The Gathering - Tulsa's Riverfront

[Renovator2559]

The Gathering Place is Tulsa's riverfront that resembles Omaha's riverfront. Tulsa had very generous donors too, which amounted to $450M and the total park area will be 100 acres. The project is a total of 3 phases too.

Donor plaque below:
And yes Tulsa based QuikTrip, is s big donor


Instead of the Missouri River for Omaha and the riverfront on the east, for Tulsa its the Arkansas river and their riverfront is on the west. Both riverfronts have a lagoon feature.
On the other side of the river for Omaha is CB with a lush forest and Rivers Edge. For Tulsa, on the other side, is an industrial park, water treatment facilities and with what appears to be oil refineries.





Fast Facts
Gathering Place was voted USA Today's Best City Park in 2021, and Best New Attraction in 2019

Gathering Place is funded by a combination of more than 80 corporate and philanthropic organizations.

Construction began in September 2014 and Phase I (66.5 acres) opened in September 2018.

Renowned landscape architect firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates designed the unique Park with input from the community.

When Phase II and III are completed, the footprint of Gathering Place will be 100 acres.
https://www.gatheringplace.org/about

The Gathering place has plenty of wooded areas of mature trees, which makes the place feel like a beautiful forest in places. The canopy cover provides ample shade cover from the sun, so getting sun burned is much difficult.









Playground area has features which resemble Lewis and Clark playground but in a western theme. Through each playground, sometimes I would see them unocupied,or just a few kids here and there as the pictures show.



This playground resembles the playground in Council Bluffs River's Edge.





There are plenty of nice narrow paths with tall bushes and flowers, these flower laden paths, smell so nice!











They also built landscape bridge on top of Riverside drive, to extend the park over both sides.





This community structure is made of materials such as native rock, wood that evoke a more premium design with floor to ceiling windows. Structure is climate controlled with a conference room, lounge area, restrooms and a coffee shop and of course the donor recognition plaque is inside this building.









Plenty of sidewalks in the park are lined with a combination of brick and concrete, to give a premium look.



The park does get dark in many places, as the only lighting comes from the tall lamp posts. There are no kids seen in playgrounds at night, and playgrounds are open and not enclosed.





Phase 1 was completed in 2018 for a total of 63 acres
Plenty of construction can be seen for Phase II





This is the view across the Arkansas River, plenty of oil refinery facilities, which evoke Tulsa's identity as an oil powerhouse.

[Renovator2559]

The Gathering Place is around 15-20 blocks away from the downtown core and is surrounded by low density high wealth housing. The park is surrounded by multiple barriers which seperate the park, via a long strip of parking lots, an elevated wall mound with a bike path running along it, the path is mostly disconnected from the surrounding low density housing but does connect at certain points.



The Gathering Place, has a divided pedestrian and bicycle path that runs north and South as a small strip of green, sandwiched between the Arkansas River and Riverside Drive. Due to the proximity of the 35MPH road, the car noise is constant. There are few if any crosswalks and no people can be seen Crossing the road.

The pedestrian bike trail south of the Gathering Place, has mostly lower income low density housing.

The pedestrian bike trail north of the Gathering Place, has higher density housing, since it's the direction towards downtown Tulsa.

No commercial or restaurants can be seen in the vicinity of the Gathering Place or the trails running north and South.



95% of bikers that I saw were in bicyclist sports gear, very few casual riders.



There are even counter stats of how many bicyclists use the path per day and year.



Based on these observations, I feel as if Tulsas river front is a nice park system but the park is walled off and disconnected via multiple barriers and the nearest hub of restaurants are 5+ blocks away at any point in the NS trail and even then these restaurants are on a North to South stroad with parking lots everywhere, not pedestrian friendly.

Also, since the Gathering Place is far away at 15-20 blocks from Tulsa downtown, (even then Downtown is walled off by an elaborate freeway system), the park functions as its separate attraction, with mostly the Gathering Place coffee shop benefiting on generating revenue. The Gathering Place has a lot of tables, chairs and seating for large events, however I did not see any scheduled events during this visit.

[Garrett]

Meh. It's in the middle of a single family home neighborhood. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful, but they essentially spent $450 million on a neighborhood park. Parks shouldn't be in a single-use, single family district like this, and I think it's evident why in your pictures. One person in all of them? Few to no children on the playground on what looks to be a nice evening? Parks need to be in the center of a mixed use, all day district to be successful. Essentially, parks need people, not the other way around. A lot of families go to the new park as part of a greater day in Downtown Omaha, not necessarily as the destination in and of itself.

[Renovator2559]

I agree 100%, so much potential on a park like this, only if this would have been built nearby an entertainment hub or in the vicinity of downtown Tulsa and if the park served as a proper pedestrian connector, and not be surrounded by a wall of ample parking and a 35mph road along the other entry points with no reason to cross the street (residential).

And yes the foot traffic felt like that of a typical neighborhood park. Not the high foot traffic that I see even in a typical weekday in Omaha's downtown riverfront. Oddly enough after dusk; the Omaha riverfront becomes lit, teeming with children using the playgrounds. Of course weekends become even more alive!

Omaha's riverfront would of struggled if it was built more south, if hypothetically Lauritzen gardens, was the site of Omaha's riverfront.

[Renovator2559]

NIMBYs have posed plenty of concerns to the Gathering park system. Even during construction were neighbors concerned about the construction crew building a temporary office for construction.
Phase II of the park, also brought concerns of more traffic, lack of parking spots and even neighbors were proposing 3 pedestrian bridges to aliviate traffic congestion caused by pedestrian traffic on the road that seperates the riverfront parks to the low density neighborhood.

Even though NIMBYs should be thankful for the $400M donations that made their riverfront park system possible. Unfortunately the park was built in the wrong place, next to low density residential and the nearest restaurants are 5 blocks away on strip malls with parking lots and downtown is 15-blocks away.



Source KTUL news - Neighbors Voice Concerns
https://ktul.com/news/local/gathering-p ... e-concerns

[Renovator2559]

Apparently Tulsa's riverfront park system, "The Gathering" has won the 2024 award of the best city park in the US, according to USA Today.
The Gathering took the number 2 spot, but somehow the Omaha Riverfront is not listed anywhere in the list. The Tulsa riverfront park system have had more years than the Omaha riverfront, to get national acclaim. On my previous posts on this thread, you can see my observations of my prior visit on a nice day with perfect weather and how much more of a "quieter" park the Tulsa riverfront park is, than the Omaha riverfront.

Tulsa the Gathering won best city park in 2024 at #2
https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/trav ... park-2024/

Tulsa the Gathering won the best city park in 2021 at #1
https://10best.usatoday.com/travel/thes ... ic-spaces/

In 2019, The Gathering Place was selected as a winner of the "2019 ULI Global Awards for Excellence"
https://americas.uli.org/190905gaewinners/


Aerial view of Tulsa's riverfront:



Tulsa, like Omaha's Bob Kerry bridge; has also just built Williams Crossing bridge, a pedestrian bridge for its riverfront. It features nice lighting and benches all over within the bridge.

First steel-plate arch bridge in the US
First Multi-Span Plate-Arch bridge in the US
Longest Arch-Type Pedestrian Bridge in the US
In 2024, the bridge received the Structural Engineering of Excellence Award for New Bridge and Transportation Structures



This pedestrian bridge connects the eastern riverbank "The Gathering Place" riverfront park system along the Arkansas River, to the west river bank, where the pedestrian trail is 8 miles long "Riverparks WestBank Trail" and goes north connecting to the northern River West neighborhood. This path goes along a very narrow area, wedged right next to the river and a large Sinclair Oil Refinery, as well as waterworks and waste management facilities until the path connects north to the River West development area.

So anyone that doesn't mind breathing the HF Sinclair refinery's seepage plume of 392 acres of VOCs, hydrocarbons, HAPs, Ammonia, Hydrogen Sulfide, particulate matters, as well as the smells coming from the waste management facilities; can have a nice jog.

The good news is that Sinclair has installed containment caps of $10 million to reduce the hydrocarbon "sheen" appearance to the river; thereby addressing some concerns of the joggers along the trail.

I will be able to visit Tulsa for work next week and possibly fill in regarding this project and as well as share any other possible construction activity of notable mention within Tulsa, especially for Tulsa being a very similar peer city to Omaha.

[skinzfan23]

I don’t think that park looks anything like Omaha’s. It looks nice but not as interactive. The park and garden with the street going below it was a nice touch, but I’ll take the riverfront in Omaha all day long. Not to mention our downtown skyline is right there along with all the entertainment and restaurants within a few blocks.

[Renovator2559]

I don’t think that park looks anything like Omaha’s. It looks nice but not as interactive. The park and garden with the street going below it was a nice touch, but I’ll take the riverfront in Omaha all day long. Not to mention our downtown skyline is right there along with all the entertainment and restaurants within a few blocks.

You are right the Gathering Place is more like the Henry Doorly Zoo, fenced in and isolation spots that resemble a zoo exhibit.

We have the Zoo we didn't need to replicate that look.
Between the activity of the Riverfront and the Gathering Place, Gathering Place cannot pack as much people even in the weekend, its just a sleepy park







Also, the Gathering Place was just donated by a single donor the Kiser Foundation, while the Riverfront was a truly community funded project with private donors.

The Gathering place will always get more publicity because its one area vs the Riverfront and Rivers Edge that span two states but will be about 100 acres, much more than what the Gathering is.





The Williams Crossing bridge that they built over the Arkansas River is pretty utilitarian







The lighting looks nice and the fence is a thin cheap chain link fence, that could easily break but it gets the job done.

Bridge doesn't attract that many people as the park is somewhat isolated.











Cracked paths were typical on last years and this years visit. The material doesn't appear to hold up over time. So most of the half side of paths are fenced in and they just leave the barriers, its as if they think only one path working is enough.
I've never seen our Riverfront paths exhibit so much damage, concrete is solid.



















Care to smell the noxious fumes of an oil refinery for better health?









They have this color theming going on between attractions synced in color just like Omaha.



The Gathering Place closes right at sunset, with signs everywhere telling you about closing everything. Which reduces the utility of the Gathering Place.

Many times did I come across these closed signs to get around the barriers so I could leave.

Getting to my car was also a challenge to get to the parking lot, the security locks down the ballads and you have to request exit.

Overall this is a neighborhood park that doesn't like night walkers and why would you, a lot of the places in the park get very dark and spooky.



Also, the Gathering Place just looks like a slightly bigger version of Heartland of America, everything is centered through there with a long narrow greenspace to the trail south, which passes by fast moving traffic.

There are places in the Gathering Place that are quiet, but overall the core park is flanked by two fast moving traffic roads, one going through the park and the other one on the other edge, sound pollution can get intense from cars reving engines.

Also, good luck with restrooms here, they close early and there isn't many around, so best not have an accident.

Your restaurant options are just the Cafe with great Ice Cream and paninis but other than that, expect to cross the stroad to McDs, yum healthy food right?

[Cermak]

Looks like a great place. I agree the location is a little strange. Would be better if it was closer to downtown.