little envious. If we got something like what was posted earlier over the river that people on here moaned about being too big, that would really raise some eyebrows - for better or worse. I thought it was really cool. Another supertall here would surely make Dallas jealous.

I guess for me, it comes down to what Dallas doesn't have and I mean the city. Saying Dallas will be jealous because of a soccer field being built in downtown OKC is laughable. If Dallas wants their soccer stadium downtown, they'll build a soccer stadium downtown.

Dallas doesn't have a top rate amusement park. Let's get real here, Six Flags is cool, but you can do park in 3-4 hours and it doesn't give the WOW factor that you get from Disney, Universal Studios, or Cedar Point in Ohio. If OKC got a world class amusement park like Universal, Disney, or something like Cedar Point(https://www.cedarpoint.com/), that would surely make Dallas jealous. BUT, Steve said this was going to be in Bricktown, so that pretty much throws it out.

Sea World. Dallas does have a Sea World. I think, however, our climate rules out any possibility on that.

Space Port, Dallas doesn't have one of those. But again, we're talking about Bricktown. No Spaceport for Bricktown. Maybe a space elevator.

Dallas already has a good aquarium, so unless we get something like the one in Atlanta, I doubt they will care much.

I would think the AICC would draw from Dallas, but that is not something they will be jealous about. Perhaps a major art museum, but Dallas is not lacking in Fine Arts.

OKC has a great zoo. The Dallas Zoo sucks. Fort Worth is garbage. Their zoo has extremely and arguable enclosed structures that are so small it can be called abuse. I am not allowed back into that zoo because of some comments I made to their staff about the animal enclosures. They apparently didn't like that and things got heated. F#ck that place. Anyways, I know people who will drive down Dallas to come see our zoo, which I love. So that might be something, but again, it's not like they are envious over or mad that it isn't in Dallas. Also, with the way people's morals are going, I question how much longer zoos will be socially accepted.

I honestly don't know what else it could be except for some development like an urban lifestyle/mixed-use complex.

You want to make Dallas jealous? Something like this would have to be built









Otherwise, it's just something else that is cool, but won't make people leave thinking "wow, wish I had that here.

[TU 'cane]

Ah, apologies. I did not know anyone else had brought that point up. I'm guilty of not going through every single page and reading every single letter, promise I wasn't plagiarizing.

However, your summary above is something right on... I literally cannot think of anything else. Unless....
The last thing I can think of is that is something to do with the Oklahoma River... Water. Dallas, K.C., and OKC all lack an ocean or major lake (they have rivers...) right near it. Perhaps this development was going to be something along/on/in the river that would be unique to this entire region?

The Soccer stadium had something to chew on, but the more I thought about that, DFW has all major sports franchises and K.C. has a few of them... Do we really think they'd be jealous of a Soccer stadium built downtown?

[Plutonic Panda]

No problem. The Gathering Place is a great park and something a lot of cities don't have. I've been to a lot of parks around Dallas, but never one as impressive as it looks like the Gathering Place will be. Tulsa is extremely lucky to have a great guy like George Kaiser.

I do wish OKC could get someone like him.

[ljbab728]

Steve was asked about this again today in his weekly chat.

‎11‎:‎44‎:‎42‎ ‎AM
John

Was the thing that was going to make KC and Dallas jealous an MLS-level stadium in Bricktown/central OKC?

‎11‎:‎45‎:‎15‎ ‎AM
Steve Lackmeyer

No. And the project is not dead. It's going very, very, very slowly.... virtually at a standstill right now. But it's not dead.

[Plutonic Panda]

Can anyone tell me what it means when a project is at a standstill? Does that mean the developers and whoever else is involved with the project just completely stepped away for a minute to take a break or what?

I mean, I get that things aren't moving, but what is really happening?

[ljbab728]

Can anyone tell me what it means when a project is at a standstill? Does that mean the developers and whoever else is involved with the project just completely stepped away for a minute to take a break or what?

I mean, I get that things aren't moving, but what is really happening?

plupan. surely you aren't expecting an answer to that question. It's really not even worth asking at this point.

[Plutonic Panda]

Wouldn't say so.

[Laramie]

‎11‎:‎45‎:‎15‎ ‎AM

Steve Lackmeyer

No. And the project is not dead. It's going very, very, very slowly.... virtually at a standstill right now. But it's not dead.

Too many 'verys' for me to comprehend; sounds like something comatose--on life support.

[d-usa]

Steve was asked about this again today in his weekly chat.

I knew it had a large flair of wishful thinking on my part .

Well, I hope that we will get a nice place for soccer somewhere at some point (still think that it could be a good project for lower Bricktown).

[kbsooner]

Can anyone tell me what it means when a project is at a standstill? Does that mean the developers and whoever else is involved with the project just completely stepped away for a minute to take a break or what?

I mean, I get that things aren't moving, but what is really happening?

generally speaking in my limited experience it means the financing isn't there.

[Just the facts]

We can only dream

skyTran | High-Speed, Low-Cost, Green, Elevated, Personal Rapid Transit

[Plutonic Panda]

generally speaking in my limited experience it means the financing isn't there.

so when hey say it stalled then, does that mean they are now pursuing other financing options or simply just waiting until things change(market, business climate etc.) to resume?

[Laramie]

so when hey say it stalled then, does that mean they are now pursuing other financing options or simply just waiting until things change(market, business climate etc.) to resume?

To put it lightly, probably a shortage of funds; looking for investors... To be frank, they're BROKE!

[Urbanized]

You know this first hand? Or are we making stuff up as we go along to fill the vacuum, as usual?

[Rover]

Generally right now, there are lots of investors on the equity side, but still some difficulty with new concepts approval on the debt side. Sometimes it takes awhile to get everyone on the same page and to be comfortable with the risk. I would GUESS that the slow movement may have more to do with the demand side and the oil economy slowdown than availability of investors. They may have to verify demand is still there.

But this IS a GUESS....like this whole thread.

[Rover]

Wow. I got liked by both Urbanized AND PluPan. I think I will quit posting for the day as I can't top that. Must have been my stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night.

[Plutonic Panda]

I appreciate the well informed response as it seems you know what you're talking about. I'm a noob when it comes to how these things really work, so I just wanted to get some input. I get that unless you're involved directly with whatever it is that they're planning, you can't really say for sure.

[JAW]

Don't like it. Really gaudy. It needs to serve a purpose, and it doesn't.

Thank you for the comment. I would agree that my design is gaudy. I'm not an artist. I spent hours over the summer learning the basics of Google Sketchup, and that was one of about 6 designs for the concept, and is probably the "best" one. I've forgotten everything since then and couldn't recreate it if I tried, and have little motive with work and grad school to spend more time on it. It should be shorter. I can't manipulate the curves in sketchup very well to make it "tighter" and more elegant, more spiral-y. I hesitated to post it because of this, as I feared the execution would damn the idea. Someone who is creative could probably take the concept and execute it better and persuade skeptics.

As for purpose, I hoped that I stated it clearly in the original post--a functional walkable platform from one marque destination near downtown (Bricktown/Boathouse District) to another (the need-to-be-completed-ASAP American Indian Cultural Center Museum). Instead of visitors having to drive one measely mile from the Boathouse District to the AICCM, they can simply cross diagonally over two impassable gaps, I35 and the Oklahoma River. If any development begins on the southside of the river opposite the boathouse district, then it would also assist in moving people by foot to those future destinations as well.

As for symbolic purpose, it serves a superior purpose then many if not most of these similar types of landmarks. There is no purpose behind the Calgary Tower except it's a Tower in Calgary providing scenic views of the city and the Rockies. I've been to Calgary, it's a nice little tower, but it doesn't have any purpose in and of itself outside of the observation deck. Space Needle, Tower of the Americas, their raison d'etres are meager justifications at best beyond simply having a tall tourist attraction. The Crosstown Tipi can serve these simple "landmark" tourist attraction purposes, while providing the functional purpose as mentioned above with more symbolic purpose(s) then the Calgary Tower or Tower of Americas. Such as:

1) Represents the unity of time in a single structure, in a way relevant to OK and native American history. Take a structure from premodern times (the tipi, representing the past), give a "science fiction" high technology spin on it (the future), and give it a function for people today (the present), to walk across a six lane major highway and river at once. Not to mention an extra observation deck hundreds of feet in the air.
2) Represent the gateway to the Southwest, if not the unofficial real gateway to the West. The mean population center of the United States is pulling each year to the state of Oklahoma, and may be OKC by 2100 if not earlier. We always debate about whether or not OK is in the South, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Central Plains, well we can embrace this crossroads of American culture symbolically in a way few other parts of the US can with a crossroads bridge.
3) Simply represent Oklahoma, Land of the Red People, Native American culture in a way that plays off of American stereotypes of Oklahoma. Create a modern technological marvel out of "do you have electricity in your tipis?!?" meme.
4) All of the above

[hoya]

I'm not really going to criticize your artistic talent. What you posted is about 100x better than I can do. I'm limited to stick figures on a piece of paper. Sometimes I can use MSPaint to put a big blue square on top of an existing picture.

The scale of your project is immense. That thing looks at least 1500 feet high to me. It spans a river and an interstate. It will make the St Louis Arch look tiny. Honestly it reminds me of one of those giant projects that you see in a place like North Korea. The scale is huge, but it's being made that size for the sole purpose of being the biggest XYZ in the world. I can't even begin to calculate how much this thing would cost. For the same price we could probably completely redevelop the Core 2 Shore area.

[dcsooner]

Please Kill this thread, there is nothing in OKC's future that would make either of those cities jealous. Get real. Whoever started this fantasy should call an immediate cease to this endless/mindless/ baseless speculation

[Urbanized]

Protip: stop clicking on it.

[Plutonic Panda]

Please Kill this thread, there is nothing in OKC's future that would make either of those cities jealous. Get real. Whoever started this fantasy should call an immediate cease to this endless/mindless/ baseless speculation

i did not start the idea, just the thread. Sorry but I can't kill it even I wanted to. I just wanted to see what people thought of it.

[ljbab728]

Please Kill this thread, there is nothing in OKC's future that would make either of those cities jealous. Get real. Whoever started this fantasy should call an immediate cease to this endless/mindless/ baseless speculation

As I said in the Big 12 basketball thread, nobody is surprised about how you feel. You regularly bash everything about everything in this part of the country and in Oklahoma and OKC in particular. Is there any possibility for you to actually contribute something positive?

[dcsooner]

Ijbab, You probably will not believe nor accept this comment, but, there is NO ONE who Loves Oklahoma more than me. Having said that I am a realist and I do not make excuses for the negative aspects of my home State. There is much to love and appreciate about the State and its largest city, but, if anyone really thinks a world class city like Dallas and a City twice the size of OKC would be jealous of some project albeit significant then I think you are kidding yourselves. Can we just get four-five towers built, more residential, a street car, more retail, american indian cultural cente built on and on before we start comparing ourselves to much more established places. My comments on any issue on this forum are usually based on a reality of the issue e.g schools poor, low health numbers etc. but I also try to celebrate the good things that are occuring in OKC. My comments are most often not meant to agitate, however, there are times when agitation may bring about positive change (if leaders read this forum).