Project 180

Downtown Traffic Update

Below is a summary of traffic conditions for the week of August 2-6 and beyond.

Robinson from Sheridan to Reno to close southbound until Spring 2011*
Southbound Robinson Avenue between Sheridan and Reno will close so crews can continue renovation work for the Myriad Botanical Gardens. In response to this closure, a counterflow lane has been constructed along Robinson between Main and Park to allow 2-way traffic and reduce congestion. Here is a Map that illustrates the new traffic patterns.

Hudson from Sheridan to Reno reduced to two lanes until Spring 2011*
Southbound Hudson between Sheridan Avenue and Reno Avenue will be reduced to two lanes so crews can continue renovation work for the Myriad Botanical Gardens.

Hudson from Park to Main to be reduced to one lane
Southbound Hudson Avenue between Park Avenue and Main Street will be reduced to one lane so crews can install a new utility line. The work, which is part of a larger utility line installation project on Hudson Avenue between Park Avenue and Sheridan Avenue, will be done in several phases throughout August.

Sheridan Avenue between Hudson and Robinson until Spring 2011
Sheridan Avenue between Robinson Avenue and Hudson Avenue remains closed for utility work.

Film District improvements

The following traffic disruptions are part of ongoing street improvements in the Film District.
-Lee Ave. is temporarily closed from Main to California.
-Shartel Ave. is temporarily closed from Main to Sheridan.
-Sheridan is reduced to one lane in each direction from Walker to Classen.

All project timelines are contingent upon the weather.
*Denotes Project180-related construction

Streetscape Update: Reno









Reno, from EK Gaylord to Robinson (between the Ford Center and Cox Convention Center) will close the second week of August as construction for the Reno streetscape begins. This project will be done in several phases and will move west along Reno towards Dewey.

Here is a Map that illustrates the location of the Reno streetscape.
We are creating a new traffic flow pattern and will provide a map that illustrates these changes prior to this street closure.

For more information contact Andrea French at 297-2130.



Myriad Gardens Update















If you've driven downtown lately you probably noticed activity going on behind the construction walls at the Myriad Gardens. Crews are busy regrating the Garden's berms and relocating the park's stately trees. Many of the trees are staying in the Gardens, while others have been relocated to the arboretum at Will Rogers Park.

The replacement of the over 3,000 acrylic panels that make up the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory is also underway. The Garden's horticulture staff is working hard to keep the tropical plants in the Conservatory healthy throughout construction. For more information, or to view photos of the Crystal Bridge, visit Project180's Facebook page.

Getting Around Festival of the Arts

Arts Council of Oklahoma City

For Immediate Release
April 15, 2010
Contact: Emily Reagan, Communications Director, 405-270-4848

Getting Around Festival of the Arts
Community Celebration of the Visual, Performing and Culinary Arts
April 20-25, 2010, Downtown Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY – If you’re planning to attend Festival of the Arts but are wondering about parking and maneuvering your way around downtown, don’t worry.

Amidst construction, no streets will be immediately affected near the festival grounds and two-way traffic will remain open on Sheridan Avenue between Walker and Robinson avenues. As always, Hudson Avenue will remain closed during the event to house the festival’s celebrated Artist Row.

Construction will affect city traffic. Please be advised that Shartel and Robinson avenues are main thoroughfares for north- south traffic and Sheridan Avenue has construction zones east of Robinson Avenue.

Pedestrian traffic will be affected on the east side of Hudson Avenue and north side of Sheridan Avenue surrounding the Devon Tower construction site. Sidewalks will remain open for pedestrians on the south side of Sheridan Avenue and west side of Hudson Avenue.

There is plenty of parking in areas within walking distance of Festival of the Arts. Parking lots and garages throughout downtown and Bricktown will be open. The only change this year is the City Center parking garage is no longer available to festival-goers. Visit Central Oklahoma Transportation & Parking Authority’s website at www.parkingokc.com for exact locations of parking garages and on-street parking. Expect to pay about $5 in the COTPA lots, which feature accessible parking for those with disabilities. There are also several private parking lots located south of Reno Avenue.

In addition, the Oklahoma Spirit Trolley runs regular routes serving the Festival of the Arts grounds. Fares are as low as $1, while children 6 and under ride free. Visit Metro Transit’s website www.gometro.org/trolley for schedules and fares.

As part of the Go Green Initiative, Festival of the Arts Director Angela Cozby is encouraging festival-goers and volunteers to share rides using www.GetAroundOK.com – a new online carpool matching program

“GetAroundOk.com makes it easy to find a ride-sharing friend. The festival is supported by 5,000 volunteers. If only a fraction of that number shared transportation it would greatly reduce carbon emissions in our local environment. Ride sharing is also an economically smart choice since you are sharing the cost of gas and parking,” said Cozby.

Festival of the Arts is produced by the Arts Council of Oklahoma City and sponsored by Chesapeake Energy Corporation and Devon Energy Corporation. The Festival takes place Tuesday, April 20 to Sunday, April 25 in downtown Oklahoma City at the Festival Plaza, Stage Center and the Myriad Botanical Gardens. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free; pets are not allowed. For more information, visit www.ArtsCouncilOKC.com or call 405-270-4848.

The Arts Council of Oklahoma City is a non-profit 501 c(3) organization dedicated to bringing the arts and the community together through free or low-cost cultural events and a variety of arts outreach activities that impact underserved populations. Each year, Arts Council events, programs and services reach nearly one million residents and visitors to the Oklahoma City community. The Arts Council of Oklahoma City receives funding from the Oklahoma Arts Council and is an Allied Arts member agency. The Arts Council of Oklahoma City is sponsored by Chesapeake Energy Corporation and Devon Energy Corporation, MidFirst Bank, The Oklahoman, Ozarka Coffee and Water Service, and Sonic – America’s Drive-in. For more information, call 405-270-4848 or visit www.ArtsCouncilOKC.com.

March 17, 2010 OKC Urban Renewal Authority Meeting

The Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority met Wednesday at their regular meeting.

There were a few Core to Shore property owners present.

The Authority had several "administrative" issues to discuss and approve. All of the Resolutions were approved.

1. Authorized Implementation Activities, Core to Shore Urban Renewal Plan.
2. Authorized Provision and Use of Executive, Legal, Staff and Consultant Services by the City and the Authority in support of the C2S URP.
3. Authorized the Solicitation & Negotiation of Agreements for Environmental Engineering & Consulting Services in the Core to Shore Area.
4. Authorized the Solicitation & Negotioation of an Agreement for Independent Appraisal Services for Core to Shore. The City currently has an Appraisal firm they use, but they will solicit bids from other firms for this project.

The Authority took questions from property owners, but many could not be directly addressed as the information would have to come other groups. The yet to be selected Core to Shore Advisory Committee is expected to be chosen by the end of March & will make many decisions including the priority of land acquisitions and the order of which projects will be started first.

The next Urban Renewal Authority meeting is scheduled for the 3rd Wednesday in April.

Q&A with Marsh Pitman

Published: March 17, 2010

Developer says land report
was worth it for Bricktown

Q: You’re one of Bricktown’s leading developers, having built the Power Alley Parking Garage and the Hampton Inn. What is your reaction to the Urban Land Institute report on proposed Core to Shore development?

A: The ULI did an amazing amount of work in the week they were here. I’m glad OKC had the foresight to have them come and to help with the cost. It was well worth it I thought.
They recommended that we choose the new convention center site quickly and that it should go on the lumberyard property south of Bricktown. I’m in total agreement with both recommendations. That site is much closer to existing hotels, bars, restaurants, movie theaters and other entertainment venues. It makes total sense to me.

Q: Are you comfortable with discussion to date on where a convention center should be located?

A: No, I am not. There has been no word from City Hall since the ULI report, neither
negative nor positive. I think the issue is more important than that. For those of us to
whom this issue is of major importance, the silence is deafening.From the marketing campaign for MAPS 3 it appears the city has decided the park location south of the Ford Center is the best site. I noticed it was located at that site in the model the city had set up for the ULI presentation. It needs to be explained in a public discourse why the city prefers this site. It is further from all the amenities already downtown.

Q: The Hampton Inn is reportedly one of the region’s best-performing franchises. Why haven’t there been any more hotel projects announced in Bricktown?

A: Two reasons really. To be fair, a couple of hotels would have been built, Candlewood
and Holiday Inn Express, if financing weren’t so hard to obtain. It’s a very tight credit
market out there. I know of one hotel shovel-ready, but the developers are waiting for the convention center site to be chosen. If it is on the (Core to Shore) park, the hotel won’t be built. They think it is just too far from them.

BY STEVE LACKMEYER, BUSINESS WRITER
The Oklahoman

Panel Urges C2S Changes

BY STEVE LACKMEYER
Published: March 6, 2010

An Urban Land Institute panel reviewing Oklahoma City’s Core to Shore plan warned Friday the project will take 50 years, and not 15 years as anticipated, and advised a proposed boulevard will not be a successful retail corridor.

The panel also concluded Core to Shore office development is unlikely any time soon and a new convention center should be built south of Bricktown, and not across from a planned central park.

Highlights included the following:

• Panelists urged the city to reconsider the site proposed for a convention center in the Core to Shore plan — a location south of the Ford Center and east of the future central park. The panel said the convention center should instead be built on the lumberyard south of Bricktown.

• A convention center should be located and built first among the MAPS 3 projects.

• Core to Shore office and major retail development is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

• A boulevard planned to replace the current alignment of the Interstate 40 Crosstown Expressway should be narrowed and made more friendly to pedestrians.

• The 15-year span for substantial development of Core to Shore is too optimistic and ill likely take 50 years.

• Core to Shore has a potential for 2,000 residences over the next 20 years and much of it should be located along the west side of the panned central park.

• The east side of the planned central park should be reserved for future development.

• Make the Oklahoma River a top destination with a marina and restaurants, housing and opportunities for nonprofit groups.

• Any Core to Shore development should include active marketing and branding.

About the process

The panel visited with more than 100 civic leaders, developers and business leaders in reviewing and critiquing the Core to Shore plan. "We’re really impressed by how the public and private sector have come together to create a bold vision for the future,” said Bill Hudnut, the former Indianapolis mayor who chaired the panel. "You’ve got to think long term. What we’re recommending won’t happen in the next few months down the road.”

An overflow crowd attended the presentation. Attendees included city council members, City Manager Jim Couch, Planning Director Russell Claus, city staff and more than a dozen members of the Core to Shore task force.

Mayor Mick Cornett’s office said he planned to watch a DVD of the televised report.

Couch said he was impressed by the diversity and size of the crowd that attended the presentation.

"I think overall it was a positive experience,” Couch said. "You had all these experts coming in and looking at the city, making comments, trying to form a future.”

Anita Morrison, a Washington, D.C.-based economic development consultant, advised that with downtown office vacancy at 24 percent and Devon Energy Corp. building a new 50-story headquarters, the city should not count on seeing office development in Core to Shore. She estimated vacant downtown office space will top 2.1 million square feet when the Devon building is completed.

"It’s unlikely you will see speculative office development any time soon,” Morrison said.
"You also need to convert some of the older office buildings to residential.”

Morrison added that while demand remains high for work force housing and apartments, downtown already has too much high-end housing. The Core to Shore plan includes high-rise housing — a concept dismissed by Morrison.

"For the foreseeable future, the local market’s price and rent constraints will make it impossible to support any construction of high-rise housing,” Morrison said. "You won’t see construction of towers because the prices will be too expensive for what residents are willing to pay.”

Morrison also found fault with plans for major retail and department stores to be developed in Core to Shore. "We just do not think that’s going to happen,” Morrison said. "Department stores require just a lot higher density. It requires higher incomes than we have here. And furthermore there are very few department stores being built any where.”

To lure a department store, Morrison advised taxpayers would need to provide a $40million or more incentive package.

"That’s probably not the best vision to be placing your eggs in one basket, ”Morrison said. Good retailing streets have slow speeds, and that’s not likely the case with the boulevard.”

Tom Hester, a Tempe, Ariz.-based urban planner, was among several of the panel members urging a redesign of the planned boulevard — a project that is neither funded nor on the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s eight-year plan. City officials are counting on a promise by the state to replace the current highway with the boulevard once the new highway opens in 2012.

Panelists urged the city to find ways to make the boulevard more pedestrian friendly with a monument that will mark arrival to the central park.

"The boulevard is going to be a very special street for you,” Hester said. "It’s going to be a right-of-way you don’t currently have. It’s going to be very memorable. ”
City staff reacts

Claus said the panel’s recommendations will be considered seriously. He noted city staff shares concerns about prospects for retail and offices.
"They had a lot of good insight,” Claus said. "They did an excellent job considering the short time they had to get this done.”

Couch said he expects that property owners who previously only were concerned with their own part of downtown left with a greater appreciation of the bigger issues involved in developing the urban core.

Couch said the panel was "dead on” in dismissing the prospect of a large department store in Core to Shore. He also said the city will struggle to ring the Robinson Avenue side of the park with apartments with the use of eminent domain to acquire the property.

The convention center issue, Couch said, is one city leaders will look at closely and more studies will be needed before the final site is chosen. "I think there is some middle ground to be had there, but maybe not,” Couch said. "It’s a valid comment. (The panel’s concerns) will be in the equation on where we put it.”

Bringing Fresh Eyes to the Core to Shore Project

For the third time in city history, the Urban Land Institute is sending a squad of experts to review a potentially game-changing plan for the urban core.

The institute sent another group of experts to help devise a plan to rebuild north downtown following the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Ron Frantz, an architect who worked with the second group, remembers its mission very well.

"It involved some pretty big names,” Frantz said. "I thought, ‘Wow this is a big collection of people.’ When they got here, they quickly realized what the atmosphere was and they adjusted their approach to things. They could read the crowd very well, and they really listened. They didn’t just come with their own ideas — they saw the mood of the group and only after listening did they make recommendations.”

Kirk Humphreys, who leads the local district council and co-organized this week’s return, is hoping discussions about Core to Shore will be conducted in the same spirit observed by Frantz.

As with MAPS and the bombing recovery, Core to Shore envisions a complete makeover of a section of the urban core — one that spans from the Oklahoma River to the current alignment of Interstate 40.

Humphreys said everyone agreed a return could be helpful. But while the panel members donate their time, the cost of lodging, staff support and other needs is daunting at a time when the city budget is stressed by the recession.

The city agreed to pay half the $120,000 needed if the local Urban Land Institute chapter could raise the remaining funds. Some of the city’s leading corporations helped fill the gap.

"That says a lot about Oklahoma City and about our business community,” Humphreys said. "I also take my hat off to the city manager and the mayor, and the city’s planning department.”

Months of work have gone into preparations, Humphreys said, with civic leaders Dave Lopez and Ira Schlezinger coordinating a group of 25 individuals in drawing up a scope of work.


Essential questions
Six major questions will be posed to the national panel, which will arrive in town today.

• What are the most effective means of bringing about high-quality development consistent with the public objectives of the Core to Shore plan to support and not compete with the momentum started in other parts of downtown?


• What should the land uses be along the east and west sides of the park?


• In what sequence should major components of the Core to Shore plan be implemented?


• What is the best way to make mixed-use development work, especially along the boulevard?


• How can Oklahoma City interface with the river to best activate it and make the most of that natural asset?


• Where should Promenade Park be located?

The panel will visit with up to 100 people selected to represent the different views of Core to Shore and how it can best be implemented, Humphreys said.

"Downtown is a pretty complex organism with a lot of different pieces,” he said. "And everybody is going to have a different point of view.

"Bricktown is going to have a different perspective from the central business district, which have a different perspective from Automobile Alley. You have people who have made a big investment and they want to find out how they can enhance their city without jeopardizing the investments they’ve made,” he said.


Full package
Planning Director Russell Claus notes the panel won’t be starting from scratch — that members already have been provided an extensive workbook filled with information about existing downtown development, plans for Core to Shore, a planned central park, Project 180 and the recent passage of MAPS 3.
"We’re wanting an affirmation or otherwise of what the Core to Shore plan has specified for development of the area,” Claus said.

"We’re not married to everything. We think the plan makes sense. They may see some avenues on how to improve on it, or suggestions on how to best implement it,” he said.

Frantz, meanwhile, looks back at the 1995 visit as a critical step toward reversing the fortunes of what is now known as Automobile Alley.

Even before the bombing, he said, the stretch of north Broadway was littered with boarded-up buildings and crumbling sidewalks.

"You had buildings that were painted either white or gray,” Frantz said.

"It was an area you drove through as fast as possible. There was no street life. ... It was pretty grim.”


Revitalizing action
Frantz said the visit brought together property owners, architects and planners who hadn’t known each other previously and sparked an ongoing coordinated effort that helped create the revitalized district that today boasts lofts, shops, restaurants and offices.
The outsiders, Frantz said, also sparked discussions that might otherwise have not occurred.

"Sometimes it’s the things we can’t see for ourselves, or we can’t say because it would be politically disastrous for us. We can’t always say ‘this place is really ugly,’ ” he said.

"They come with a fresh perspective. They’ve done things in other places. We may feel it’s hopeless, but they come in and say, ‘you’re light years ahead of what’s been done in Pittsburgh ... .’ They can give us the confidence we lack.”

Frantz advises local participants to come prepared — and to have fun.

"Really know the facts about the area,” Frantz said. "Know the facts about buildings that are historic. Know the facts about buildings that are deteriorated beyond repair.

"Come for a fair decision, and listen to ideas,” he said.

"Don’t go to the mat every time; be open to fair discussion. Be willing to realize it’s not as awful as you think it is — that your dream can really happen.”



Read more: http://www.newsok.com/article/3442802?searched=core%20to%20shore&custom_click=search#ixzz0gx00qsy6

Core questions help shore up city plans

BY STEVE LACKMEYER The Oklahoman Published: February 23, 2010

A panel of development experts from the Urban Land Institute will arrive in Oklahoma City later this week to study plans for the Core to Shore project and make recommendations on how best to proceed.

Part of me wishes I could be in the room as these experts meet with various downtown players and city planners.

Questions will be asked, for sure, but one must always wonder whether questions will be structured in such a way as to support existing bias and ideas, or whether to truly seek out independent advice.

With the passage of MAPS 3 in December and the city’s launch of Project 180, the upcoming downtown makeover will almost certainly rival what has transpired since the original MAPS was passed in 1993.


A few questions
Nobody has asked me to ask any questions, so I’ll freely provide a list to those participating in the panels. Take them — for free — and just slip me the answers later on.

• Mayor Mick Cornett and the city council have embarked on Core to Shore, which by most accounts is to be built around a new boulevard set to replace the existing Interstate 40 and a central park to be built just south of the boulevard. But funding isn’t budgeted for the boulevard — should the city build the park before, during or after the boulevard is built?


• Do large urban central parks serve as magnets for economic development?


• If parks do spark economic development, should the city contemplate building a convention center immediately east of the park, or should such space be reserved for housing, retail or other private development?


• How will development of Core to Shore impact future stability and growth of Bricktown, Automobile Alley and MidTown?


• Some argue the Producer’s Co-op south of Bricktown is a better spot for the convention center because it is closer to existing restaurants, shops, clubs and entertainment venues. Which will be more likely to develop on its own — the Co-op site, or the south east of the future park, an area consisting of old brick warehouses and empty lots?


• If the convention center is built across from the park, how will that impact available parking for residents wishing to enjoy the park?


• Which site benefits existing Oklahoma River development more — the site across from the park or the Producers Co-op site?