TULSA, Okla. — Final design plans for the remodel of the Center of the Universe in downtown Tulsa were unveiled to the public Monday.
Planners have been getting public feedback on what to do with the space over the past ten months.
The final plans include green spaces, picnic areas, shaded seating, an area for food trucks, public art and even a sports park underneath the bridge. All these features, in addition to the famous echo that put the Center of the Universe on the map.
Leaders on the project say it was important to have a place where people could hang out for a while.
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“The space is designed to be flexible. At the end of the day, it’s a pedestrian bridge and we’re looking to provide flexibility so that people can utilize it however they’d like and if that’s wanting to have a lunchtime concert series with food trucks we can certainly do that or if there’s a desire to bring a couple of other performance down there we’re able to provide that flexibility,” said Brian Kurtz, President of the Downtown Tulsa Partnership.
Kurtz says he hopes the redesign will bring more people to a spot that already gets a lot of attention.
“If you go to Yelp, the Center of The Universe is the number one destination, the number one place to see in Tulsa and that’s with the existing conditions,” he explains. “So in the end when all this is said and done we’re going to bring a beautiful dynamic, public space to downtown that all of Tulsa can be proud of.”
Planners say acoustic engineers made the echo a priority.
“It’s a scientific result of an acoustic echo but there is a little magic to it. We didn’t mean for that to happen so we don’t want to change it, so all the environmental components the architectural components, the landscape components... we don’t want to make changes that would impact that echo and that phenomenon,” architect Jeffrey Pongonis says.
Brent Isaacs lives downtown and says he’s pleased with what he’s seen of the plans.
“I am excited! You know anything that will improve the public space downtown is definitely something we need to be looking at,” he says.
David Jones’ office is right next to the Center of the Universe – he was one of a handful people looking at the makeover plans Monday.
“Often in the past, things they’ve done downtown... asphalt and concrete come in and giant oak trees go out and it’s not nearly as nice but these look really inviting” he says looking at the final designs.
The planners say plans will continue to evolve but they hope to start putting things into motion sometime next year.
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