Streetcar

[OKC Guy]

This whole “the suburbs have been subsidizing downtown for _____ years” business is malarkey; I’m sorry. Which square mile of the 622 miles of Oklahoma City are you talking about? In around 2014 or 2015 (sorry, I don’t recall which) the City of OKC on the request of Downtown OKC Inc (now the Downtown OKC Partnership) pulled a sales tax report on the roughly square mile that compromises Bricktown. During the preceding year, that square mile produced roughly FIVE PERCENT of the entire city’s sales tax. Meaning one dollar in 20 of the budget for the police protection, fire protection, library, road, water and whatever other services we ALL enjoy was paid for by a single square mile OF SIX HUNDRED TWENTY TWO.

Mind you, this was before Midtown, Film Row, West Village, Automobile Alley and on and on had any appreciable entertainment or retail. Today, all of those areas together probably account for 2-3 times that percentage.

Do those areas attract dollars from OKC’s subrurban City limits? Sure they do. Of course, those people could just as easily be going to Edmond or Norman or Dallas or wherever to spend their entertainment dollars. But they don’t. Because downtown OKC (and the rapidly-regenerating core like Uptown, Paseo and Plaza) holds their attention. It ALSO, by the way, attracts dollars FROM Edmond. And Mustang. and Yukon. And Norman. And Dallas. And Amarillo. And Fort Smith. And Los Angeles. And London. And Stuttgart. And Trondheim. And Sydney. And Taipei. How do I know this? Because I’ve talked to people from all of those places in the past 30 days, and I talk to a FRACTION of the people my employees talk to. Those people pay for your police, and your fire protection, and your library, and your road resurfacing. And they’re not going to visit your neighborhood no matter how nice the park is there.

By the way, there is a HUGE concentration of jobs within 2 miles of downtown. And part of the reason they are there is because of amenities.

Also, I live very close to downtown, and work IN downtown. When I shower (or whatever) it goes down 100 year old pipes. They were paid for by my grandfather’s grandfather. When someone builds a housing addition in BFE in the middle of a field, guess who pays for THOSE city sewer lines? ME. The guy who shops at the Homeland at 18th and Classen and eats lunch at the Midtown Garage, and who NEVER shops at the Crest in Edmond or eats at the Dairy Queen in Moore.

Should OKC be spending money in the suburbs? Neighborhoods I mean? The other 620 or so square miles? Yes, OF COURSE it should. Just tell me where. Tell me where you can spend $100 million (about a year of a penny tax collection for the whole city) and make the same type of impact. One mile of street construction runs about $10 million these days, so a year’s worth of MAPS tax will build ten miles of new section line roads. Where are you going to put those ten miles? That’s one years’ worth. Of our money. Yours (when you shop in the OKC city limits) mine, and the couple from Taipei.

Scissortail Park is about $130 million, so a year and four months’ worth. Want one in your neighborhood? Great. Now...what about the 98% of OKC residents who don’t live within 2 miles of you? What do they get? Bupkus? Well, they’re on the phone and they’re PISSED.

Look, I’m for finding as many ways as possible to improve ALL of OKC. And in some cases, this DEFINITELY means finding ways to make our suburbs work better through suburban retrofit, making parts of them more walkable, more dense, better generators of sales tax, and in some cases - sorry to say - less parasitic and less of a drain on our community resources.

But this notion that the suburbs are “subsidizing” downtown? Please. It’s horse puckey. Do the other 615 miles COMBINED generate more tax than the 6-7 that comprise downtown proper and the immediate neighborhoods? Of course. But show me another 6-7 square miles which generate anywhere near the same amount of tax. I’ll wait right here.

The poimt you are missing is a majority of the OKC suburbs are not as educated on the downtown topics as you are. You live there so its on your radar. They don’t. What is lost is the impression of money being spent downtown is starting to change where folks want to spend in future. I too work downtown and live in burbs. I love what Maps has done. But now havimg spent 25 years focused on downtown we will need to start thinking about the other 95% of voters as we move forward. We need to keep their confidence for future asks.

We all know within 15 years the Peake discussion will start, if we need to fund a new one. So we need to include the 95% in how we spend money because we will have a lot more asks.

Like I’ve said we have transformed downtown and its been a huge hit. We have to make sure we include in a positive way everyone in the city to continue getting things passed. That newish complex with Topgolf is showing we are starting to grow other areas besides downtown. The Edmomds will start driving there vs driving downtown because we have not addressed things like buses instead we created the SC. So as those folks can go to Topgolf complex for their entertainmemt you lose a segment of local downtown spend. Thus why I mentioned needing to have spent money getting people downtown from out of downtown. Looking at other new growth of entertainmemt alomg the 235 corridor (north of 44) you can start to see folks can drive closer for fun.

This does not make downtown go downhill, not at all. But as you start having more “outlying” venues the dollars get spread around. Had we spent SC money on buses you set up methods to get folks downtown.

And again, at next vote ots what people “think” regardless if they are right or not. Just because you live downtown does not mean burbs think and know what you do. Maps 3 was passex at 54% in 2009, 9 years ago. Look at the changes since then. One extreme example is Paycom out on Memorial and Rockwell/Council. They have 3,000 employees and are growing like bonkers. So around 7,500 with family members. Most will live in that area. Do you think a majority of them would vote for improved roads or more SC to expand in downtown? That is just one example of how we have changed. They and everyone can see the great changes downtown even the convention center/park/hotel. In their world money has been spemt dkwntown now they will want money in their areas. Right or wromg those are the type voters will be be needed for “Maps 4”.

Its important to note I love what we did downtown. But we have to look at how we are changing and adding other entertainment areas and people.

No mic drop for me all I want is to make sure we continue the positive momentem our fair city has garnered over the past 25 years. Of the tons of Maps projects in my opinon every single one has been a homerun expect the SC. I can see there are posters embedded on this topic and thats fine. I am trying to point out things downtowners don’t see that burbers like me do. A huge majority of suburban citizens (OKC) do not agree with the street car. It does not make us bad citizens it means the city has hurdles to overcome when wanting to expand it. If the burbaites are not brought in and engaged then a rift could develop causing future tax asks to fail.

I hope you take this constructively and realize there is 95% of non downtowners that need to be included in future downtown needs.