I think you are trying too much to make sense.
I think you are trying too much to make sense.
I'm going to believe you Urbanized over anyone, pro or con, who looks at OKC from a distance. As I've said they bring their particular biases to their evaluation. You I know have an understanding of what's going on in downtown Oklahoma City. Thanks very much for the information. This is what people need to hear. The truth.
If we ever get some hard numbers and evidence that's the case let's see it. Otherwise, it's $250+250 million or so in unsupported rhetoric.
We need less of that and more actual facts.
Excellent post. Great to hear your voice on this thread. You represent a small, local business and Bricktown attraction. For all of the rhetoric Shadid makes about supporting small, local business, his proposals all will hurt their bottom line. People forget how much money visitors spend in OKC on lodging, dining, shopping, and services -- not to mention, visiting our attractions. To me, $250 million seems like a bargain for a brand-new facility, particularly when I read about cities like Nashville spending upward of $800 million for their facility.
I actually asked one of his campaign associates if Shadid is advocating OKC simply getting out of the convention business altogether. Waving the white flag, so to speak. And I got no response. Crickets. It's not clear to me exactly what these people want. They ridicule the convention center and decry the "process," but what is their alternative? Just not build one at all and see our share of the convention market fall each year? So tired of rhetoric and division. Ready for leadership and "can do" efforts to move this city forward. This election can't happen fast enough.
How much money is a hotel asking for?
The millions we've spent downtown has done the work we were told it would do. 1994 OKC looks a lot different from 2014 OKC, in case you haven't noticed.
I also disagree with your reliance on the private sector. The private sector didn't turn around downtown OKC. The public did. Private industry isn't a panacea. The private sector is good at making money, but it doesn't care where or how it makes it. It's as likely to build a call center in Yukon as it is to build a glittering downtown hotel. You can't just say "Private sector... alakazam!" and have a brand new hotel appear. Otherwise we would have one downtown right now.
The entire purpose of building this convention center, and a hotel, is to boost OKC into a new level of economic activity, one we haven't seen before. We are trying to convince a large hotel to come here instead of building their new 35 story hotel in some other state. Again, private industry is good at making money, but they don't do it where you always want it and they don't do directed projects.
You will never get actual facts, hard numbers, because they won't exist until after the convention center + hotel is built.
Anything else is guesswork, period.
I had a professor in college who used to say that no one writes anything without a reason. That's probably the most important thing I learned at OU. Anyone who puts in the amount of time and effort needed to come up with a decent set of projections on this topic is going to be getting paid to do it, and they're going to have their own opinions on the subject. If you are waiting for numbers without any bias then you will be waiting until the cows come home, and I don't mean my ex-girlfriend and her friends.
We had no hard numbers when we built the Chesapeake Arena. But people recognized a need for the city and went ahead with a plan to fill that need.
People who study the numbers and the market can make reasonable assumptions and projections. We don't have that from the pro crowd. We have BS numbers and rhetoric.
Then why is the "anti" crowd using BS numbers? You are like talking to a wall. Many people here have commented that the numbers that were promoted for the convention center were probably exaggerated. Why do you ignore those posts and just write troll nonsense like this? Why do you promote the garbage $800 million numbers Shadid says we're "on the hook" for, when we are on the "hook" only for the $250 million we voted for and approved?
I suspect you will not answer this question and continue to deploy misdirection and sophistry. Very hard to converse with someone who doesn't continue the conversation where it advanced to but rather reboots every time to talking points.
We all agree on that part.
Again, knee jerk per usual, Urbanized, not Ed, just made a case for us getting financially involved with a hotel. Try reading the thread sometime.
I never said we are on the hook for $800 million. We aren't. Maybe you can post some more stuff in big letters and multi-quote a few long posts too to clog up the thread per your usual.
As far as an estimate on possible total costs to build a hotel, (not what the taxpayers are on the hook for, not what Ed said or any other fallacy you can come up with again and again) try this from the top of the thread. It's as good as any other opinion on this board:
Address: SW corner of Robinson & Reno
Status: proposed
Owner:
Cost: est $200 million
Architect:
Start Date:
Finish Date: est 2019
Contractor:
Height in Feet / Floors:
Sq. Feet:
Acreage:
Other: Recommended 735 rooms
Hey you like using big numbers, so here's one for ya... That ( Pro ) crowd is about 97% of us out here. ...we are comfortable in our large numbers. That leaves a very small ( 3% ) for the uninformed / misinformed / & the 1% that always votes against the majority.
I hope we get a chance to vote for a hotel that is $1B in cost, because our economy is growing at a pace that requires it.
( wait, that may be too small, let's make that $1.5 B in cost so we can have 2 Iconic Towers looking over our fine city.)
Because you are repeatedly implying that we might/will have to spend $250 million on a convention center hotel. By repeating it as ad nauseum as I'm trying to ask the above question, you leave it out there for the uninformed and low information voters to see and, I'm sure, hopefully believe. That's Ed rhetoric, which is why I brought his name up. I'm saying let's not get all hysterical until we see what a hotel is asking for. To do otherwise is to use fear mongering for political gain. And who is doing that?
So far: no hotel, no financial demands.
The sheer irony of this post is flooring. Would you care to support both sides of the $250+250 figure as money the city would be spending? I'm looking for some "hard numbers" and "actual facts" here, so don't try to change the subject or muddy the waters. It is time to back up your words and numbers.
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
So, does this mean you are the person giving us BS numbers and rhetoric? Surely you could back up your numbers if you aren't.
Like Soonercan'tread, you aren't keeping up with the thread either. No surprise.
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