Okay, sleepy-heads... wake up. Yeah, I know it's probably wishful thinking combined with a cheap ploy to "vote yes" by the folks pushing the River Tax which comes up for a vote next Tuesday, but this is some really odd news... Developers to Unveil Tulsa Landing Concept Tulsa Business Staff 10/3/2007 Sorry guys, but AAA baseball doesn't require its new stadiums to have a "seating capacity between 20,000 and 22,000".......... now wait, isn't there a sports league that likes having these kinds of stadiums???? Hmmmmmm....
And the plot thickens.... Missouri developer offers river proposal By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer 10/4/2007 http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071004_1_A1_spanc48853 from 10/3 Tulsa Business article: "The baseball stadium will be large enough to house a AAA franchise, which requires seating capacity between 20,000 and 22,000, Huffman said. from 10/5 Tulsa World article: "It is not intended to be the home of a minor league baseball team, Huffman said." REALLY, Mr. Huffman??? Lucy, you got some splainin to do!?!
That sounds about par for the course when it comes to local government and development proposals. They'll say one thing one week and then come out with some comments completely different the next. Of course, these are the comments of the developers so who knows. It does sound promising. Even if the new stadium isn't directly tied to a bid for MLS, it definitely sets the stage for a later opportunity.
http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/1007/460761.html there's a picture in the link that looks like the 20k stadium... ooh, pretty pictures... looks like a ballpark, but the Tulsa World says it's not for a minor league ballclub and the Drillers want a ballpark that's 7k to 8k, not this... or maybe this is just a last second not-so cheap ploy to get people to vote yes... we'll know Tuesday night...
"How can you do a thing like this? Build up a little boy's hopes and smash all his dreams to pieces? You're an inhuman monster!"
From what I heard, they city already re-apropriated all the Vision 2025 money they had set aside for River Improvements. Having been back in Tulsa for buisness recently, before they build on the River, they need to fix the damn roads. I thought Hawaii was bad, but Tulsa is ridiculous.
Imagine that. And I thought Del City/Midwest City were the only towns that habitually voted down public infrastructure improvements so that no one would move there. Did you really expect it to pass? I'll bet you they didn't re-appropriate it for roads. Actually, not so much, at least from the standpoint of state/federal highways and most county level/urban arterials. Local collectors/suburban streets have not fared as well due to a lack of ongoing maintenance (Tulsa, MWC/DC, Etc), poor construction standards during the rapid suburbanization of the mid-70's, early 80's, and Oklahoma's unstable soils.