Classen Boulevard

[Teo9969]

Instead of sending the Hall Capital thread off on a tangent, I would like to dedicate a thread that specifically deals with the Classen Blvd corridor and any development that directly fronts the street. I feel a serious discussion needs to take place ASAP to start figuring out what actions need to take place to enhance what Classen brings to the table in Oklahoma City.

First, let's establish why it's important:

A. It connects from North to South, the following notable locations:

• Nichols Hills and NW 63rd/Western (Chesapeake, MidFirst, Glimcher's NH Plaza + Classen Curve + Future Development)
• Belle Isle + Penn Square Mall + 50 Penn Place + NW Expressway + Classen Circle
• Memorial Park + NW 36th St. + thousands of smaller lot single-family homes (within walking distance, this spanning nearly the entirety of the road)
• Asian District
• Oklahoma City University
• Uptown 23rd Street
• Gold Dome
• Old American Fidelity Campus (Rick Dowell)
• Classen School of Advanced Studies
• Key inner-city neighborhoods such as Mesta Park, Gatewood, Putnam Heights (further North)
• The Plaza
• NW10th Street
• St. Anthony's Complex
• Arts District
• Film Row
• Farmer's Market
• Wheeler District

B. It has been identified as an early route expansion for the street car in ACOG's 2015 commuter corridor study: It would prove to be a major ridership area, and if OKC indeed invests near a $1B for this route alone, Classen needs to be a top notch street and will of course bring TOD in a major way.

C. It intersects NW Expressway which is one of the busiest corridor's in the entire state, and is therefore one of the most important arteries that brings people in from the NW to downtown.

D. It remains WOEFULLY undervalued and therefore things can be done to establish guidelines right now that will help for the future.

Here are the steps I would like to see the city take in the next few years:

1. Initiate a comprehensive analysis of the corridor: Commercial strengths/weaknesses. Walkability/Bikability/Drivability. Quality of public transit, and potential impact of future public transit. Historic Buildings. Etc. Etc. Etc.

2. Create a long-term plan that enhances the corridor as a multi-modal artery (walking, biking, driving, street car) that attracts development that is mixed-use in nature.

3. Create guidelines that match the plan and a design review corridor that has oversight to make sure that development that takes place does so in a healthy manner

4. Identify every building that fronts Classen and is historically/architecturally significant so that ideas can begin to form on how to best incorporate those buildings into the overall design. Some of these buildings will present a challenge, but if we address it before any questions come up, we'll be in better shape.

I feel like this is a good start to the discussion. Classen is billions of dollars away from being world class, but when you consider how many major points of interest it feeds, it is certainly worth that kind of investment.

[Plutonic Panda]

Thy turn into a f Sargent with a orange fact I love in La county they not serve orphaned because Orange County is close to here but they won't serve strawberries.



I just want to tell u so u come in retirhsz

[Plutonic Panda]

Mope

[Teo9969]

You know, they say you know who you love by who you contact when you're drunk.

Glad to know you still love us, PluPan!!!

[bchris02]

Classen has such potential I am surprised it isn't farther along. In the near term, I think the key pieces to get things going are the Gold Dome, the Rick Dowell development, and of course the Hall Capital development. It really needs to be brought into the conversation because I don't think a lot of people are really thinking about where it falls into the overall revitalization vision for downtown OKC. As I've said with Core to Shore, now is the time to develop a vision and guide development in that direction, before major mistakes have been made.

One thing I would really like to see on Classen is tribute paid to its Route 66 origins in some way. There are a lot of great placemaking possibilities there.

[Urbanized]

Discussions such as those that you propose have been ongoing for months, with the City promising to implement as many of the resulting recommendations as is feasible. Perhaps you should attend this presentation: ULI Oklahoma: A Better Classen Public Presentation - ULI Oklahoma

By the way, significant private investment is already underway along the corridor. It will look very, very different five years from now.

[Jim Kyle]

One thing I would really like to see on Classen is tribute paid to its Route 66 origins in some way. There are a lot of great placemaking possibilities there.

Those "Route 66 origins" don't have a huge amount of basis in fact, although it's true that in the 1930s 66 ran along the boulevard from NW 23 to NW 39. The true origin of the boulevard, though, was Anton Classen's initiation of "sprawl" when he developed the area and built the streetcar line out to Belle Isle (when it was an amusement park).

In the glory years of Route 66, it came into OKC from Edmond by way of Kelly, swerved west to Lincoln where I44 now runs, went south on Lincoln to NE 23 at the Capitol, west on 23rd to Classen, north on Classen to NW 39, then west on 39th to Bethany. Around 1940, the alignment changed to continue west on 23rd to Portland, then north on Portland to 39th, bypassing the boulevard entirely and avoiding much of the residential area. Remnants of the curve at NW 39 and Portland remain today though you have to look closely to see it behind the SW corner of the intersection. Portland marked the west city limits in the 40's, and as recently as 1948 everything west of there was farmland.

There's a connection, true, but it's pretty remote. The Milk Bottle is almost the only remnant of it, but the "BEVO" sign built into the brickwork of a building a bit to the north is also historic...

[Urbanized]

This is free and open to the public for anyone who would prefer to be genuinely informed on this topic and perhaps even to participate in solutions: ULI Oklahoma: A Better Classen Public Presentation - ULI Oklahoma

[Spartan]

Thy turn into a f Sargent with a orange fact I love in La county they not serve orphaned because Orange County is close to here but they won't serve strawberries.



I just want to tell u so u come in retirhsz

Embarrassing per usual. Pete, could you delete this stuff? This is an important topic for this forum to focus on.

[Spartan]

This is free and open to the public for anyone who would prefer to be genuinely informed on this topic and perhaps even to participate in solutions: ULI Oklahoma: A Better Classen Public Presentation - ULI Oklahoma

This looks like a very exciting event! I'll miss it by a week sadly. I hope people on here can mark their calendars for next week and go!

[Teo9969]

I'm trying to clear my schedule to go and should be able to make it.

[Pete]

Teo, please go if possible.

You need to lend your perspective and get involved in this movement.

[AP]

The public meetings that I want to go to are always when I am out of town on business.

[Teo9969]

The ULI meeting that Urbanized shared is today @5:30 until 7:00.

It will be held at City Pres Church: 829 NW 13th Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

I will be in attendance and hope a few more can make it. It would be great to bring the information back to the forum from different vantage points and hopefully get some talks going on here that could be used in future meetings about the betterment of Classen.

[Urbanized]

FWIW, a number of regular forum contributors and readers have participated in these meetings from the outset, and the initial effort was widely discussed here 6 months ago, and also covered in the Gazette and Oklahoman (and probably The Journal Record too).

I and others have mentioned this before on the board, but if anyone here actually wants to move beyond chatting about these types of issues online and participate directly in such processes, the best place to start these days would probably be to join the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Welcome to ULI Oklahoma

[Mr. Cotter]

I was able to participate in the last event, which was great. I won't be able to make it tonight, but any chance the presentation will be recorded and posted online?

[Canoe]

Teo/Urbanized, how did it go?

[Teo9969]

It was mainly a presentation of research done for areas between Reno and 23rd: What problems exist, how they could be addressed in the short, medium, and long terms, and how we could enhance the area aesthetically.

There was a major emphasis on pedestrian/bicycle friendly issues particularly as it pertained to crossing Classen to the other side of the street.

It sounds as though a zoning/design review overlay is coming very soon to the west side of Classen.

There were some great examples of small, cost-effective "try-outs" that could be used to improve the quality of experience for all forms of traffic, and is something that, IMO, really needs to start occurring more often in other areas of the city as well. They should soon be posting the presentation materials here: A Better Classen Boulevard | The Institute for Quality Communities and they will have tons of examples of things that could be done.

[Teo9969]

This has been a great start to the discussion, and it seems like those who are super passionate about it are doing a great job of leading the discussion as it pertains to Classen from Reno to 23rd.

However, there needs to be more focus from 23rd to NW Expressway, and it needs some leadership other than those who have really stepped up on the south portion so as to not stretch those people's resources too thin. Meg Salyer has clearly been very involved in the public process and her ward covers the area from Reno to 23rd. The area north of 23rd belongs to Ed Shadid, and so we need to get some leaders working with him and city planners, and then there needs to be conversations with "Classen South" people.

Finally, the street car is a major question mark that looms. At the end of the day, there is not in the next 50 years ever going to be much in the way of destinations West of Classen…there's simply way too much residential. So in order for this to be the compelling Boulevard it could be there needs to be a compelling way to transport pedestrians (and even some bikers) from 63rd/Western to the Farmer's Market, and I personally believe that the street car is that transportation. If that ends up not coming to pass, I think we may be at an impasse for improving North Classen into a compelling Urban Boulevard.

[ljbab728]

KFOR had a nice presentation about this on their late news tonight.

Building a better Classen Boulevard | KFOR.com

[warreng88]

Teo, do you not consider OCU and the Plaza District destinations? I certainly do...

[ljbab728]

Here is Steve's update on the meeting along with his video interview with Shane Hampton and Jonathan Dodson.

http://www.oklahoman.com/article/542...r%20Classen%27

[Teo9969]

Teo, do you not consider OCU and the Plaza District destinations? I certainly do...

"*much* in the way of destinations."

The Plaza district in all its glory and my Alma Mater, much as I love them both, do not merit hundreds of millions of public and private investment dollars to develop a corridor that otherwise works great for what it is: An auto-centric thoroughfare. And when you throw in the cost of the street car, the total investment becomes billions.

The CHK, Midfirst, Belle Isle, Penn Square connections, combined with all the residential between 23rd and NW Expressway are way important for the long-term success of the Boulevard, and the overall health of the connection between Downtown and NW OKC.

If we're serious about making Oklahoma City and not just downtown more walkable, this is one of the most important long-term projects in the city.

I think we're moving forward correctly if over the next few years we find some stop gaps for issues south of 23rd and maybe even ~5 years address on a more permanent basis everything between 13th and Reno. But how we approach 13th north to 23rd will have a major impact on how well things work from 23rd to NW Expressway, so we need to make sure we're envisioning the connection correctly.

With what I saw today, and knowing that this has only been about a 6 months process, I'm confident that we will have a lot of success as a city moving forward. I think it will be harder than we realize if we don't get more people involved in the process, but not impossible. We need to get more people involved, and hopefully get some talented people to come in and create some tangible resources that can be used to "sell" the public on why this is a worthy investment of what will be a very considerable amount of our resources.

[Urbanized]

Billions..?

[DoctorTaco]

Finally, the street car is a major question mark that looms.

Meg Salyer said something about Bus Rapid Transit, and I've heard similar comments before. I think long-term most people in the know see Classen as a corridor for Bus Rapid Transit rather than a streetcar. I am not sure where this belief originates or whether it is codified in planning documents, but it is kind of the conventional wisdom that someday there will be BRT up Classen and out on NW Expressway.