I think a lot of you are assuming all the cities mls is expanding too are going to be major successes. That’s simply not going to be the case. Several are going to struggle and look to relocate at some point. That will be the energy’s and OKC’s shot to get into the mix.
Looks like an awesome project, and if the canal expansion is included that’s even better. Beer in bricktown and a ride on a boat to the game. This town is sports obsessed and it’s likely to be included.
I want to wait and see where this goes before I pass any judgments. If there are strict guidelines as to what can be built here which can most certainly be accomplished, that will mean more to me than a soccer stadium. I wish the owners would privately fund it but this is the hand of cards we are dealt. This won't be the first stadium that a city funded with tax dollars. I bet some more details will be revealed part of this proposal and we will learn more. This could be a catalyst to the area to jump start something where there is nothing. We can fix our mistakes and be smarter. The answer isn't always no.
Keep in mind the stadium the Sacramento Republic play In was built for 3 mil only a few year ago and seats 12k
Trying to stay positive and be as openminded as possible. Not a fan of Funk or virtually anything he's done, though, and this is not at all high on my list of priorities.
Although, I'd rather see the grassy banks near the corner ends of the stadium; this stadium is built for future expansion.
The grassy bank on the short side of the stadium (left), can be used for overflow crowds like The Brick. Beginning to like this design & concept. Current cost tag reported by KFOR-TV is $71-$97 million.
Prefer we go ahead with an MLS 22,000-seat stadium where the venue will be MLS ready. Budget $120 million for an MLS stadium instead of $71-$97 million for a USL 8,000-10,000 seat starter stadium.
There's also Alliance of American Football (AAF), Xtreme Football League (XFL) and Freedom Football League (FFL). The FFL has already identified OKC as a initial league market--don't know if the FFL will ever come to fruitition.
Probably the reason they are floating this for MAPS 4 isn’t just the great location or the “free” public money.... it’s the Imminent Domain rights that the City of OKC possesses to force the owners into a negotiation for a much lower land price and therefore create a predetermined outcome.
Also not a fan of the massive soccer complexes. I'd rather see neighborhood soccer fields spread across the southside and metro.
Hmn. If this polls as a popular idea I would be fine with it being included. I want a MAPS 4 that can pass, and a soccer stadium may or may not be a good fit for that.
Can we get away from the MAPS mega projects this time around? At this point in MAPS history smaller, incremental investments at the neighborhood level will do more to transform our city and quality of life than high risk, high cost projects like this.
We need to evaluate the whole package of Ideas for MAPS 4. It's impossible for everyone to get all the projects they want & don't want on MAPS 4; that's always been the beauty of the Metropolitan Area ProjectS initiative; hopefully a project or two that will appeal to you will be among those on the ballot.
I have a suspension there are some posters on here who have voted 'NO' on all previous MAPS projects; you know who you are, you're IMHO just looking for an excuse to be a 'Naysayer.'
EVERYONE IS NOT GOING TO GET EVERY SINGLE THING THEY WANT ON THIS INITIATIVE; IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. MAPS HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT VARIETY. THOSE OF YOU WHO PRETEND THAT IF THERE'S SOMETHING ON THERE YOU DON'T WANT, YOU'RE GOING TO VOTE 'NO.' IS THAT FAIR--THINK ABOUT HOW SELFISH YOU SOUND.
Oklahoma City is ready to move to the next level.
Again, those of you who plan to vote 'NO,' let me ask you this question--'What have you submitted?" If you have submitted something and it doesn't appear on MAPS 4; there's not anything proposed on MAPS 4 you like, then we understand your 'No' vote.
What have you submitted?
What smaller projects would you propose that would transform neighborhoods?
You can submit some smaller neighborhood projects on MAPS; we could have dedicated MAPS 4 as a MAPS 4 NEIGHBORHOODS theme.
MAPS PROJECTS LEGALITY: OKC Central Chat transcript, October 12, 2018: https://newsok.com/article/5611486/o...teve-lackmeyer
Guest said:
Having the MAPS projects voted on as a package seems like logrolling which has been consistently condemned by the Oklahoma Supreme Court because it forces voters to levy a tax on themselves for something they don't want in order to tax themselves for another item that they do want. Why not allow the voters to vote on MAPS projects separately? If we were to consider a stadium for example, allow the people to vote yes or no on funding a stadium through a sales tax without logrolling seven other projects on the same vote.
Steve Lackmeyer replied:
The last ballot was not log-rolling. The council voted a resolution showing their intent on how to spend a capital projects tax if passed by voters and I suspect the same process will be followed with a proposed MAPS 4.
For what it's worth, however, the Better Streets Safer City did list the projects as you're suggesting. But there is a benefit for going the other way; I have no doubt the original MAPS would have failed if they weren't a "all or nothing" ballot which at that time was not determined to go against state statutes.
Here's a good idea for MAPS4: No new taxes. Current ~8% sales tax? Too much and too high. Let's reduce the local sales tax to 4% and work our way down from there. City government is too big. Payroll is too much and overhead is too much. Property taxes are out of control.
Let's get a list posted of how many total employees there are and how much each one is getting paid. I want to see the city budget.
https://www.okc.gov/departments/fina...book-breakdown
Can’t believe they hid all this on Google...
I'm personally excited for this. I'm not sure that the whole league soccer complex is needed though. To be frank, we don't have a need in this area for little league soccer and really never will. There are clubs all over the city already and downtown isn't exactly lacking a club venue since there aren't very many kids living down there anyway. What it could do, is be a tournament space, but often tournies are hosted by clubs as a fundraiser for the club as well, so good luck there.
Rugby/Lacross lines, yeah again im not sure that's worth spending the money on those. Soccer and Football lines are plenty to get us all kinds of events...probably more than the place can really accommodate.
And i'm extra happy this would be at this location and not way up at Chisolm. You've seen my issues with that location, so no since in hashing that again.
Not sure what you are referring to.
I've met Jr. several times. He's an extremely nice man. I really appreciate the work that his wife is doing with the family crisis center over at 11th and Hudson. When we met, one area he kept stressing was the need to help resolve mental health issues in our city and criminal justice reform. FWIW, I think that he would be extremely supportive of social services infrastructure in MAPS 4 to help deal with these city-wide problems.
I don't know much about him beyond The Energy and his opinions on these other mental health/criminal justice reform matters.
By this area do you mean Okc or downtown/south side? Because there is already a smaller soccer complex a few blocks south of Wheeler where last I checked it was heavily used. These fields would just complement those or replace which is needed. For comparison I believe they are about to add a bunch more fields to the NOKC complex or c. b. Cameron park which again is heavily used.
The field at Chisholm was always a temp use if I remember all the post correctly. They have to be at a official sized field by a certain date and I see no way this downtown one could be built in time so I'm sure they have a temp plan already in place.
Remember the Chamber of Commerce is the group that pays for and runs the MAPS promotional campaigns (something this is very usual and should be at least openly questioned).
And they want big, shiny projects in the core that they can use in their marketing efforts.
This time around, they are absolutely behind the I-235 cap, the State Fair Coliseum and this stadium.
It's easy to be cynical of government in today's world but I really don't think we should be aiming our crosshairs at MAPS. It's a true political success story which seems pretty rare these days. "high risk/ high cost" Maybe, but how many MAPS projects "failed"? If anything, the fact that citizens get to vote yes or no on this and that these projects are fully funded before completion is a sign to me that the MAPS model is one of the least risky ways to build large scale public projects. How bad would our roads be if we didn't invest in these projects that help create tax revenue and promote the parts of the city that help subsidize infrastructure for the 622 square miles of land area of this city. I don't like every project but its hard to deny that MAPS has been essential in the transformation we've seen in our city.
With that being said, I'm 1000% open to Maps including some neighborhood beautification/bike/ped money, maintenance money, and money for social services like has been discussed.
If this is the case then I think it will fail miserably. I've also voted Yes for every previous MAPS too.
I'm also for neighborhood beautification and more sidewalks ect. What are the chances of proposing to extend streetcar up to Wilshire and the tracks and south to some point to create park and ride stations with maybe one of two stop in between?
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