There’s a lot of progress being made on the north side of A Gathering Place for Tulsa.
The 28,000 square foot Williams Lodge is really coming together now.
"Just in the last two weeks, we've been putting all the glass on the exterior of the building. The stone work's been worked on now for about two months. We're about a month and a half to two months from being complete with the exterior stone work," said Gathering Place Executive Director Jeff Stava. "All the flat work in and around the building for the terraces and the shade coverings have been installed, so, yes, lots of progress and we're really excited about where we are."
The lodge serves as the main entrance and will have a circle drive right up to the doors.
"You can either come through the breezeway into our 18,000 square foot terrace deck area, where we have a sit-down restaurant, a place to sit and drink. It's got a little pocket playground," Stava said. "Or, you can come into the lodge lobby, and there's a person there that will welcome you and give you all the programming that's going on in the park for that day."
Much of the north side of the $465 million park is starting to get a finished look about it. Roads and walkways are mostly in place, and new trees and shrubs have been planted in time to take on their fall colors.
"Work on every feature across the park is being done now. The most completed is the Chapman Foundation's playground, because ... sans the water play area, we'll be opening that the last week of January," Stava said. "So, the contractor's going to be turning it over to us the first week of January so that we can get in and do all of our inspections and do all of our safety checks."
The playground will be open for scheduled field trips starting the last week of January.
Other features currently under construction at the park include a skate park and BMX area. The Gathering Place is still on schedule for a summer 2018 opening. Earlier this year, several spring storms pushed back the opening of the park from late this year.
