By Shaun Schafer

Tulsa World

A conservation group is promoting the development of small "pocket parks."

Plans for a single, large park for downtown Tulsa never made it off the drawing board. Instead, hopes for several small green spaces have taken root.

The Land Legacy, a conservation group, drew on residents, developers and a variety of other sources in putting together a downtown Tulsa "greenprint," said Robert Gregory, Land Legacy's executive director. In place of a large park near Tulsa Community College's Metro Campus downtown, the greenprint marks out "pocket parks" throughout the area.

"It is a bit of a change in direction for us," Gregory said. "But we think that we can get significant recreational and aesthetic value out of these pocket parks."

Developing little green pockets also takes the fledgling environmental organization out of the task of raising millions of dollars for a single large project.

The former state chapter of The Trust for Public Land tried to develop a park at Eighth Street and Cincinnati Avenue, on the site of a former auto dealership.

Gregory, who headed that earlier initiative, said some critical lessons were learned in the process.

"Don't tear down buildings," he said. "No matter what, you are going to be tearing down something people care about.

"In this case, instead of looking at old building sites, we're mostly looking at small surface parking lots."

Results should also come more quickly by working on pocket parks, Gregory said. Ground should be broken within 60 to 90 days for a pocket park in the Brady district on the north side of downtown, he said.

The greenprint ultimately could provide a way to connect downtown to the River Parks trails along the Arkansas River and the trails leading into Osage County.

A successful pocket park also could be extended into a sizable green space.

"Parks are not just scenic amenities," Gregory said. "A good park and trail system is a critical part of the quality of life in a community."

A late 1990s study of executives who opened or relocated businesses in the Austin, Texas, area found that parks and trails ranked second only to schools in making the decision to move, Gregory said.

"Each individual location is going to have a different feel," he said. "We think this is a really good way to go forward with improving the quality of urban life."