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About a year and a half after COVID-19 stalled progress on Block 34, Jim Beckstrom got a call.

On the line was Kicker CEO and Stillwater native Steve Irby.

“Steve called and said, ‘Hey, I’d like to donate some money to get Block 34 going.’ And I said, ‘Well, how much?’ And he said, ‘Well, $3 million.’ And I literally fell out of my chair,” Beckstrom said. “I almost welled up with tears in my eyes, like this is really finally gonna happen.”

Block 34, a community gathering space, will feature a stage, pavilion, beer garden, musician walk and natural playground, among other features. Located to the west of Main Street, Block 34 will be the newest of many additions to downtown. The project broke ground in February, and the green space is estimated to be open in fall 2025. 

Beckstrom, the Stillwater Community Center Foundation chair, has worked on Block 34 since the beginning. In 2017, Beckstrom served as chair of the committee to determine what Block 34 would be. After years of discussions and setbacks during the pandemic, Beckstrom said he wasn’t sure if the project would make progress. 

Block 34 went through many iterations of what it could be, Beckstrom said, including one plan for it to be a hotel. 

Beckstrom said many of the proposed plans would have required the Stillwater Community Center, which lies across the street from Block 34, to be partially or completely torn down. The community did not respond well to those proposals, he said. 

In the midst of the city reviewing the proposals, Beckstrom said hundreds of residents expressed desire for another community space. 

“Have a stage on it, have a gathering place, having a place for the city to come together, because right now there really, until this is done, there really isn’t such a place to really get together en masse,” Beckstrom said.

Creating another “lifestyle feature” for Stillwater was a main reason for Kicker’s donation of about $7.3 million, Irby said. 

Irby, on behalf of Kicker, has donated to the project on several occasions. After the initial $3 million donation, Irby then also contributed $800,000 for 10 years of programming and another $4.3 million for architectural design. 

Simmons Bank, the project’s other major donor, has contributed $1.5 million, which has helped Block 34 meet its design requirements. 

Market President Kevin Fowler, who served on the Block 34 task force, said donating to the project was a “perfect fit” because the community could gather for free. 

“Stillwater has been really good to Simmons Bank, and we wanted to reward the community in a way, and we were looking for such a naming rights opportunity,” Fowler said. 

Both companies will have their names on Block 34: the Kicker Sound Stage and the Simmons Pavillion. 

Kicker, a wholesale producer, was a recipient of the Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic because the company was able to keep its people employed, Irby said. Without the extra pandemic income from the government, donating a lump sum of money wouldn’t be a good business decision, he said.

“But we like the idea of the park and the community aspect and the music, and it all just made sense in a way to give back, because really, the money that we got is really from people,” Irby said.

Irby, who took inspiration from the city park in Boulder, Colorado, said he hopes Block 34 will have consistent events, such as a Saturday farmer’s market with music. 

“There’s just a lot of potential there that we’ve tried to design in,” Irby said. “I think it will probably kind of evolve organically once we get it going. Just see what works and what people want to want to do.”

Irby said he thinks Block 34 will be a “catalyst for economic development around that area.”

“That end of town is, that’s the old part of Stillwater,” Irby said. “And so I think there’s some character to it.”

The area near Block 34 has grown in recent years, adding Stonecloud Brewing Co., Empire Slice House and Hatch, among others. 

Matt Sullins, Stonecloud’s manager, said Block 34 could bring a new “cultural center” to Stillwater.

“I think, potentially, it could kind of be like a cornerstone for even more growth because there are some empty buildings around here that I think are prime for cool spots,” Sullins said.

The city hired Crossland Construction Co., Inc. for about $12.1 million to build a new storm drain on Duncan Street, an interactive playground, music play equipment, composite metal panels and an alternate pavement section for Block 34.

The city has contributed $5.5 million in public improvements, such as new streets, LED lights and a new storm sewer, Interim City Manager Brady Moore said. It acquired the land for $422,518.

Block 34 is one of 15 projects listed on the City of Stillwater’s website. Moore said Block 34 is “very ambitious” on the city’s part. 

It is common for projects like Block 34 to receive donations from private entities, Moore said. It is similar to the Kaiser family donating to finance the Gathering Place in Tulsa. 

“We have a lot of projects, but we have a growing, vibrant city, and so I’m proud of our staff and the amount of work that they’re undertaking in order to keep up with the growth of this city,” Moore said. 

Improved public spaces, such as Block 34, could help bolster OSU’s community, environmental engineering professor Mary Foltz said. 

“I feel like Stillwater has a sense of community that I haven’t seen in a lot of places, but they don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to support that,” Foltz said. 

This project could indicate to potential faculty that the city is invested in its community, Foltz said. Block 34 will “be a hub” for the community, she said. 

“It kind of goes with the feeling that you get down there, like it’s community building, it’s finding connection,” Foltz said. “It’s a good space to get together with people. It’s a good place for events.”

Among the other outcomes, Beckstrom said he hopes Block 34 will bring, he said Block 34 could help “foster the music scene” in Stillwater. 

Beckstrom said he hopes the gathering space could be used for large music or theater festivals. The six to eight big stages in downtown Stillwater, which include those in the library and community center, could make the city an ideal location, in addition to it being a good fit with to the community, he said. 

“It can handle thousands of people,” Beckstrom said. “The green space is bigger than Guthrie Green. It’s got the capacity to handle a really big crowd, and it’s super exciting.”

news.ed@ocolly.com