The Old Market entertainment district in downtown Omaha, Neb., seems to benefit from a well-placed parking garage at its core. ZACK STOYCOFF/World Staff Writer
Officials have said they would consider numerous locations for two parking garages that have been eyed for Tulsa's capital improvements package, which is likely headed to voters this November.
What do parking garages mean for a city’s core?
City Councilor Blake Ewing likens their benefits to ripples in a pond, saying a well-placed garage generates waves of development in every direction.
After visiting a city about Tulsa’s size but with a clear head-start in downtown development, I would like to add to that analogy. Let’s call them anchors.
When it comes to downtown vitality, Omaha, Neb., is beating Tulsa in almost every way.
The city’s Old Market district is everything Tulsa hopes for its growing Brady District: restaurants, pubs, bars and shops in every building, loft apartments galore, street performers, brick-lined streets and a bustle surpassed only by the entertainment districts of cities such as San Francisco.
That got me thinking: What has Omaha done right? I scoured the city’s urban core looking for evidence.
Let me preface this by saying that Tulsa shouldn’t feel inferior to Nebraska’s largest city, at least outside the realm of downtown development. We’ve got the natural beauty, and I would put Tulsa’s museums and River Parks against their counterparts in Omaha any day.
But it’s hard to ignore a key difference: Downtown Omaha has plenty of parking garages. Seemingly on every corner, they are placed strategically in entertainment districts and concentrations of office buildings.
They often house street-level businesses, such as one that anchors the Old Market district, and they seem to be centers of activity.
The city's website lists eight public parking garages in and near downtown.
Tulsa has four, with a fifth that isn’t open to the public, at least according to a general consensus of several Tulsa World writers.
If we don’t take it from cities like Omaha, we can at least take it from the vast expanses of occupied surface parking in downtown Tulsa and the metered parking typically hogged by downtown workers, rather than the short-term visitors for which they are intended: Tulsa needs more parking.
But will developers continue demolishing its historic buildings to meet the demand? Or will city officials capitalize on the ripples of interest in downtown revitalization?
The council’s draft for the coming $919.7 million capital improvements package, approved on Thursday, does not include $26 million for two parking garages, as proposed by the Downtown Coordinating Council.
But those garages would be on the table again if residents request them at town hall meetings beginning this week, Councilor G.T. Bynum said.
Ewing has said he will push for garages as a priority for the package.
"Parking garages are kind of a critical next step for downtown," he said at a council meeting last week. "Parking keeps people from coming downtown."
The idea is to reduce demand for surface parking, making it more profitable for developers to replace existing parking lots with offices and entertainment.
It’s a tried and true method, and it has worked elsewhere.
Take Omaha’s word for it.
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