Online Camera Tracks Tulsa Stadium's Progress

By Jennifer Loren, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa energy giant ONEOK has installed an eye in the sky where you can watch contruction progress on downtown's new baseball park.

Bob Jack with Manhattan Construction is in charge of 150 crew members finishing the excavation of 13 feet of dirt and beginning to add concrete and utilities to ONEOK Field.

"You can see the outfield walls going up," Jack said. "You can now see the home locker rooms structure going up, so we're right on target to where we thought we would be."

3/18/2009 Related story: ONEOK Field Construction Web Cam

The number of crew members will soon double. Jack says they are on schedule to be finished in time for the Drillers' first pitch April 8, 2010.

"We are moving very quickly, but that was our commitment to the trust," Jack said. "When we took on this project we really had a short fuse."

Keeping an eye on the progress, this camera mounted on top of City Hall. It takes a snapshot of the construction site every 15 minutes so you can track it online.

"We feel like ONEOK Field is a major step in the revitalization of downtown, and there seems to be so much community interest that we just thought this was another way to help keep the community involved," ONEOK spokeswoman Megan Washbourne said.

And the community is interested. A few ladies stopped by to see how things were going, even though they're not sure they like the idea of a new stadium.

"I'm excited," Tulsa resident Tammy Griffiths said. "I just don't know why they're moving from where it originally was, and that's my concern about it. It's a perfectly good ballpark where it was."

The next major hurdle for Manhattan Construction is getting new plans approved for the stadium's exterior.

"We've developed it to the point where I think we've got a lot of happy people, so I think it's going to be good," Jack said.

The stadium trust will see the new plans for the exterior at a meeting next week where they could be approved.