Stuff 'Tulsa didn't want'

In a short time the hottest place to be in Oklahoma may be Jenks.

Yes, that Jenks.

The Daily Oklahoman online takes a look at the development of Jenks as an entertainment boom-town and it spares, righteously so, no small digs at Tulsa. Perhaps the biggest news, though, is that the Bells of Bells Amusement Park are seriously looking at a 53-acre tract just south of the Oklahoma Aquarium and RiverWalk for a major relocation/expansion during the next five years.

If this happens, it will be supremely ironic, since the powers-that-be (or PTB) in Tulsa proper will have sown the seeds of Jenks' ascendancy.

Jenks is 20 square miles of boomtown, separated from southwest Tulsa by the Arkansas River. The town long has been known for an academically and athletically successful school system, and antique shops that dominate a small downtown.

Recently, though, it has become an entertainment destination. The town started with a world-class aquarium that Tulsa didn't want (Emphasis DOT), and followed with a riverside complex of movie screens, restaurants and an amphitheater.
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The Oklahoma Aquarium was planned for Tulsa, and Jenks would not be where it is today if those plans were fulfilled, Bell said.

"The aquarium was the catalyst and designed to be the catalyst," Bell said. "If it wasn't for the aquarium, RiverWalk (Crossing) wouldn't be here. This is a lifestyle center and there's nothing like it in the Tulsa area."

Jackie Bubenik was the executive director of the Tulsa Water Park River Board when it voted to drop the aquarium.

He knew the decision was a mistake, and 30 minutes after the vote he was on the phone with Jenks City Manager V.R. "Randy" Ewing.

"Do you want an aquarium," Bubenik asked Ewing, and Ewing quickly replied, "You betcha."

The aquarium is drawing an estimated 500,000 people a year and sparked the development of the RiverWalk area.

And then there is Bell's:

Bell's Amusement Park has been an entertainment fixture on 21st street in Tulsa since 1951, but Robby Bell, president of the family owned park, wants to locate just south of the Oklahoma RiverWalk and Aquarium.

Robby Bell said the park's move could be finalized by the end of the year. The park sits on 10.2 acres at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds and he wants to expand it to a 53-acre site in Jenks. The new park could open on a limited basis by spring 2007, when the Bells would operate both parks for awhile, and the Jenks site could be completed by 2010.

"I think the synergy between the RiverWalk and the aquarium is already huge," Robby Bell said. "And if we add Bell's to that mix, then I think the three entities will really complement each other. I've been telling everybody it's the beginning of Branson, Mo., in Tulsa.

"It will be the most hopping entertainment area, I think, in the state."

The park's signature attraction would be a $4 million, wooden roller-coaster. At 100 feet tall and with 3,500 feet of track, Robby Bell said it will be the state's largest. He doesn't have a name for it yet.

If Bell's moves it will be justice delayed but not denied. The family attempted to open an expanded water park/thrill ride park in the early 1980s off the BA Expressway in Broken Arrow but found their efforts blocked by the PTB, sufficiently so that eventually the plan was abandoned. Since that time the amusement park has been bottled up in its 10-acre ghetto on the west end of the fairgrounds, unable to expand or respond to competition from other theme parks, and facing continual complaints from nearby residents who don't like the noise and traffic. (The logic of people moving next door to an amusement park that predates them by a half century, and then complaining about it has always escaped us.)

Naturally Tulsa development officials say they are going to get into the river walk game on the east side, and we say, "Bully for you if you do." Show us that you can see beyond the compulsion to resurrect a decaying and aging downtown. Show us that you are open to projects from people who aren't controlled or owned by the vested interests of the past. In other words, start thinking outside of the box.

Just don't expect the rest of the metro cities to step aside with bows of submission while you do.