Just minutes from downtown Tulsa, along the bank of the Arkansas River sits the 100-acre Gathering Place, a magnificent new park for the city. The park was developed by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and was built over a four-year period. At a cost of just over $465 million, it is the largest privately funded park project in the United States. 

The park is a lush landscape with thousands of trees, plants, flowers and acres of grasses. It features sports courts, bike and skate parks and walking trails. The main attraction and heart of Gathering Place is the ONEOK Boathouse which sits on the shore of the Pond and runs through the park’s center.

The three-level, 21,000 square foot boathouse serves as a restaurant, boatlift facility, activity hall and administrative office center for the park. The open-air pavilion on top of the boathouse sits 35’ above the pond.  It is a platform for the Vista restaurant and offers great views of the park and downtown. Huge pipe columns ascend up through the platform to support 7,200 square foot fiberglass “sail like” panels. 

All of the steel pipe columns and supporting braces were hot-dip galvanized prior to being coated with a white paint to match the color of the adjoining sails. The designers insisted on hot-dip galvanizing to ensure worry free maintenance for decades as the structure weathers with the elements. 

Beneath the pavilion is a fully-equipped dock area for the paddle boats, canoes and kayaks which can be rented to explore the pond. A hot-dip galvanized chain lift system to rack and stack the boats is mounted to the piers that support the pavilion. Overhead support beams, vertical bracing and moving arms were all hot-dip galvanized to protect the structure. 

The ONEOK Boathouse is clearly a show piece for the park. It is a place where visitors can gather to take in the horizon and register the watercolor painted Tulsa skyline. The ONEOK Boathouse will serve the community of Tulsa for years to come thanks to the protection and enhancement provided by hot-dip galvanizing.