Convention Center

[Teo9969]

I have a feeling that $380 million could be spent better and faster toward a streetcar system now rather than waiting for your eventual 30 year mark.

I'd have spent every penny of MAPS 3 on the street car...but that's just me.

[Dubya61]

I'd have spent every penny of MAPS 3 on the street car...but that's just me.

I think JusttheFacts would have too, and (in my mind) it begs the time-machine question: If you pump $380M on the street car or other CBD-centric (but not fully contained in the CBD) modern mass transit, what would the future hold? Would it generate a better Core (and stifle the sprawl) and increase property tax revenue to the point where, in 25 - 30 years, we would be able to build a fully funded NFL stadium when the time was right? or what if we had such a vibrant, growing city (not some checkerboard with surface parking lots filling in one of the colors) thanks to the transit investment that some business man or woman would be willing to go halvsies with us? It's all speculation. for me, and certainly that's putting all the eggs in one basket ...

[ljbab728]

I think what we have now is "just right." I don't want the NFL.

I'd say go after MLB or MLS if anything. I just don't think the NFL is anything we need to go after.

Spartan, you're still just po'd because we didn't get a LFL (Lingerie Football League) team. LOL

[jedicurt]

Spartan, you're still just po'd because we didn't get a LFL (Lingerie Football League) team. LOL

I'm still PO'd about that... have any of you been to an LFL game... it's not the sexy sport people think it is. These girls are playing tackle football with virtually no pads... you hardly notice the lingerie by the end of the game with all the bruises they have on their bodies. I went with a guy i used to work with who played for a season in the NFL back in the early 80's with the bills (well, three games, but still, he was there dang it) and he said that he wouldn't be out there playing with as few pads as these girls were wearing. it's a rough, brutal, and beautiful sport

[Spartan]

Spartan, you're still just po'd because we didn't get a LFL (Lingerie Football League) team. LOL

Pfft... Absolutely.

[jccouger]

I'm pissed about it too. One of the most dissapointing and emberessing moments of my life as an Oklahoman was the day we rejected the LFL.

[Larry OKC]

MAPS 3 polls showed immense popular support for an NFL stadium. ...

While it did get more suggestions than the NBA, it didn't exactly garner "immense popular support" and have to remember they lumped Football & Soccer into one category. Just like they lumped all Transit together, we don't know the individual breakdown. This is how many times it was suggested out of 2,747.

Interesting note is that the suggestion site was up for something like 3 months, didn't have to be an OKC resident (they got responses from several states & countries)

City of Oklahoma City | MAPS 3 survey results

40 Major league Sports/NBA Practice Facility
65 Football or Soccer Stadium
668 Transit (light rail, streetcars, etc.)

________________________

The one problem I think we've started running into with MAPS is that it's generally been targeted towards fairly low-cost, high-value projects, and now people think everything should be built through MAPS. We invested in a whole bunch of fairly inexpensive (relatively) quality of life upgrades. Our NBA arena cost about a third of what most NBA arenas cost. We built a very nice minor league ballpark. We're buying up salvage yards and turning them into a nice downtown park. We're going to put in a nice little streetcar. These kinds of developments have been very popular and quite successful. But when you start talking large convention centers, NFL stadiums, commuter rail, and other BIG projects, you're looking at spending more than MAPS 3's entire budget for just one thing. I'm not sure if the city is ready to support such massive projects.

Genrally true. The budget just for the MAPS 3 Convention Center is more than what voters were told all 9 of the original MAPS projects were going to cost together. But I would say that if the support is really there (like it was for Transit), folks will vote for it even if it does have a big price tag attached.

[jn1780]

MAPS 3 polls showed immense popular support for an NFL stadium.

Until we pay a half billion dollars and a NFL team never comes. I think a lot of people in the survey are assuming it would be easy to get a team after a stadium was built.

[OKCisOK4me]

I'd have spent every penny of MAPS 3 on the street car...but that's just me.

Since this thread for some reason has no L I K E option...."like"

[OKCisOK4me]

Until we pay a half billion dollars and a NFL team never comes. I think a lot of people in the survey are assuming it would be easy to get a team after a stadium was built.

"The median income for a household in the city was $43,798, and the median income for a family was $54,721. The per capita income for the city was $25,042." <----on the Oklahoma City Wikipedia page.

Sorry, but it's going to take paychecks a lot higher than this to support an NFL team. We need more big time corporate headquarters in downtown. I think 3-4 Forbes 100s would help. The Oklahoma 'Field of Dreams' mentality of "If we build it (through MAPS #) they will come" doesn't mean anything is going to ever come to fruition.

[ljbab728]

I'm still PO'd about that... have any of you been to an LFL game... it's not the sexy sport people think it is. These girls are playing tackle football with virtually no pads... you hardly notice the lingerie by the end of the game with all the bruises they have on their bodies. I went with a guy i used to work with who played for a season in the NFL back in the early 80's with the bills (well, three games, but still, he was there dang it) and he said that he wouldn't be out there playing with as few pads as these girls were wearing. it's a rough, brutal, and beautiful sport

This is my last post on this because it's very off topic but they get bruises in the most attractive places. LOL

[George]

Good article by Steve:

Plans move ahead for OKC convention center, hotel despite collapse in national market | Oklahoman.com

Reading about Conventions, Sports & Leisure (the consultants to OKC) brought to mind the Upton Sinclair quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

[Just the facts]

The reality is the people of OKC were misled by the Chamber of Commerce and their support for a new convention center. The numbers simply do not add up. It would take a 900% increase in out-of-state conventions to reach the numbers the Chamber used to get the Convention Center on the list - 900%. Go look at the convention calendars in the states around Oklahoma as see how many of those conventions would consider OKC. I don't care how good we make it, OKC will NEVER, I repeat NEVER, host the Texas State Educators Conference or the Austin City-wide Yard Sale. The vast vast vast majority of all convention center uses are for local and state events. OKC would still land those if all we had are tents.

Now having said all that, I still support a new convention center because the land the Cox is on is more valuable than 20 years’ worth of conventions. Which makes their current choice of sites (the old Ford dealership) even more stupid. MAPS was supposed to encourage private development, not take the best parcels of land from private developers.

[Popsy]

The reality is the people of OKC were misled by the Chamber of Commerce and their support for a new convention center. The numbers simply do not add up. It would take a 900% increase in out-of-state conventions to reach the numbers the Chamber used to get the Convention Center on the list - 900%. Go look at the convention calendars in the states around Oklahoma as see how many of those conventions would consider OKC. I don't care how good we make it, OKC will NEVER, I repeat NEVER, host the Texas State Educators Conference or the Austin City-wide Yard Sale. The vast vast vast majority of all convention center uses are for local and state events. OKC would still land those if all we had are tents.

Now having said all that, I still support a new convention center because the land the Cox is on is more valuable than 20 years’ worth of conventions. Which makes their current choice of sites (the old Ford dealership) even more stupid. MAPS was supposed to encourage private development, not take the best parcels of land from private developers.

If private developers were to pay the price the owners are asking for the property, what type of development would assure them of recovering their investment in the property. If the city does not buy it you are probably looking at no change to the parking lot that it will become for the next 25-50 years unless the owners dramatically reduce their asking price. By the way, the owners are sellers, not developers.

[Just the facts]

If private developers were to pay the price the owners are asking for the property, what type of development would assure them of recovering their investment in the property. If the city does not buy it you are probably looking at no change to the parking lot that it will become for the next 25-50 years unless the owners dramatically reduce their asking price. By the way, the owners are sellers, not developers.

How much are the owners asking for the land?

[Larry OKC]

The reality is the people of OKC were misled by the Chamber of Commerce and their support for a new convention center. The numbers simply do not add up. It would take a 900% increase in out-of-state conventions to reach the numbers the Chamber used to get the Convention Center on the list - 900%. Go look at the convention calendars in the states around Oklahoma as see how many of those conventions would consider OKC. I don't care how good we make it, OKC will NEVER, I repeat NEVER, host the Texas State Educators Conference or the Austin City-wide Yard Sale. The vast vast vast majority of all convention center uses are for local and state events. OKC would still land those if all we had are tents.

Now having said all that, I still support a new convention center because the land the Cox is on is more valuable than 20 years’ worth of conventions. Which makes their current choice of sites (the old Ford dealership) even more stupid. MAPS was supposed to encourage private development, not take the best parcels of land from private developers.

Exactly. From the article:

"...projecting annual increases of about 3 percent in the convention business."""

This is a HUGE difference between the 3-fold (300%) increase the same consultants promised the chamber and even further away from the 9-fold increase required in out-of-area growth that the Chamber admitted after the vote passed (when they were arguing to get the C.C. pushed up in the timeline. The Chamber also lied when they said that by moving it up, it would be open and all of that increased business would result in increased tax collections for whatever MAPS 3 projects got pushed behind the C.C. Problem is, if the C.C. opens on schedule (historically, highly unlikely). It will be months AFTER the MAPS 3 tax ends. Not one penny in extra revenue will be raised for those other projects due to the C.C. the money "extra" they will get is the built in inflation factor calculated from the mid-point of the MAPS 3 timelines.

If private developers were to pay the price the owners are asking for the property, what type of development would assure them of recovering their investment in the property. If the city does not buy it you are probably looking at no change to the parking lot that it will become for the next 25-50 years unless the owners dramatically reduce their asking price. By the way, the owners are sellers, not developers.

According to the City's Core to Shore report, the City envisioned that land to be redeveloped into a multi-purpose. Timeframe unknown. However, that land is situated between the public-financed Myriad Gardens and MAPS 3 park. I think there is little argument that the highest and best use for it is something other than a C.C. Well, except the the C.C. advocates...

You are presuming that if the City doesn't build something there, then no one will. Maybe. Maybe not. Just like when folks agreed to the Devon tif and the forfeiture of the money schools etc would normally get from the rise in property taxes for something like 20 years, presumes that if Devon wasn't allowed to build on that specific spot, that Devon wouldn't have built the tower on another piece of property or that no one else would ever develop it.

False presumptions.

[Just the facts]

I wonder if Convention Sports and Leisure has ever come back with an analysis that said "don't build".

[betts]

I wonder if Convention Sports and Leisure has ever come back with an analysis that said "don't build".

Who would hire them for the next study if they did?

[Spartan]

No. The Boston Globe did an amazing exposé on that.

The CC is a demonstrably bad idea.

[ChaseDweller]

Would it require a vote of the people to change from an all new convention center to spending part of the funds remodeling/expanding the rest of the incomparable Myriad and allocating the other part to the streetcar/mass transit/sidewalks? Maybe not legally, but politically it would seem like a good idea. I just hate the idea of building an albatross in the middle of downtown that has no demonstrable business purpose. The convention business is a dying business. If Chicago, etc. can't get the remaining few national conventions, how do we expect to?

[Just the facts]

No vote of the people needed, but it wouldn't be a bad idea.

[OkieDave]

This is the turd in the MAPS punchbowl, if they build this boondoggle the MAPS brand will be tarnished, fix it now, use money for update or better projects and MAPS votes can live on. Online version of the story up now. Plans move ahead for convention center, hotel despite collapse in national market | NewsOK.com

[Pete]

And this needed to be moved to the front of the line of MAPS 3.... Why??

My biggest fear is that is goes so over budget that the rest of the projects -- all more important IMO -- get short-changed or even cut.

[Just the facts]

And this needed to be moved to the front of the line of MAPS 3.... Why??

So it can be open before the market goes away completely?

[OklahomaNick]

To address a couple of points.

Convention business is not dying. It has experienced a slow down like EVERY thing else associated with the economy, and it will make a comeback.
We have NO idea what the economy is going to be like in 7 years. Why not be well prepared in case it does rebound?
OKC has been praised by forging ahead through the recession while other cities are being stagnant. This area is no exception.

Everyone that voted YES for MAPS 3 years ago next month KNEW that a Convention Center was the centerpiece of this whole project.
To remove this measure is essentially a slap in the face to the voters.
That's why people like Ed Shadid need to respect what has already passed and get involved heavily "If" or "When" a future MAPS vote comes up.

I know a Convention Center is not a "sexy" public works project, but I understand the need for a new one.
This is just one of those things we will be happy we did it when we look back on it.. Like everything else associated with MAPS we did