Cover Story
Waking Up the Echoes (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
The past is prologue for downtown as we knew it
by Ginger Shepherd
By day, it’s a bustling workplace—the city’s central business district, a.k.a. downtown—with nearly 35,000 population, from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
After hours, most flee to the suburbs, but an increasing number hang on a few hours more—or come back later—for dinner, drinks and a concert or a show at any number of restaurants, clubs and entertainment venues from the Brady District to the Blue Dome to the Performing Arts Center.
Today as downtown has become a hot topic for discussion, those of us with a sense of history can’t help but wonder what it was like in the days before shopping malls and mega movie complexes when everything happened downtown. What did things look like when beautiful buildings occupied the space now paved over as a parking lot?
As downtown enters a new era of re-development, it is important to look back at the past for reference. What can we learn from the past? It is a question we ask ourselves as we wait and wonder about the plans of Mssrs. Kanbar and Kaufman, as we watch the BOK Center be constructed and listen to discussions about new or speculative revitalization projects.
For all its suburban sprawl, Tulsa, like all major cities, will continue to be defined by its downtown. It is where many work, where some come to play or worship, and where some live. It is where the city began. Where its heart lies.
“If it’s not there, there is no there,” said James Turner, a local architect and chairman of the Tulsa Preservation Commission.
Tulsa was incorporated in 1898. Before that, it was a regular meeting place for Native Americans.
As the city grew it became a hub for railroads in Oklahoma. Much like the highway access in today in downtown, Tulsa’s access to transportation had a place in downtown, according to the Tulsa Historical Society, www.tulsahistory.org.
The city’s growth was hastened, however, by the discovery of oil—a commodity that was just becoming extremely precious as fuel for the burgeoning automobile industry. Indeed, it was the oil business in and around Tulsa that built the city and endowed it with a nouveau riche panache that was responsible for the construction of a downtown core of art deco skyscrapers and a cosmopolitan attitude it carries to this day.
As the city grew, so did its unique charm. Throughout the early 20th Century the city blossomed, becoming the Oil Capital of the World.
By 1920, according to the Tulsa Historical Society, the city itself had a population of 72,000. It was time when buildings like the Mayo Hotel, the Philtower, and a filling station with a blue dome were constructed.
Both downtown and the city’s growth continued steadily through the ‘20s, though the Great Depression and Dust Bowl stalled the boom. Post war years brought another spurt of growth, from the late ‘40s through the late ‘60s when there were about 50,000 employees working in the central business area – downtown, said Rex Ball, a local architect and a member of the preservation commission.
Even in the late 1970s and early 1980s, downtown was still a hub of activity, said Chuck Patterson, the chief executive officer of Patterson Reality and a former president of the Tulsa Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Tulsa’s economic viability was still surging as the rest of the country suffered economic hardships and developments with oil in the Middle East.
A boom of skyscrapers elevated the city skyline to new heights in the late ‘60s through the late ‘70s, when some of it tallest building—the Williams Tower, First Place and the Mid-Continent Building were constructed.
The activity downtown, he explained, wasn’t spurred exclusively by corporate offices. Through the ‘60s and into the early ‘70s downtown was still a retail hub of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.
“The suburbs were sleepy bedroom communities at that time,” Patterson said.
Michael Sager once told Urban Tulsa Weekly how he remembered downtown being a vibrant urban hub that had hosted a diversity of merchants – hotels, shops, etc. It was a place full of energy.
A stroll through downtown, assisted by old road maps and photos, plus a lively imagination conjures up a vital, urban setting that once bustled with activity. Remnants of bygone days are still extant, such as the painted wall on the side of Escargot’s building at 724 S. Main, where one can see the faded image of Harrington’s department store’s sign.
Remembrance of Things Past
Downtown Tulsa has always had a history of being the area’s cultural center. In the early 1900s, the city of Tulsa invested in a convention hall on West Brady, according the historical society. The Tulsa Convention Hall, later to be known as the Brady Theater, hosted the city’s first opera and the first International Petroleum Exposition (1923).
When the Tulsa Convention Hall was built in 1914, it cost $125,000, according to the historical society.
The city carried the tradition for hosting conventions when it built a new convention center in 1964. Patterson said the new center gave Tulsa a level two-convention city rating and Tulsa got national attention. Tulsa’s Convention Center in downtown has hosted the Barnum and Bailey Circus, professional sports and political events.
The city is currently in the process to build a new arena downtown just north of the Federal Courthouse and Post Office. At this point, however, the facility—no matter how grand—won’t necessarily put Tulsa on the map, but keep it from falling off as the city strives to keep pace with other more progressive cities.
Paradoxically, Tulsa’s good fortunes in the oil industry have also been most responsible for its reluctance to change and diversify. The oil barons who built Tulsa left their legacy in the hands of a conservative core who have been more concerned about maintaining status quo than growing.
Thus, in spite of being a wealthy city with the potential to do great things, imagination went south (literally, to Texas) while comfort and satisfaction congealed the community into a false sense of security.
Bump! Bump! Bust! The sounds you just heard were the echoes of the mid-‘80s when the bottom fell out of the oil business. The oil bust and the subsequent banking/savings and loans crashes literally brought Tulsa to its knees.
Patterson said Tulsa as a whole lost several thousand jobs; he estimated 80,000 jobs were lost in Tulsa and the Tulsa area. The loss of jobs also resulted in a change in the Tulsa’s real estate market.
Besides lost jobs, since the oil business was the hardest hit the oil business owners—who, by this time became the “leaders” and decision-makers in Tulsa government and politics—were too busy licking their wounds to tend to a bleeding city.
Whatever the number of jobs lost as a result of the oil bust, Tulsa was affected. Rex Ball, a local architect and member of the preservation commission, said downtown’s population has drastically dropped from what the late 1960s.
Plans for several, new downtown skyscrapers were immediately scrapped. Indeed, some 30 stories were lopped off the plans for the Oneok building (the last highrise constructed in the downtown area), the foundation for which was dug and fortified for a structure more than twice its current size.
One of the most poignant purloined project of that era, ironic as well, was the impressively drawn Halcyon—a neo/deco styled, 40-plus story condo development that was on the verge of breaking ground at the corner of 15th St. and Denver Ave. just as the rumblings of the oil bust began. It has never been heard from since.
It is estimated that about 39,700 people are in downtown during the day, according to Downtown Tulsa Unlimited Web site, www.tulsadowntown.org.
It is not just the number of people that has changed in downtown. The type of work has dramatically changed. Following the oil bust, many of the large oil companies moved their headquarters to Houston. Some of the services that supported the oil industry followed oil companies.
Tulsa had to rebuild. Patterson said the city’s core turned to telecommunications and fiber optics. He explained that the bubble for telecommunications and fiber optics was burst after Sept. 11, 2001.
Economic development efforts were bringing in more jobs--such as State Farm’s regional facility; but they weren’t being located downtown. The facility is located east of Tulsa’s central business district.
And residential development in surrounding communities like Bixby, Jenks, Owasso and Broken Arrow were on the rise. Patterson said many retail uses followed that residential development.
Middle-Aged Crazy
A change in population isn’t the only thing that has changed in Downtown Tulsa. The central business district has undergone a physical transformation since it was first founded at the end of the 19th Century. Throughout that time, many buildings were demolished to make room for new construction, but many beautiful structures were lost—some cleared just to make way for parking lots.
While that is par for the course in any city; the approach has had left a negative mark on downtown. In 2005, Turner and Ball said Preservation Oklahoma placed downtown Tulsa on its Most Endangered Historic Properties list.
Downtown made the roster because the area was doing little to preserve some of its structures and properties built in the post-war era, according to the group’s Web site, www.preserveok.org. It did note that Tulsa has focused on saving its oldest buildings.
However, when it comes to preserving a city’s historic area, it isn’t about one building or a certain buildings. Ball said preservation should be done for an entire area – an area should be treated “as an adhesive” unit.
In Tulsa, the most egregious mistake of property owners is to have buildings to be parking – surface parking, Turner said.
Property owners were finding that could make more money from a surface parking lot than a building, in some cases, he explained. Both men pointed to Tulsa Community College in downtown as an offender of turning buildings to parking lots; although they also pointed out the college’s reuse of an old building that is now the student center.
TCC isn’t the only one that has created parking lots. Turner said a study and presentation was done in the last year of downtown. Part of that presentation included a look at Tulsa’s parking situation. For Turner, it was amazing to see the number of surface parking lots compared to the number of parking structures.
Just counting the number of surface parking spaces from the presentation map, there are 128 surface parking areas in downtown; there are 15 parking garages.
So what has Tulsa lost in order to gain parking downtown? Bishop’s Restaurant was established at 510 S. Main St. in 1931; it was removed in 1966 for parking lot. Today, instead of a parking lot, it is an Arvest Bank, according to the presentation.
The Annex Hotel was located at the northeast corner of 3rd St. and Cincinnati Ave.; a Central Parking Lot is there now. Waite Phillips 1930s Columbia Hotel at the northeast corner of 4th St. and Cincinnati Ave. was razed in 1987 to make way for a parking lot, according to the presentation.
In 1928, the Alvin Hotel was constructed at the northeast corner of 7th and Main Sts. It was 10 stories and featured balconies overlooking 7th St. It is now a parking lot, according to the presentation.
The Akdar Theater and Cimarron Ballroom at the northeast corner of 4th St. and Denver Ave. was demolished in 1973; it was surface parking for 25 years. The Elks Lodge was located at the southwest corner of 3rd St. and Boulder Ave.; it was dedicated in 1911. According to the presentation, it was razed in 1957 to be a parking lot, which is still its current use.
Tulsans might say, there is no place to park in downtown; but they may be mistaken. Near the Blue Dome District, there are four parking lots in a two-block area, according to the presentation. In that same two-blocks, there is only one retail building.
Why the push for more parking? Turner said some of resulting parking is the result of property owners believing they can get more money from a parking lot than they can from their building.
It has to be asked, would we be better served if there were a central parking facility that was served by some sort of downtown transit? One downtown property owner thinks so.
Ed Cox, part owner of the Blair Apartments, wrote a letter to downtown investors Maurice Kanbar and Henry Kaufman with a suggestion to help downtown’s vitality.
Cox suggests that a parking facility be built just north of the downtown area, and a monorail system be built from the parking facility to downtown, according to the January 2006 letter. More so, the monorail could loop around Tulsa servicing the downtown area. Cox points to Seattle as a good model to follow.
Recovery Phase
While Tulsa has done its best to damage downtown; there is a lot it has done to recapture the vitality of the past. For starters, Ball and Turner point to Vision 2025. Through the sales tax program, there is money for the downtown neighborhood and other downtown projects including the Centennial Walk and Park.
Vision 2025 money for downtown Tulsa is being used to help bring people to the central business district. There is the BOK Events Center that will have an 18,000-seat capacity. Other projects include the Jazz Hall of Fame that will be housed in the beautiful marble gem, Union Depot Building.
The sales tax program’s contribution to downtown’s goal is to provide things that will bring more people downtown. Some of those efforts, Ball said, money is used for residential uses.
The Mayo Hotel and the First Street Lofts are examples of the projects that have received money from Vision 2025 to renovate buildings for residential use.
Vision 2025 isn’t the only means for developers who want to revitalize the area. Turner said other sources include tax incentives from both the state and federal entities; there is a fire suppression grant; and there ways to get exemptions from existing building codes. The exemptions serve as an incentive to keep older buildings.
And though Tulsa is facing issues with loss of its old buildings, some things have been accomplished with respect for the past, old architecture and have been done well and for the right reasons.
The Blair Apartments are located on 7th St. near the Doubletree Hotel and City Hall. The building was completed in 1927, said Cox, one of the Blair’s owners, and former tenant Tim Cox, no relation. Cox owns the building with David and George Sharp.
When it was constructed, its intended use was as an apartment and some rooms as hotel. It is rumored that Jean Harlow stayed there when she was in Tulsa, the two men said.
Cox and his business associates purchased it about 14 years ago. The owner, who had owned the building for years and remembered its heyday, had approached them. Cox said the owner had one request of him and his partners, that they restore the building to what it had been. It had fallen into a certain amount of disrepair and had been vacant for a while except for a few tenants like Tim.
And that is what they did, creating 40 units: 26 one- bedrooms, 10 studios and four, two-bedrooms. During a tour, Cox recalled how they searched to find lamp coverings match original fixtures. Carpet installed was supposed to look like what had been in place when the building was new.
As tenants move out now, the owners take out the carpet and expose the wood floors, he said. Even more, walking down the hallways, one will notice the square cabinet doors. The Blair Apartments was one of the first apartments in Tulsa to offer refrigeration. The doors allowed the ice to be delivered; water from melting ice was piped to the basement.
“It’s a neat old place,” Cox said, boasting that it is Tulsa’s finest apartment building.
More than being unique, the building has only a few vacancies and provides a place for professionals to live and have only a walk as their commute to work. The residents vary from accountants to government employees to graphic artists.
Cox also points out that they did the rehabilitation on their own – with private money.
The Blair Apartment Building is just one example of some of things that Tulsan have accomplish with respect to the past as it tries to hold on to its history. Turner said some places, such as the Tulsa Club Building, were able to not only maintain the building but its unique art deco interior. The building, originally intended as a club, is now office space; however, its redesign took advantage of the art deco.
Other examples of what Tulsa has preserved, or restored, include the Ambassador Hotel at Main and 14th; McNellies Public House on First Street; and the Philtower apartments.
Even more, Turner and Ball point to the Presbyterian Church in downtown. The church purchased the vacant Masonic Lodge right across the street from its 8th St. and Boston Ave. location. The church uses the space for classes, gatherings, etc., but it also rents out street level offices to various organizations, generally non-profits, and one eatery.
Waking Up the Echoes (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
The past is prologue for downtown as we knew it
by Ginger Shepherd
By day, it’s a bustling workplace—the city’s central business district, a.k.a. downtown—with nearly 35,000 population, from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
After hours, most flee to the suburbs, but an increasing number hang on a few hours more—or come back later—for dinner, drinks and a concert or a show at any number of restaurants, clubs and entertainment venues from the Brady District to the Blue Dome to the Performing Arts Center.
Today as downtown has become a hot topic for discussion, those of us with a sense of history can’t help but wonder what it was like in the days before shopping malls and mega movie complexes when everything happened downtown. What did things look like when beautiful buildings occupied the space now paved over as a parking lot?
As downtown enters a new era of re-development, it is important to look back at the past for reference. What can we learn from the past? It is a question we ask ourselves as we wait and wonder about the plans of Mssrs. Kanbar and Kaufman, as we watch the BOK Center be constructed and listen to discussions about new or speculative revitalization projects.
For all its suburban sprawl, Tulsa, like all major cities, will continue to be defined by its downtown. It is where many work, where some come to play or worship, and where some live. It is where the city began. Where its heart lies.
“If it’s not there, there is no there,” said James Turner, a local architect and chairman of the Tulsa Preservation Commission.
Tulsa was incorporated in 1898. Before that, it was a regular meeting place for Native Americans.
As the city grew it became a hub for railroads in Oklahoma. Much like the highway access in today in downtown, Tulsa’s access to transportation had a place in downtown, according to the Tulsa Historical Society, www.tulsahistory.org.
The city’s growth was hastened, however, by the discovery of oil—a commodity that was just becoming extremely precious as fuel for the burgeoning automobile industry. Indeed, it was the oil business in and around Tulsa that built the city and endowed it with a nouveau riche panache that was responsible for the construction of a downtown core of art deco skyscrapers and a cosmopolitan attitude it carries to this day.
As the city grew, so did its unique charm. Throughout the early 20th Century the city blossomed, becoming the Oil Capital of the World.
By 1920, according to the Tulsa Historical Society, the city itself had a population of 72,000. It was time when buildings like the Mayo Hotel, the Philtower, and a filling station with a blue dome were constructed.
Both downtown and the city’s growth continued steadily through the ‘20s, though the Great Depression and Dust Bowl stalled the boom. Post war years brought another spurt of growth, from the late ‘40s through the late ‘60s when there were about 50,000 employees working in the central business area – downtown, said Rex Ball, a local architect and a member of the preservation commission.
Even in the late 1970s and early 1980s, downtown was still a hub of activity, said Chuck Patterson, the chief executive officer of Patterson Reality and a former president of the Tulsa Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Tulsa’s economic viability was still surging as the rest of the country suffered economic hardships and developments with oil in the Middle East.
A boom of skyscrapers elevated the city skyline to new heights in the late ‘60s through the late ‘70s, when some of it tallest building—the Williams Tower, First Place and the Mid-Continent Building were constructed.
The activity downtown, he explained, wasn’t spurred exclusively by corporate offices. Through the ‘60s and into the early ‘70s downtown was still a retail hub of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.
“The suburbs were sleepy bedroom communities at that time,” Patterson said.
Michael Sager once told Urban Tulsa Weekly how he remembered downtown being a vibrant urban hub that had hosted a diversity of merchants – hotels, shops, etc. It was a place full of energy.
A stroll through downtown, assisted by old road maps and photos, plus a lively imagination conjures up a vital, urban setting that once bustled with activity. Remnants of bygone days are still extant, such as the painted wall on the side of Escargot’s building at 724 S. Main, where one can see the faded image of Harrington’s department store’s sign.
Remembrance of Things Past
Downtown Tulsa has always had a history of being the area’s cultural center. In the early 1900s, the city of Tulsa invested in a convention hall on West Brady, according the historical society. The Tulsa Convention Hall, later to be known as the Brady Theater, hosted the city’s first opera and the first International Petroleum Exposition (1923).
When the Tulsa Convention Hall was built in 1914, it cost $125,000, according to the historical society.
The city carried the tradition for hosting conventions when it built a new convention center in 1964. Patterson said the new center gave Tulsa a level two-convention city rating and Tulsa got national attention. Tulsa’s Convention Center in downtown has hosted the Barnum and Bailey Circus, professional sports and political events.
The city is currently in the process to build a new arena downtown just north of the Federal Courthouse and Post Office. At this point, however, the facility—no matter how grand—won’t necessarily put Tulsa on the map, but keep it from falling off as the city strives to keep pace with other more progressive cities.
Paradoxically, Tulsa’s good fortunes in the oil industry have also been most responsible for its reluctance to change and diversify. The oil barons who built Tulsa left their legacy in the hands of a conservative core who have been more concerned about maintaining status quo than growing.
Thus, in spite of being a wealthy city with the potential to do great things, imagination went south (literally, to Texas) while comfort and satisfaction congealed the community into a false sense of security.
Bump! Bump! Bust! The sounds you just heard were the echoes of the mid-‘80s when the bottom fell out of the oil business. The oil bust and the subsequent banking/savings and loans crashes literally brought Tulsa to its knees.
Patterson said Tulsa as a whole lost several thousand jobs; he estimated 80,000 jobs were lost in Tulsa and the Tulsa area. The loss of jobs also resulted in a change in the Tulsa’s real estate market.
Besides lost jobs, since the oil business was the hardest hit the oil business owners—who, by this time became the “leaders” and decision-makers in Tulsa government and politics—were too busy licking their wounds to tend to a bleeding city.
Whatever the number of jobs lost as a result of the oil bust, Tulsa was affected. Rex Ball, a local architect and member of the preservation commission, said downtown’s population has drastically dropped from what the late 1960s.
Plans for several, new downtown skyscrapers were immediately scrapped. Indeed, some 30 stories were lopped off the plans for the Oneok building (the last highrise constructed in the downtown area), the foundation for which was dug and fortified for a structure more than twice its current size.
One of the most poignant purloined project of that era, ironic as well, was the impressively drawn Halcyon—a neo/deco styled, 40-plus story condo development that was on the verge of breaking ground at the corner of 15th St. and Denver Ave. just as the rumblings of the oil bust began. It has never been heard from since.
It is estimated that about 39,700 people are in downtown during the day, according to Downtown Tulsa Unlimited Web site, www.tulsadowntown.org.
It is not just the number of people that has changed in downtown. The type of work has dramatically changed. Following the oil bust, many of the large oil companies moved their headquarters to Houston. Some of the services that supported the oil industry followed oil companies.
Tulsa had to rebuild. Patterson said the city’s core turned to telecommunications and fiber optics. He explained that the bubble for telecommunications and fiber optics was burst after Sept. 11, 2001.
Economic development efforts were bringing in more jobs--such as State Farm’s regional facility; but they weren’t being located downtown. The facility is located east of Tulsa’s central business district.
And residential development in surrounding communities like Bixby, Jenks, Owasso and Broken Arrow were on the rise. Patterson said many retail uses followed that residential development.
Middle-Aged Crazy
A change in population isn’t the only thing that has changed in Downtown Tulsa. The central business district has undergone a physical transformation since it was first founded at the end of the 19th Century. Throughout that time, many buildings were demolished to make room for new construction, but many beautiful structures were lost—some cleared just to make way for parking lots.
While that is par for the course in any city; the approach has had left a negative mark on downtown. In 2005, Turner and Ball said Preservation Oklahoma placed downtown Tulsa on its Most Endangered Historic Properties list.
Downtown made the roster because the area was doing little to preserve some of its structures and properties built in the post-war era, according to the group’s Web site, www.preserveok.org. It did note that Tulsa has focused on saving its oldest buildings.
However, when it comes to preserving a city’s historic area, it isn’t about one building or a certain buildings. Ball said preservation should be done for an entire area – an area should be treated “as an adhesive” unit.
In Tulsa, the most egregious mistake of property owners is to have buildings to be parking – surface parking, Turner said.
Property owners were finding that could make more money from a surface parking lot than a building, in some cases, he explained. Both men pointed to Tulsa Community College in downtown as an offender of turning buildings to parking lots; although they also pointed out the college’s reuse of an old building that is now the student center.
TCC isn’t the only one that has created parking lots. Turner said a study and presentation was done in the last year of downtown. Part of that presentation included a look at Tulsa’s parking situation. For Turner, it was amazing to see the number of surface parking lots compared to the number of parking structures.
Just counting the number of surface parking spaces from the presentation map, there are 128 surface parking areas in downtown; there are 15 parking garages.
So what has Tulsa lost in order to gain parking downtown? Bishop’s Restaurant was established at 510 S. Main St. in 1931; it was removed in 1966 for parking lot. Today, instead of a parking lot, it is an Arvest Bank, according to the presentation.
The Annex Hotel was located at the northeast corner of 3rd St. and Cincinnati Ave.; a Central Parking Lot is there now. Waite Phillips 1930s Columbia Hotel at the northeast corner of 4th St. and Cincinnati Ave. was razed in 1987 to make way for a parking lot, according to the presentation.
In 1928, the Alvin Hotel was constructed at the northeast corner of 7th and Main Sts. It was 10 stories and featured balconies overlooking 7th St. It is now a parking lot, according to the presentation.
The Akdar Theater and Cimarron Ballroom at the northeast corner of 4th St. and Denver Ave. was demolished in 1973; it was surface parking for 25 years. The Elks Lodge was located at the southwest corner of 3rd St. and Boulder Ave.; it was dedicated in 1911. According to the presentation, it was razed in 1957 to be a parking lot, which is still its current use.
Tulsans might say, there is no place to park in downtown; but they may be mistaken. Near the Blue Dome District, there are four parking lots in a two-block area, according to the presentation. In that same two-blocks, there is only one retail building.
Why the push for more parking? Turner said some of resulting parking is the result of property owners believing they can get more money from a parking lot than they can from their building.
It has to be asked, would we be better served if there were a central parking facility that was served by some sort of downtown transit? One downtown property owner thinks so.
Ed Cox, part owner of the Blair Apartments, wrote a letter to downtown investors Maurice Kanbar and Henry Kaufman with a suggestion to help downtown’s vitality.
Cox suggests that a parking facility be built just north of the downtown area, and a monorail system be built from the parking facility to downtown, according to the January 2006 letter. More so, the monorail could loop around Tulsa servicing the downtown area. Cox points to Seattle as a good model to follow.
Recovery Phase
While Tulsa has done its best to damage downtown; there is a lot it has done to recapture the vitality of the past. For starters, Ball and Turner point to Vision 2025. Through the sales tax program, there is money for the downtown neighborhood and other downtown projects including the Centennial Walk and Park.
Vision 2025 money for downtown Tulsa is being used to help bring people to the central business district. There is the BOK Events Center that will have an 18,000-seat capacity. Other projects include the Jazz Hall of Fame that will be housed in the beautiful marble gem, Union Depot Building.
The sales tax program’s contribution to downtown’s goal is to provide things that will bring more people downtown. Some of those efforts, Ball said, money is used for residential uses.
The Mayo Hotel and the First Street Lofts are examples of the projects that have received money from Vision 2025 to renovate buildings for residential use.
Vision 2025 isn’t the only means for developers who want to revitalize the area. Turner said other sources include tax incentives from both the state and federal entities; there is a fire suppression grant; and there ways to get exemptions from existing building codes. The exemptions serve as an incentive to keep older buildings.
And though Tulsa is facing issues with loss of its old buildings, some things have been accomplished with respect for the past, old architecture and have been done well and for the right reasons.
The Blair Apartments are located on 7th St. near the Doubletree Hotel and City Hall. The building was completed in 1927, said Cox, one of the Blair’s owners, and former tenant Tim Cox, no relation. Cox owns the building with David and George Sharp.
When it was constructed, its intended use was as an apartment and some rooms as hotel. It is rumored that Jean Harlow stayed there when she was in Tulsa, the two men said.
Cox and his business associates purchased it about 14 years ago. The owner, who had owned the building for years and remembered its heyday, had approached them. Cox said the owner had one request of him and his partners, that they restore the building to what it had been. It had fallen into a certain amount of disrepair and had been vacant for a while except for a few tenants like Tim.
And that is what they did, creating 40 units: 26 one- bedrooms, 10 studios and four, two-bedrooms. During a tour, Cox recalled how they searched to find lamp coverings match original fixtures. Carpet installed was supposed to look like what had been in place when the building was new.
As tenants move out now, the owners take out the carpet and expose the wood floors, he said. Even more, walking down the hallways, one will notice the square cabinet doors. The Blair Apartments was one of the first apartments in Tulsa to offer refrigeration. The doors allowed the ice to be delivered; water from melting ice was piped to the basement.
“It’s a neat old place,” Cox said, boasting that it is Tulsa’s finest apartment building.
More than being unique, the building has only a few vacancies and provides a place for professionals to live and have only a walk as their commute to work. The residents vary from accountants to government employees to graphic artists.
Cox also points out that they did the rehabilitation on their own – with private money.
The Blair Apartment Building is just one example of some of things that Tulsan have accomplish with respect to the past as it tries to hold on to its history. Turner said some places, such as the Tulsa Club Building, were able to not only maintain the building but its unique art deco interior. The building, originally intended as a club, is now office space; however, its redesign took advantage of the art deco.
Other examples of what Tulsa has preserved, or restored, include the Ambassador Hotel at Main and 14th; McNellies Public House on First Street; and the Philtower apartments.
Even more, Turner and Ball point to the Presbyterian Church in downtown. The church purchased the vacant Masonic Lodge right across the street from its 8th St. and Boston Ave. location. The church uses the space for classes, gatherings, etc., but it also rents out street level offices to various organizations, generally non-profits, and one eatery.