Tulsa is dying (Owasso, Jenks, Bell: sales, lease, amusement park)

[imagasser]

I have lived in Tulsa since 1989. I left OKC for Tulsa. The city is dying. Our downtown is moribund and 2025, when fully implemented, will do nothing to help with this and in fact, will facilitate urban decay and suburban development. Wealthy city "Patrons" did not want river development near down town. The physician who brought the aquarium to Jenks, begged the "city fathers" to develope it downtown and associate it with river development. Jenks now enjoys the aquarium and new river development with the enhanced tax base. Tulsa now has an arena being built that will suck more revenues from the city coffers. Tulsa has had no major business move into our taxing district in many years. We are left with tax exempt churches and hospitals.
You have basically two options for public middle and high schools; Carver and Edison and BTW and Edison respectfully. These options are so, so. 75% of the kids in TPS are on free or reduced lunches. Mexicans are nearly a majority in TPS and the service center is forecasting that Mexicans will be the majority in Tulsa county in 2018. TPS is having growing problems staffing the classroom with bi-lingual educators, medical personel to treat untreated illnesses and immunizations in this demographic. I'm no racist, but nor do I want to live in a community where so many are poorly educated. As this continues, more will leave Tulsa for the suburbs removing more of the city's tax base. In the not too distant future, Tulsa will become a large decaying hole in Tulsa county. Our leadership has been short sited and utterly lacking vision. We are still paying for a failed airline deal that would have been mute if we had developed Tulsa in a fashion that would have had airlines begging for berths at our airport.
Look at the businesses on 15th street between Peoria and Harvard... lots of buildings for lease. Look at South Harvard from 15th to 41st. Homeless walk up and down the area and few of the businesses that are open make their storefronts look appealing.
And what is really puzzeling, if you ask Tulsa's wealthy "mid-towners" (I am one), they have no clue about the coarsening of our city. They don't know that 75% of the kids are on free or reduced lunches because their kids go to private schools. (Mine do not).
If someone else can point out objective evidence that Tulsa is a vibrant, growing community where our kids are valued and have something to do other than drink and copulate, I would love to hear the evidence.

[StillwaterTownie]

Well, Tulsa is suffering terribly from so many people not wanting to see big for the city. When a city rejects something as significant as Oklahoma's first aquarium, that's sadly lacking in foresight. It was already bad enough how it was like pulling hen's teeth to try to raise taxes to see something as big as Vision 2025. The first attempt to raise sale taxes for it failed while in OKC the first attempt to raise sales taxes to revitalize downtown passed.

Seems like Tulsa has had problems ever since Oral Robert's colossal folly of a hospital had to close.

[OKC Chanel]

I shopped in Tulsa(Utica Sq.) all the time in the eighties to about 2000. Then OKC finally got into gear and gave me something to look at and more. Now if I do serious local shopping it is in Dallas. So I can see how Tulsa would lose some shine. But the town is so beautiful Im sure they will figure out the problems. It is far from being a gaping hole or whatever.

[MrsSteel]

I think the leaders and citizens of Tulsa have neglected the city for quite a long time. As a result, a lot of people who want to live in Tulsa have had to leave in order to find jobs in their fields. This has happened to me and my husband, my best friend and her husband, other friends and family members ... it just goes on and on. And it saddens us all because we truly love Tulsa & want to stay there and make a difference in the community.

There are some Tulsa citizens that are trying to make up for the neglect of recent decades. Some of their efforts seems to be working (Cherry Street is actually looking better than it has in years. And tons of people now hang out in the Brady district on the weekends). But some decisions just make me want to cry (Metro Diner, McBirney Mansion, the failed bond issue for the downtown library, etc.). I still hope that things will improve - that maybe some aspects of Vision 2025 will live up to the hype. Sadly, I must simply watch from afar & keep my fingers crossed.

[SashaBlue]

Originally Posted by MrsSteel

I think the leaders and citizens of Tulsa have neglected the city for quite a long time. As a result, a lot of people who want to live in Tulsa have had to leave in order to find jobs in their fields. This has happened to me and my husband, my best friend and her husband, other friends and family members ... it just goes on and on. And it saddens us all because we truly love Tulsa & want to stay there and make a difference in the community.

There are some Tulsa citizens that are trying to make up for the neglect of recent decades. Some of their efforts seems to be working (Cherry Street is actually looking better than it has in years. And tons of people now hang out in the Brady district on the weekends). But some decisions just make me want to cry (Metro Diner, McBirney Mansion, the failed bond issue for the downtown library, etc.). I still hope that things will improve - that maybe some aspects of Vision 2025 will live up to the hype. Sadly, I must simply watch from afar & keep my fingers crossed.

What happened to Metro Diner? I ate there a lot as a college student in the 80's.

[MrsSteel]

Originally Posted by SashaBlue

What happened to Metro Diner? I ate there a lot as a college student in the 80's.

It's gone. I don't remember all the particulars, but TU bought up a lot of properties along 11th street in order to build a new entrance. Here are links to a couple articles about it.
Landmark Tulsa diner closing
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=115084 - broken link)
The owner of the diner said that TU didn't pay him enough to afford to move the building, so it was simply demolished.

Bell's amusement park has closed, too. Tulsa County decided not to extend their lease. I think its location at Expo Square will be turned into a parking lot.
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=123435 - broken link)
The owners of the amusement park are hoping to relocate, though. Does anyone know anything about this?

[SashaBlue]

Originally Posted by MrsSteel

It's gone. I don't remember all the particulars, but TU bought up a lot of properties along 11th street in order to build a new entrance. Here are links to a couple articles about it.
Landmark Tulsa diner closing
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=115084 - broken link)
The owner of the diner said that TU didn't pay him enough to afford to move the building, so it was simply demolished.

Bell's amusement park has closed, too. Tulsa County decided not to extend their lease. I think its location at Expo Square will be turned into a parking lot.
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=123435 - broken link)
The owners of the amusement park are hoping to relocate, though. Does anyone know anything about this?

I loved Bell's! Is the water park still there? It was close to Bell's in the 80's.

[happytown]

Originally Posted by MrsSteel

It's gone. I don't remember all the particulars, but TU bought up a lot of properties along 11th street in order to build a new entrance. Here are links to a couple articles about it.
Landmark Tulsa diner closing
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=115084 - broken link)
The owner of the diner said that TU didn't pay him enough to afford to move the building, so it was simply demolished.

Bell's amusement park has closed, too. Tulsa County decided not to extend their lease. I think its location at Expo Square will be turned into a parking lot.
KOTV.com - The News On 6 (http://www.kotv.com/news/topstory/?id=123435 - broken link)
The owners of the amusement park are hoping to relocate, though. Does anyone know anything about this?

TU is becoming a major private U and it needs more room to expand its campus. Their plans for the land will be amazing. So it is a catch 22. I am shocked at the amusement park closing down though. I also never considered the emphasis of the aquarium being in Jenks instead of Tulsa. Oh well Tulsa will be just fine in the next 5 yrs. Oklahoma and OKC are on such a rise that T-Town will get a lot of benefits from the State.

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by happytown

TU is becoming a major private U and it needs more room to expand its campus. Their plans for the land will be amazing. So it is a catch 22. I am shocked at the amusement park closing down though. I also never considered the emphasis of the aquarium being in Jenks instead of Tulsa. Oh well Tulsa will be just fine in the next 5 yrs. Oklahoma and OKC are on such a rise that T-Town will get a lot of benefits from the State.

I think that Tulsa WILL definitely benefit from OkC's growth and leadership. If for no other reason that they sat on their a*sses for so many years and then saw big brother OkC turning into a class attraction that would leave Tulsa in their shadows for decades to come. All in all, OkC's leadership and vision are a great benefit to not only OkC, but Tulsa, and the entire state of Oklahoma.

[Manhattan-ite]

I couldn't agree more with the original poster. I just came back from the Tulsa area, where part of my family lives, and it hurts to see what I saw.

My parents-in-law live in Owasso, which is the hottest suburb in Metro Tulsa. It has grown so much! In between visits, a new hospital, mall or tract-house development goes up. It's just BOOMING.

But then I go to Tulsa, and I see ghosts. I see a dead downtown. Homeless people. Empty storefronts. Decay and sadness. Shootings and crime.

Even the "nice" part of town is not what one would want it to be: Utica Square is not looking too good, it looks rusty and old instead of upscale and beautiful.

There are visions. But why 2025 and not NOW? Why an arena in downtown that will attract day-trippers but not 24/7 action? Why didn't the Aquarium stop here? Will they care for the river? Why not tackle the poverty and neglect of North Tulsa? How about some serious public transportation?

Crime is up, poverty is up, population is down. I think that one of the solutions for Tulsa would be to attract new, fresh and CLEAN faces to the local government. Enough oil-money families and Tulsa aristocrats. They've been in and up for decades, and see the results.

Thanks for reading.