Celebrate Local Wilderness
Turkey Mountain is in District Two. I live in District Two (2/10 of a mile from the Turkey Mountain parking lot) and Jeannie and I have exchanged emails a few times. She is not at all sold on the mall going on Turkey, and she can be quite influential with the other eight counselors. Take a few minutes to send an email. If you’re lucky and they respond, keep the dialogue open. These city officials work for us, and want to represent us.
The Outlet Mall on Turkey Mountain Moves a Step Further
We are going to see lots of asphalt and lots of cars and lots of stores selling crap. Also, this huge mall is only going to have one entrance, off a two lane road from a freeway instersection with no lights. I’m expecting that they will want the road and the intersection upgraded at no cost to them as an “incentive.” I’m also sure that will want some fancy tax treatment to pay for infrastructure as more incentives. They are building on private land so they can do what they want but I don’t want to incentivize them. I’d like them to go somewhere else in town. Perhaps to a failed existing shopping center and redevelop it.
Near 61st Street, there will be a 10 foot retaining wall right at the edge of the Pipeline Trail. This wall runs north and very slightly west along the top of the ridge, and this wall gets TALLER the further north you go. Around the area where the Old Boys Trail starts, the wall is 15 feet. Not much further north the wall is 45 feet tall. If you follow the wall to where it starts curving around to the west, the wall gets up to 75 feet!!!
The YMCA is obviously very concerned. All the kids attending summer camp will have this 7 story tall wall staring them in the face. Goodbye to the wilderness feel of this YMCA camp.
A bad mall plan’s details are revealed, and it still looks pretty bad
The outlet mall at Turkey Mountain would degrade quality of life for Tulsa. Notice I didn’t say an outlet mall on its own is a bad thing. But rather an outlet mall in that location would degrade a real asset for the city, an area with more than 40 miles of wooded trails for hikers, cyclists, runners, geocachers and equestrians. Individuals and families go there to experience nature on its terms without having to drive out of the city. As it exists, the greater Turkey Mountain area is a prime site for people to get outside, exercise and get in tune with nature like no other place in the city. Plopping a mall on a chunk of that land would degrade the experience.