Michael Bates
for City Council
Tulsa District 4
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On the issues:
From the July 24, 1997 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly
Guest Opinion
Michael Bates
The day has finally arrived. After months of planning and hinting, the Tulsa Project is officially here. Finally, a project that will bring life back to downtown!
The only problem is that it won’t work.
The Tulsa Project, a collection of sports venues to be scattered around downtown, is estimated to cost $200 million. City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce, and the
Tulsa World have already been busy arousing our civic pride, working to stampede us into voting for yet another half-penny of sales tax to help finance the project.
On the front page of their June 22 edition, the World published a “study” giving the impression that every city between the Rockies and the Appalachians is building
new downtown sports facilities, and if Tulsa doesn’t catch up, we’ll be left in the dust. Even Shreveport, home of the prestigious Poulan Weed-Eater Independence
Bowl, and the main focus of the World’s story, will pass us by.
“Shreveport is looking aggressively to rebuild downtown,” we are told. No doubt the same story, with city names reversed, is running in the Shreveport paper,
pointing to the Tulsa Project and foretelling civic humiliation at the hands of Tulsa if voters do not support their local building schemes.
The headline announces that “Dozens of Cities Push Plans to Revitalize Their Downtown.” A closer look at the story and graphic reveals that pushing plans is all
that most of these cities are doing. Of the 25 cities surveyed, 11 are doing nothing more than talking. Some new facilities are being built, but nearly all of them are
in major-league cities. To make the map look more impressive, it even includes Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Olympics facilities, an event for which Tulsa will
never compete, unless driving on freezing drizzle replaces the luge as an Olympic event.
Let’s leave behind the dubious proposition that Shreveport threatens to “blow on by in the race for prosperity,” and look at the question that matters most to those
of us who want to see downtown resurrected: Will building three new sports arenas revitalize downtown?
We are told that these arenas will create a critical mass, bringing enough people downtown for special events to sustain new commercial development.
Experience says it won’t work. Right now, downtown Tulsa hosts regular events drawing tens of thousands of local residents, but commercial redevelopment
hasn’t followed.
Every Sunday morning, thousands of Tulsans attend one of downtown’s eight churches (among which are two of the ten largest Methodist congregations in the
country). Many of these people return on Sunday nights and through the week for church activities. Lots of these folks go out to lunch after church on Sundays.
(Try getting a table at Delta Café at noon.) Have any restaurants or shops opened up downtown to cater to these people?
All through the week, mornings, afternoons, and evenings, people come downtown for classes at TCC and Rogers University. Why aren’t there clusters of small
businesses springing up near the two campuses to serve these potential customers?
When Tulsans come downtown for an event, whether a church service, a night class, a hockey game, or the ballet, they come for the event itself and nothing more.
They don’t come ahead of time, and they don’t hang around afterwards.
Consider this scenario: You’ve got tickets for a game at the convention center. You could go early, get a good parking space, and grab a bite to eat before hand,
but the only restaurants within walking distance are expensive sit-down places. You don’t want to spend that much time or money, so you’ll either grab dinner
closer to home or the office, or you’ll get a hot dog and nachos at the concession stand.
After the game, you and your friends decide to have a few drinks or a late snack. You could go over to one of the few places still open downtown at this hour, but
if you do you’ll drive there – it’s too far to walk, and the route would take you past empty office buildings and empty parking lots, with no shelter from the elements. So you head for the car, but you quickly realize that once you’re in your car, you could be anywhere in town in 15 minutes. So you and your friends head
to your favorite watering hole back in your neighborhood, and you leave downtown without spending a dime outside the walls of the convention center.
The new arenas and the expanded convention space may bring more events and more out-of-town dollars to Tulsa, but it won’t bring downtown back to life.
Before we drop a couple hundred million on new arenas, let’s first see what has to be done to get the thousands of Tulsans who are already coming downtown to
stick around and spend some cash.
Midtown leaders endorse
Michael Bates
"... I have come to respect Mike as an individual of high integrity with an excellent knowledge of
the internal workings of City Hall. He is a modest man, ardently concerned for our neighborhoods and for the better welfare of Tulsa. Articulate and knowledgeable, yet at the same time effective in a soft spoken manner, I believe Mike to
be the kind of individual we need as a spokesperson for our neighborhoods and our city."
-- Ursula Mueller, Sunrise Terrace and Midtown Neighborhood Alliance leader
"I've worked with Mike on a number of city issues. He brings
intelligence, knowledge and enthusiasm to the work of solving problems. Mike
will be great for Tulsa and great for District 4. He has earned my support
and my vote."
-- Don Burdick, Government Affairs Chairman, Central Park Condominiums