First Lady Victoria Bartlett speaks to the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board on Tuesday morning about her proposal to build a 90-foot-long digital video wall in H. A. Chapman Park downtown. The $950,000 project would be paid for with private funds. KEVIN CANFIELD/The Frontier
Clarification: An earlier version of this story stated that the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board would not consider Victoria Bartlett’s video board proposal unless she could show the board that she has raised a significant portion of the necessary funding. Park Board officials say Bartlett will need to show that she has raised all of the money necessary for the project before they will consider approving it. The story has been updated to reflect the clarification.
First Lady Victoria Bartlett is proposing the construction of a 90-foot-long-by-8-foot-tall digital video wall in H.A. Chapman Park downtown that city officials say would provide a blank canvas on which to display artistic and cultural images and other programming.
The $950,000 project would be privately funded and operated by the city’s Communications Department. The wall would not display advertisements.
Bartlett, whose husband, Dewey Bartlett, lost his bid for re-election, told the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board on Tuesday that the digital wall is one project she wants to see through.
“I want to focus on this because there is so much interest in this park,” Victoria Bartlett told the board.
The video wall would run along the southwestern perimeter of Chapman Park, 605 S. Main St. The wall would be made up of 15 panels of various lengths totaling 78 feet, with a foot or two between each panel to make the entire wall 90-feet long. The panels could be operated individually or together. An art deco-style fence would run behind the digital wall to provide an attractive backdrop around and between the digital panels.
Bartlett said after the meeting that the digital video wall is the third idea she’s proposed to celebrate Tulsa and improve the Chapman Park area since a visit to Las Vegas three-and-a-half years ago. It was there that she and Mayor Bartlett saw a boulevard lined with old casino signs.
“So I thought, ‘I want to do something in the parks that would pay tribute to the oil and gas industry,’” she said.
Bartlett’s first idea was to create an archway over a city street proclaiming Tulsa the “Oil Capital of The World” and lining the street with signs from the city’s founding oil companies. The second idea was to create an oil and gas industry-themed playground in Chapman Park. Neither project got off the ground.
First Lady Victoria Bartlett presented this rendering of her proposed 90-foot-long digital video wall at H.A. Chapman Park downtown to the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board on Tuesday. Provided
Bartlett said she has been working with 15 or so volunteers to come up with ideas for the park. The idea for a digital screen grew out of a conversation between volunteers Robert Dail and Tom Wallace.
Dail, an account executive with Claude Neon Federal Signs who attended Tuesday’s Park Board meeting, said the digital wall would be built by Media Resources Digital Sign Co.
Speaking after the meeting, Dail said it would take four months to build and install the video wall once it is approved.
“We don’t want it to dominate the park,” he said. “We want it to be a dropback. We want it to be something that draws people into the park.”
Dail said the city would be able to adjust the brightness of the video wall and that anything that can be broadcast over a computer screen could be broadcast on the wall. The video wall would be turned off over night, Dail said.
Bartlett told the Park Board that she’s received positive feedback on the latest proposal, including support from the city Park’s Department and from Land Legacy, which has authority over the use of the land as part the agreement the city signed to purchase the land from the organization.
She also expressed confidence that she can raise the $950,000, which would cover construction costs, provide for a 10-year parts, labor and maintenance warranty and leave $210,000 for contingencies.
The hope is to raise the $950,000 by finding a sponsor for each of the video panels, Bartlett said.
“We have feelers out to let people know about it,” she told the board.
The digital wall would be a gift to the park system and would be covered by the city of Tulsa’s insurance policy, Bartlett told the Park Board. The cost of electricity to run the digital wall would be about $200 a month and would be paid by the city.
https://vimeo.com/182591929
The video above was shown to members of the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board on Tuesday to give them an idea of how the proposed 90-foot-long digital video wall in Chapman Park could be used.
Park Board Chairwoman Teresa Burkett told Bartlett that the board would vote on the project once the first lady can show that she has raised the $950,000. Bartlett is expected to have that information by the board’s next meeting in October.
Burkett said after the meeting that it is important for the board to know what financial backing the proposal has because the Parks Department struggles to maintain its existing facilities. In addition, Burkett said, the board is discussing other possible improvements to Chapman Park that would have to be modified should the digital wall be installed.
“We just want to have a clear understanding of what path is going to be followed,” Burkett said.
She noted, for example that owners of property near Chapman Park have asked the Park Board to put more trees and lighting in the park, and the Park Board has considered brightening the park with native plants and flowers.
Planting trees along the perimeter, as has been discussed, would not be possible if the digital wall were there, Burkett said.
She added that she would support the project if Bartlett could come up with the funds to make it happen.
City of Tulsa Communications Director Kim MacLeod said her department is in the early stages of planning for the project.
“Once we know it is a reality, we will begin developing the programing,” MacLeod said. “The idea is that people could come to us with their ideas.
“My vision is we would empanel some kind of steering committee that would determine the types of projects we wanted to call for, or whether it would be something we would use. There are all sorts of possibilities.”
The board of directors of Land Legacy recently approved the concept of the digital video wall contingent on certain restrictions, according to a letter presented to the Park Board.
The conditions, as outlined in a letter from Land Legacy Executive Director Michael Patton, include that the wall have no sound, show no objectionable messages and show no commercial content. In addition, the project can place no restrictions on what landscaping and exhibits can be part of the park, according to the letter.
“My board said, ‘We’re OK under these conditions. If the Park Board is OK, we’re OK,’ and we passed it to them,” Patton told The Frontier.
H.A. Chapman Park, 605 S. Main St., is the proposed site for a 90-foot-long digital video wall. The idea for the project came from a committee led by First Lady Victoria Bartlett. DYLAN GOFORTH/The Frontier
