Vinita Designworks

VINITA DesignWorks

City of Vinita Oklahoma Municipal League OU Institute for Quality Communities

Contents Summary Touring Vinita Recommendations Preserve Vinita’s Heritage Create a Cultural Campus Redesign Wilson Street Walk + Bike Vinita Organize Stakeholders Next Steps Collaborators

Summary In Fall 2017, the City of Vinita received a matching grant from the Oklahoma Municipal League to seek assistance from the University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities. The IQC team spent a 48-hour period studying the downtown area and drafting recommendations for community members to review.

The site visit included a walking tour of the community, field studies by IQC team members, and two public meetings to present initial recommendations.

Several key concepts are covered in this report:

• Preserve Vinita’s Heritage: Efforts to preserve historic buildings and cultural aspects of Vinita.

• Create a Cultural Campus: Opportunity to create a new public space that ties together key cultural properties.

• Redesign Wilson Street: Solutions for a main street corridor that is also a highly traveled artery and Route 66 tourist attraction.

• Walk + Bike Vinita: Physical solutions to improve walking and biking,

starting with two key corridors on Scraper Street and Canadian Avenue.

• Organize Stakeholders: Thoughts on how to continue progress among downtown stakeholders.

Touring Vinita

Wilson Street Buildings

Historic Museum & Library

Wilson Street has a few blocks of beautiful two-story buildings from the early 1900s. While some of these buildings are still disappearing, others are occupied with businesses. Many of the buildings have a second floor that could be redeveloped into secondary uses like apartments or offices.

Vinita has excellently operated Eastern Trails Museum and Vinita Public Library that are assets to the downtown area.

These institutions are attractive for locals and visitors alike, and can help anchor activity for downtown.

Noisy Traffic Vinita’s most important streets for creating a strong and vibrant downtown also happen to be important streets for moving large truck traffic across Oklahoma. The truck traffic creates an unpleasant, noisy, and even unsafe environment on Wilson Street.

City Parks

Vinita has a park in each quadrant of town with North Park, South Park, Attucks Park, and the Bill Morgan Sports Complex. Just outside of the built-up area, there is the beautiful Vinita Lake Park with recreational facilities. These parks are great destinations to connect with the downtown area.

Preserve Vinita’s Heritage The historic buildings that remain standing in Vinita provide a sense of identity and heritage that cannot be easily replaced.

Vinita has several successes in this area. Most notably, the Hotel Vinita is currently undergoing a rehabilitation into senior housing. The project would be difficult without the historic structure to help developers access tax credits.

On a smaller scale, the Ladybug Boutique building has been renovated into a boutique and residence. Preservation projects of all sizes are necessary to keep the character of downtown.

On the other hand, Vinita is continuing to lose many structures that could be successfully rehabilitated to be part of the community’s unique identity. The Craig County Courthouse, a prominent structure of Vinita since 1920, was demolished at the end of 2017.

Vinita is defined by more than just its buildings. It is also defined by its history as a transportation hub. A connection to the railroads and Route 66 are essential features that distinguish Vinita.

This section covers a few key subjects related to celebrating Vinita’s heritage through its buildings, railroad, and Route 66 culture.

National Register District

Upper Floors

Downtown Vinita is a fragile collection of historic buildings.

With a series of recent demolitions, Vinita is on the verge of losing its contiguous historic downtown.

Vinita has a number of two-story buildings with wellpreserved upper floors that would be excellent for additional downtown uses like offices or apartments.

Continued demolition could eliminate the possibility of being considered for a National Register District.

Modern accessibility and code requirements can be an obstacle for these second floors, but there are many techniques architects and planners can use to make sure these floors can be put into productive use, even without an elevator.

Vinita should consider pursuing a National Register District, which creates opportunities for federal and state tax credits. Contact the State Historic Preservation Office at the Oklahoma Historical Society about this process.

Some communities that have had success with upper floors include Okmulgee and El Reno.

Route 66

Trains

Route 66 creates lots of movement through Vinita.

The Route 66 experience, with a number of notable destinations found in Vinita, is an economic resource for the community.

Vinita feels surrounded by trains. Claremore is a similar community that is bookended by train tracks, often creating traffic problems and noise challenges. Leaders here might be able to share some thoughts about how the community copes with trains.

Along Vinita’s stretch of Route 66, keep enhancing the feeling that travelers are looking for. Each small building, quirky business, interesting sign, and rehabilitated motor inn or gas station from the Route 66 era adds to the experience.

Quiet zones can also be a possibility, as implemented in Norman and Oklahoma City, although in Vinita this would likely require the closure of many neighborhood streets.

Trains can also be celebrated as an attraction, with viewing platforms and reconstructed train depot structures.

Create a Cultural Campus Some of Vinita’s best cultural assets and opportunity sites are located off the beaten path of Wilson Street. Many Route 66 visitors and locals might pass through Wilson Street without realizing more attractions are close by.

The alley offers an opportunity to create an interesting public space. Near Wilson, the alley could be a pedestrian-only space offering a break from the noisy traffic. Near Scraper Street, the alley could still function as parking access but encourage pedestrian traffic. With added markings, the alley acts as a promenade tying Wilson Street to the history museum, library, and city-owned vacant Safeway property.

The Breezeway in downtown Enid is a similarly sized space. It uses string lights, art painted on foam canvas, chairs, a little free library, and event programming to create a lively space.

An alley connects several important locations and opportunity sites.

Safeway Site Library Museum

Wilson Street

The existing alley is a seldom-used drive off Wilson Street.

A The library and Eastern Trails Museum are two great cultural assets with a nice public space.

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B The former Safeway property, owned by the City of Vinita, offers potential for indoor and outdoor event and seasonal market space.

Vendors, including craftsmen from local high school programs, can hold special markets.

Seasonal tenants like pumpkin patches and flower markets could be operated in partnership with the existing grocery store.

C An interesting alley connects these cultural assets with Wilson Street. A coat of paint could make this a signature walk.

D The alley is framed by two multistory buildings near Wilson Street, making a nicely enclosed public space. Accent this space with public art, lighting, seating, plants, and a signature gateway to make Wilson Street the entry to Vinita’s cultural campus.

E A vacant historic building on Wilson Street could make room for an expanded history museum.

A fun name could help the alley get a sense of identity. In this rendering, the gateway signage calls the alley “Hornet’s Nest.”

Gateway markers, an interesting paving material or painted ground surface, canvas art, lighting, and seating make the alley into a welcome retreat for pedestrians.

Painted ground surface or interesting paving material can continue toward the Vinita Public Library and Eastern Trails Museum, where it would connect with the existing pocket park. A new crosswalk across Illinois would connect with the cityowned property that is a former Safeway.

The former Safeway site is an excellent candidate for a community multi-purpose center, hosting indoor and outdoor events.

Redesign Wilson Street Wilson Street is Vinita’s signature main street. It also has the added function of carrying regional freight and passenger vehicles as US-60/69. Beyond that, it brings visitors to town and has an international cultural significance as a stretch of historic Route 66. This additional traffic means lots of loud and intimidating vehicles creating an unpleasant experience.

Wilson has four lanes of traffic in the downtown area. The extra lanes may lead to more speeding. While there is parking provided on the street, parallel parking in these conditions is highly undesirable and even unsafe.

Vinita should work with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to pursue an alternate route for large truck traffic. It’s possible that the existing alignments of Excelsior Avenue and 7th Street could be upgraded with signage and pavement to accommodate these vehicles. In fact, truck drivers might prefer traveling on these streets, where historic buildings and pedestrians are not present to make driving and turning more difficult.

With about 10,000 vehicles per day on Wilson Street, a change from four lanes of traffic to two lanes with a center turn lane might be desirable. The change would encourage slower traffic and provide more space for a different parking configuration or wider sidewalks.

This section offers a few thoughts on design upgrades to Wilson Street.

Recessed stop bars are a method recommended by the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide to make sure that large vehicles have enough space for right turns, so that their rear wheels do not encroach on pedestrian areas.

This configuration might help in the intersection of Illinois and Wilson.

Fresh Paint Large volumes of heavy traffic mean crosswalks at Wilson and Illinois require more intensive maintenance.

Bold continental crosswalk bars should be kept fresh. These crosswalks are very important to make sure pedestrians feel safer and to increase awareness about pedestrians among drivers.

More Crossings Vinita has uniquely long blocks, with more than 600 feet between intersections along Wilson Street.

Most towns have intersections spaced less than 400 feet. The addition of mid-block crosswalks (see the blue circles on the map) between intersections would provide more places to safely cross the street.

Mid-block crosswalks include curb extensions, signage, and possibly flashing beacon lights. Vehicles are required by state law to yield to pedestrians who want to cross the street.

Example of a mid-block crosswalk in Traverse City, Michigan.

Walk + Bike Vinita Vinita has a number of physical characteristics that provide major advantages for fostering more walking and biking as transportation. Vinita’s centrally located downtown, compact city development, carefully planned park and school locations, and grid network of streets and alleys are great ingredients for walking and biking.

The map on the facing page shows how much of the city is within a short walk or bike from the centrally located downtown. In addition, there are many residential streets with slow traffic and lower traffic volumes that are attractive for people who might walk or bike.

This section identifies Scraper Street and Canadian Street as two fairly wide streets that intersect near the middle of Vinita, that could create a spine for a safe citywide bike and walk network. Varying levels of improvement shown in this section could emphasize these two corridors as preferred safe routes for moving around Vinita.

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Within a 5-minute walk, a pedestrian can reach all of the downtown area.

South Park, Will Rogers Elementary, and some inner residential areas are also in this zone.

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Walk and Bike Distances to Downtown

Within a 10-minute walk, a pedestrian can reach North Park, Ewing Halsell Middle School, and many central residential areas.

A 5-10 minute bike ride from downtown reaches most of Vinita, including Attucks Park. Many lowspeed residential streets are an opportunity to encourage more biking for transportation.

Canadian Avenue Bikeway

Existing

Rendering

The existing curb-to-curb width of pavement along much of Canadian Avenue is 50 feet. The road accommodates two lanes of travel and very minimal curb-side parking.

The rendering shows two 11-foot travel lanes, two 6-foot bike lanes, and two 8’ parallel parking lanes. This configuration fits within the existing 50’ asphalt on Canadian Avenue, so this configuration only requires paint.

Roadways this wide are a perceived barrier for pedestrians to cross. Wide roadways also encourage faster travel speeds.

Additional traffic calming measures, such as the mini-circle shown in this rendering, should make sure cars are traveling slowly (less than 25 miles per hour). Fresh, bold crosswalks also help pedestrians cross safely.

Wayfinding signs for bikes and pedestrians could also help emphasize the corridor as a place to bike and walk.

Scraper Street Corridor Scraper Street is typically 30’ of asphalt and sometimes accommodates parallel parking. Narrow bike lanes might be possible if parking was limited to only one side of the street.

Creating a neighborhood greenway environment is another option for Scraper Street. Neighborhood greenways are streets that are selected as priority routes for bikes and pedestrians. Improvements to accomplish this include shared lane markings, bike route signage, and traffic calming measures could make Scraper Street a comfortable street for biking and walking.

Organize Stakeholders Revitalizing downtown requires a community of people who communicate often to support each other’s ideas, projects, and events.

The Oklahoma Main Street Program supports a model that creates a district association to oversee efforts to improve the economic vitality, design, promotion, and organization of downtown. More than 30 districts in the state are registered as Main Street communities with at least one full-time staff person to coordinate downtown issues.

Vinita once applied for the Oklahoma Main Street Program. At the time, the application was denied due to the proposal to demolish one of Vinita’s prime historic corners at Illinois and Wilson for a new Hardee’s (now McDonald’s).

Vinita should consider applying again for this program. Miami and Claremore are nearby communities with very successful Main Street programs. Further down Route 66, Tulsa’s Kendall Whittier and Red Fork areas, Yukon, and El Reno are all Main Street towns.

Next Steps Many ideas in this report should be considered for a short-range, near-term timeline. Some of these items are fairly inexpensive to get started on, or are particularly important to start soon. Others might take a long-term effort to continue to pursue over time.

Short Range • Redevelop or hold an event in the “Hornet’s Nest” alley off Wilson Street.

• Designate Wilson Street a Route 66 experience district as part of a “Cultural • • • •

Campus” linking downtown attractions.

Create the Canadian Avenue bikeway.

Improve the Scraper Street corridor.

Consider a National Register nomination.

Organize a downtown group for a possible Main Street program.

Long Range • • • •

Address truck traffic issues on Wilson & Illinois Streets.

Consider a designated truck route for heavy truck traffic.

Consider a quiet zone for train traffic.

Create a train viewing platform to add to Vinita’s Route 66 experience.

Collaborators OU Institute for Quality Communities

Vinita Community Members

Shane Hampton, Executive Director Hope Mander, Associate Director Ron Frantz, Director of Small Town Studios Goutam Vella, Graduate Assistant Sridhar Yalamanchili, Graduate Assistant

Bill Gardner Danny Lankford Eric Sooter Erika Pippin Erin McComb Jennifer Smiles Joseph Hiseley Leonard M. Logan Luanna Peck Mary Hollabaugh Michelle Hayes Mike Hughes Sarah Chamberlain Toni Stanley Tonya Moorhead

Oklahoma Municipal League Mike Fina, Executive Director Nancee Morris, Operations and Business Development Manager City of Vinita Ronni Starks, Mayor Jim Whisenant, Director of Operations Brian Prince, City Clerk Allen Goforth, Streets Department Vinita Community Groups Angela Thomson, Vinita Journal Monica Bagwell, Vinita Chamber of Commerce Paige Lindly, Vinita High School Student Council Shelby Hoskin, Vinita High School Student Council Terri Holland, TSET Healthy Living Program

Report prepared by: OU Institute for Quality Communities OU College of Architecture 830 Van Vleet Oval Gould Hall 165 Norman, OK 73019