101 SW 6

We have a really good site picked out in Core to Shore planning. Put it on the boulevard, right next to the park. We’re going to continue to revisit the site because this is a pretty big decision. I want to make sure we have a strong concensus in the community that this is the best site. But the things to keep in mind is where are the hotels, where is bricktown? Do not get too far away from either of those two entities. I think the current site addresses that adequately. But there are other sites we can consider and we’ll do that on the other side of the vote if it’s successful.

See video below:

Mayor Cornett on the MAPS 3 Convention Center from imagiNATIVEamerica on Vimeo.

Now, after watching this and hearing this, it appears that we have two messages that came out: yeah, the mayor had a favored location, but he was promising it wasn’t a done deal.

In case there’s any confusion over this, let’s look at what was reported in the Oct. 21, 2009 Gazette:

Regarding the convention center’s exact location, Williams said four possible sites are being considered: south of the existing Ford Center, at Producers Cooperative Oil Mill facility, the lumberyard north of that facility or the Deep Deuce area north of Bricktown.
Cornett said the community will have input in public discussions for all potential sites if MAPS 3 is approved.

Will there be a real discussion of where the convention center will be built? And what will that discussion be?

UPDATE:

Marsh Pitman, who developed the Bricktown garage and Hampton Inn, posted this comment in the Convention Center Report post thread:

This building is still standing - but for how long?

If everything goes in the direction currently set, this building will be razed by the city sometime in the next few years.

On Tuesday I wrote about the plight of what I’ll call “lost Bricktown.” I want you to see these buildings as they were in their heyday, instead of how blighted they are today. Left alone, these buildings could someday be restored and brought back to life. But given the current momentum of development, I predict these buildings will disappear within the next few years, to be torn down not by short-visioned developers, but rather the city itself.

Forty years ago it was the mission of a woman I admired, Mary Jo Nelson, to educate the public about similar actions that were being pondered by city leaders. She documented the final days of landmarks we now mourn – the Criterion Theater, the Huckins Hotel, the Midwest Building and more.

Like Mary Jo, who passed away a couple of years ago, I can only do my best to bring these things to your attention. It’s up to you whether these properties matter in a city that has too few old buildings left. It’s up to you whether it’s a good or bad thing that these buildings are set to be torn down. And it’s up to you whether you want to contact the mayor and council, or whether you wish to stay silent.

Things to consider:

- The city has spent more than $5 million buying up properties in the Core to Shore area for a central park. The funding included about $2 million provided in a recent bond issue and money from the downtown tax increment financing district. Consider that the same TIF could be providing money to create a quiet railway zone being requested by developers along Auto Alley and Flat Iron, or could build a MidTown or Automobile Alley parking garage, but to date Core to Shore has taken priority over these other interests even though there is real development going on in MidTown and Automobile Alley and no development taking place in Core to Shore.

- There is no certainty Core to Shore will ever happen. The Department of Transportation has not only failed to fund the boulevard that would be key to the area, but hasn’t even placed budging the project on its eight-year list of priority projects. ODOT also has yet to provide funding for tearing down the existing alignment of I-40 once the new one opens in 2012.

- If a MAPS 3 with funding for Core to Shore isn’t approved by voters, Mayor Mick Cornett confirmed in a story today that there is no plan on what to do with properties bought to date in the area.

“We have no other funding source available to us. If it fails, there is no Plan B. Core to Shore would still be our goal, but how we would fund it would then be anybody’s guess.”

- Mayor Mick Cornett

Feel free to come back here and tell me what you think.

PS: I have taken Doug’s comments to heart about my inconsistent use of categories – I have gone back and done so on every item relating to Core to Shore over the past three months. I will go back and edit more posts as time allows and will be more vigilant about coding in the future.

Today’s Downtown OKC 2020 guest blogger is former Oklahoman collegue Jim Stafford, who is now working with i2e in the Oklahoma Health Center. Jim is your typical Edmond suburbanite who has suddenly found himself bitten with the downtown bug. He says he’s not qualified to comment – I disagree.

I never thought of myself as a downtown kind of guy. I live in far north Oklahoma City with a fashionable Edmond address. I worked up north along the Broadway Extension. Then one day I changed jobs and  found myself working as close to downtown as one can get without actually working there – in the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park on the OU Health Center campus.

The Oklahoma Health Center - perhaps the most important downtown district that isn't quite downtown.

So now I often venture into downtown to eat lunch and to visit the post office and the offices of friends in Leadership Square. Sports keeps me downtown at night a lot because I enjoy the Redhawks games in Bricktown. My family shares Thunder season tickets with my mother-in- law.

With all that said, I’ve been following the debate over the future of downtown largely through this blog and Steve Lackmeyer’s articles in  The Oklahoman. I’m not sure that I have the passion for downtown that Steve is looking for in this, but I will share my point of view on the future of downtown in 2020.

By 2020, there must be light rail service both within downtown and TO downtown from outlying suburban areas such as Edmond and Norman. Once upon a time Oklahoma City had trolleys that went north , south, east and west. I think it’s imperative that we have that again, only this time extend rail into the suburban areas in every direction. And trains need to run from early morning to early morning seven days a week with frequent departures. Oh, and it will have to connect to downtown to the airport, too.

Maybe I have a one-track mind, but I think last year’s gas price run- up proved that we can no longer depend upon automobiles to get us to and from work or to and from shopping and entertainment. Let’s invest in ourselves and ensure that we CAN get to downtown in 2020.

In the past six years I’ve visited six major cities from San Francisco to Atlanta and they all have rail that made it convenient to get into town from the airport — and lots of other places. I didn’t take a cab in any of them. OK, one: San Diego.

I’m intrigued by the city’s Core-to-Shore plans, but know that we need to iron out the future of our intracity transportation first. Let’s hope that I’m not out here alone on an island shouting into the wind and that the rest of Oklahoma City will support a public transportation plan that includes rail as a key factor.

Candidates for Demolition? Not under Urban Renewal.

The same buildings today - home to the Deep Deuce apartments clubhouse.

The Littlepage Building - boarded up and ugly, right? Once again, the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority chose a new course of direction and required developers to build around the blight.

The Littlepage Building today - home to Sage Cafe and Gourmet Market, a corporate furnishings store and apartments upstairs.

Another building that needed a savior and could have been torn down in the name of progress.

All of these buildings could have been declared dead and targeted for the wrecking ball under the very same logic that apparently is being applied to Core to Shore. Now that we’ve seen what happened with the infusion of new development and a decision not to tear down old structures, let’s take another look at what’s left in Core to Shore.

Maybe it's easy to write this building off - the north facade's windows are broken and covered with graffiti as city officials have turned their backs on building maintenance in the area.

The same building in its heyday - once home to the Oklahoma City branch of International Harvester.

Another building that doesn't appear in any Core to Shore plans.

Yet another building not shown in Core to Shore plans.

Definitely not shown in Core to Shore plans. Once the original Film Exchange building.

For a city that claims to have learned from the demolition spree of the 1970s, it amazes me that there appears to be no discussion of this area bounded by I-40 and Shields Boulevard. These buildings could remain standing – if the city were to decide to build a convention center south of Lower Bricktown as proposed by former Mayor Kirk Humphreys.

To date the only explanation I’ve heard for building a new convention center south of Ford Center, and thus eliminating most or all of these buildings, is that the site south of Lower Bricktown might be too expensive and that “something must be done” as one City Hall source told me, with all the land that will be opened up by replacement of the elevated highway with an at-grade boulevard.

We also now know, thanks to a regular reader of this site, that the planning report on Core to Shore had this to say about the above buildings:

While no other buildings have the architectural significance of Little Flower Church and Union Station, several notable older buildings, such as the Latino Community Development Agency building, contribute to the character of the area and could be incorporated into development projects if economically feasible.”

Ah yes, so the experts have spoken. Of course, their forefathers also deemed the Criterion Theater, the Baum Building, Hales Building and many more not to be significant either. My hero, the late Mary Jo Nelson, wrote many a story challenging those experts. I think I’ll just let the photos and the history speak for themselves.

But let’s pretend city leaders were pursuing a different path for redevelopment of Core to Shore – one that left these buildings standing. Here’s the question folks – do you believe placing a boulevard through this area and sandwiching it between Bricktown, a new convention center and a central park will or will not spur the sort of private redevelopment and restoration work that took place with the addition of apartments in Deep Deuce?

(This post is dedicated to the memory of Mary Jo Nelson)

Tom Elmore at the Union Station rail yard, 2003.

It’s been a decade, I think, since I first met Tom Elmore. The Interstate 40 relocation project was gaining steam and Elmore was clearly upset that his concerns about the Union Station railyard were not being heard. During the previous few years City Hall and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber had fought the route proposed by the state that would go through the rail yard. But they were outmatched by then ODOT Secretary Neal McCaleb who argued that his preferred route would be cheaper ($236 million) compared to the estimated $306 million estimated for the route closer to the existing alignment preferred by city officials. From the start Tom Elmore insisted ODOT was not being honest about the estimated cost of their preferred route. The price is now $600 million. Tom Elmore is not typically complimentary toward my work. He has told me that he sees The Oklahoman being a part of a conspiracy involving ODOT and highway construction groups determined to destroy Union Station and eliminate effective rail traffic through downtown. And he saw my questioning of him on www.okctalk.com as part of that conspiracy. Regardless, I want all voices represented on this blog. I started offering Tom the chance to guest blog a few months ago. I am very happy that he has finally agreed to participate in Downtown OKC 2020. As you can imagine, Tom has Union Station on his mind ….

 

 

 

 

What are we fighting for?

Intelligent reuse of the OKC Union Station passenger rail terminal at 300 SW 7th. The terminal building was purchased by OKC government in 1989 using a $1.2 million Federal Transit Grant. They said they wanted it to be our regional transit center, a purpose it suits perfectly. It’s never been used as anything but office space by OKC Metro Transit’s bureaucrats.

The rendering above shows modern reuse of the existing yard space, and why the entire yard is needed: Two tracks for each application (one eastbound, one westbound): Two tracks for Mail, Express and Baggage handling; Two tracks for local Light Rail Trains; Two tracks for Regional Commuter Trains; Two Tracks for Intercity Passenger Trains; Two tracks for freight trains to bypass the yard; Two tracks for special trains for tourism, private and corporate events and so on. Local streetcars could interface with train and bus traffic here at the central hub simply by coming through the horseshoe in front of the terminal building off of SW 7th.

As you can see — the all the space at Union Station is needed for a modern, multimodal center. The OKC Union Station yard originally accommodated 12 tracks for purposes similar to those stated above. Today, it may well be the last, grand urban rail passenger yard in the West with all its original train-handling space intact — a yard over 200 feet wide and 8 blocks long with its original arterial street underpasses still functioning at S. Robinson and S. Walker Avenues.

This yard lies at the center of the state’s amazing railway network — over 800 miles of which is actually owned by the state of Oklahoma.

…..and our debt-generating “state Department of Transportation” wants to destroy this yard facility to make way for the relocation of a mere four miles of highway — a relocation that might have been put nearly anywhere?

At the audio link below, hear the comments in KGOU interview from a couple of years back of mayors from Denver and Salt Lake City — two urban centers now enjoying the rapid growth of their own rail transit networks:

http://www.kgou.org/content/mp3/20070227_what_other_cities_do.mp3

(For other audio files from KGOU’s extensive documentary reporting on this matter, check www.kgou.org, or go to the lower lefthand side of the North American Transportation Institute website, www.advancedtransport.org, for clickable links.)

Oklahoma City and state leadership — perhaps for only a few more days — have an opportunity to save and reuse our beautiful, functionally elegant and historic Union Station center to create an economic and transportation renaissance. The synergy of putting such a historic asset to a vital modern use is inestimable. The question is — do our leaders have the vision, the drive and the courage to do the right thing?

Check the Bing Maps view at the link below: Click on “Birdseye” and swing the map around so that you’re looking south. This gives an excellent view of the facility that you may scan from side to side to see the underpasses and full yard: Link.

Make no mistake about it — OKC Union Station and its rail lines are the only hope this generation has of seeing a truly useful, truly regional transit system in its lifetime.

Don’t let the highway lobby beat us out of it.