University Town Center

[Jersey Boss]

TIF and sales tax rebates, most likely.

My prediction is that if TIF is used there will be recalls of those who vote in favor.

[Jersey Boss]

i don't think this will require any public vote

Don't be surprised if TIF is proposed in Norman it will put up for a vote.

[Pete]

Keep in mind this new proposal represents far less public money than last time around.

Also, I strongly suspect they have already garnered the needed support from the City of Norman and the County.

I don't think they would be putting this out there without having their ducks in a row, including support from OU.


And of course, the SEC thing was not in the picture the last time this was proposed. That matters a lot because the university has very ambitious plans for both academics and athletics which means there will not be money for basketball for a very long time. This is the best way to get a really nice, new facility and not have to pay for it during a time when the university has much bigger priorities.

[LRSooner]

I know they've had struggles to fill the LNC, but the apparent 8,000 seats for the new arena seems way too slight. No reason a new arena should be any less than at least 9,000 as you have to imagine a new facility (with restaurants and shops) will be a draw along with the closer distance to the metro and the move to the SEC. We'll most likely see a good boost in attendance for a good while. Smaller facility limits its uses and is short sighted.

[jdross1982]

OU claims to not have the funds for building on campus yet for decades LNC has lost concerts to multiple venues in the metro and the football stadium has had 2 or 3 concerts the last 30 years. Maybe if the venues they have were being utilized they would have the funds.

A new arena alone would cost 200-300 million. This costs OU zero. No amount of concerts would garner enough financial windfall to build a new arena.

[mugofbeer]

Don't be surprised if TIF is proposed in Norman it will put up for a vote.

The volume of your positive thinking is deafening! You've been reading too many dcsooner posts.

[caaokc]

They said this morning the architect hasn't been hired yet, so maybe the renderings for the arena could be a little different than the original proposal.

[chssooner]

A ton will change once the public funding piece is determined. Unfortunately, things will be even more expensive by then, and if the city drags their feet at all, the private donors may get restless. So who knows. I will be cautiously optimistic until the city does their part and approves the funding mechanisms (likely next spring). Then we may truly see what it will look like.

[April in the Plaza]

Is Carol Hefner involved in this deal? She’s pimping this awfully hard on social media.

[Pete]

Is Carol Hefner involved in this deal? She’s pimping this awfully hard on social media.

No.

[UrbanistPoke]

They own everything under UTC and a good deal of the development profits go back to OU.

It's been a financial windfall for the university.

The school also owns a ton of land around Loyd Noble and the area that is home to the National Weather Center, as well as a ton of very underutilized property south of the dorm towers. As Norman continues to boom, that growth will be a major revenue source for the university. Increasingly, the pitiful state funding is a smaller and smaller percentage of OU's budget.

Financial windfall is not true - UTC has cost the university a ton of money too. They MIGHT be revenue neutral on UTC. They have all sorts of messy real estate financing entanglements around UTC and other developments.

OU has a TON of debt for a public institution and this just flies in the face of everything university management has been saying they'd do.

I do not buy that the university isn't going to financially support this somehow. My guess is they will provide a lot of the equity via the foundation to the surrounding development to help offset the cost of the arena development. That is extremely risky. UTC isn't anything more than a glorified strip mall and always seems that OU and Norman officials want to think it's Classen Curve or Penn Square. It's not and will never be. OU's cash flow is already nearly 50% to debt payments - very high for a public university and they have a mediocre to bad credit rating for a public entity. If they keep spending like this they are going to get further debt downgrades and State of Oklahoma is eventually going to have to bail them out. Seems like that is OU's admins goals. Too big to fail essentially so lets spend and build anything we want because SEC, SEC, SEC and then let taxpayers bail out the university later when they can't make debt service payments anymore.

Add this into the Campus Corner BS and all their dorm/living public private partnership lawsuits, etc. and good grief OU is a mess.

An off campus basketball arena for a school that already could not care for any sport but football (with minor care for softball) is a stupid idea. It should at least be somewhat walk able from campus or you'll never get any students there unless they give tickets away for free. Under 10,000 seats and it will serve no purpose for concerts or other live events that could help float the facility revenue wise.

I can't think of a successful arena model in a suburban area like this that has ever created a vibrant and economically sustainable surrounding development. Most cities have a difficult time doing it in downtowns with more viable arenas. Look at Victory Park in Dallas, the retail/office in front of the arena is awful. The rest of the neighborhood is pretty decent now but that took two decades. Power and Light in KC nearly bankrupted the city. You're talking about building out a 'mixed-use' entertainment district with surrounding strip malls and not a more vibrant walk-able urban neighborhood and that retail is going to not be successful. If this had been proposed for Downtown Norman or somewhere closer to campus this would probably be a good thing but at UTC and likely more shady OU real estate financing deals, this will be a billon dollar disaster that taxpayers will look forward to bailing out.

[Pete]

^

That is a lot of crazy talk and wishful thinking.

[chssooner]

Financial windfall is not true - UTC has cost the university a ton of money too. They MIGHT be revenue neutral on UTC. They have all sorts of messy real estate financing entanglements around UTC and other developments.

OU has a TON of debt for a public institution and this just flies in the face of everything university management has been saying they'd do.

I do not buy that the university isn't going to financially support this somehow. My guess is they will provide a lot of the equity via the foundation to the surrounding development to help offset the cost of the arena development. That is extremely risky. UTC isn't anything more than a glorified strip mall and always seems that OU and Norman officials want to think it's Classen Curve or Penn Square. It's not and will never be. OU's cash flow is already nearly 50% to debt payments - very high for a public university and they have a mediocre to bad credit rating for a public entity. If they keep spending like this they are going to get further debt downgrades and State of Oklahoma is eventually going to have to bail them out. Seems like that is OU's admins goals. Too big to fail essentially so lets spend and build anything we want because SEC, SEC, SEC and then let taxpayers bail out the university later when they can't make debt service payments anymore.

Add this into the Campus Corner BS and all their dorm/living public private partnership lawsuits, etc. and good grief OU is a mess.

An off campus basketball arena for a school that already could not care for any sport but football (with minor care for softball) is a stupid idea. It should at least be somewhat walk able from campus or you'll never get any students there unless they give tickets away for free. Under 10,000 seats and it will serve no purpose for concerts or other live events that could help float the facility revenue wise.

I can't think of a successful arena model in a suburban area like this that has ever created a vibrant and economically sustainable surrounding development. Most cities have a difficult time doing it in downtowns with more viable arenas. Look at Victory Park in Dallas, the retail/office in front of the arena is awful. The rest of the neighborhood is pretty decent now but that took two decades. Power and Light in KC nearly bankrupted the city. You're talking about building out a 'mixed-use' entertainment district with surrounding strip malls and not a more vibrant walk-able urban neighborhood and that retail is going to not be successful. If this had been proposed for Downtown Norman or somewhere closer to campus this would probably be a good thing but at UTC and likely more shady OU real estate financing deals, this will be a billon dollar disaster that taxpayers will look forward to bailing out.

Your username says all I need to know about your knowledge and biases about OU.

[onthestrip]

^

That is a lot of crazy talk and wishful thinking.

Is it? Its no secret of OU's financial problems. Im curious to know what OU is putting into this or if its basically TIF money that is making up the public 20%.

They say 80% of this is private money, so $800,000,000. They can raise $800,000,000 for this development but somehow cant raise enough money for just a new on campus arena? This is a pretty big disservice for players, fans and especially students.

[Pete]

OU isn't putting anything into this -- they will be a tenant in a publically owned facility like the Thunder pays OKC.

And looking at the current OU budget, interest expense is 4% of expenses not 50%. I am not going to bother with the rest, especially with someone who has presented no facts and has a clear agenda.

[chssooner]

Where would an on-campus arena work? This structure allows for OU to also make money from their ownership of empty land at UTC. And it will make a lot of money from that via this development. Whereas an on-campus arena, they have to pay to demolish a structure (no area is big enough for a whole new arena), then build an arena, and not get any lease revenue from the empty land at UTC that has had no hopes for development aside from these 2 proposals.

Good grief, people. Just because an on-campus arena sounds good, doesn't mean it can work. The only remotely feasible area is near the stadium, and that will be taken by an already approved football facility, leaving minimal room for non-students to park (students who wouldn't go to the games anyway, BTW). It's hard enough to get them to go to football games.

I am over these tired arguments of students being able to walk. They wouldn't go if the arena were underneath dorms, so this allows for private funding to pay for something that OU would have to pay for 100% out of pocket otherwise.

[UrbanistPoke]

A new arena alone would cost 200-300 million. This costs OU zero. No amount of concerts would garner enough financial windfall to build a new arena.

There is no concert market for an arena this size so that would be a no. That market is cornered by the casino's and other venues. If they build it with less than 10,000 seats it will sit vacant outside of OU sports.

[Pete]

They say 80% of this is private money, so $800,000,000. They can raise $800,000,000 for this development but somehow cant raise enough money for just a new on campus arena? This is a pretty big disservice for players, fans and especially students.

The private money is not coming from OU, it's PRIVATE money.

[Pete]

There is no concert market for an arena this size so that would be a no. That market is cornered by the casino's and other venues. If they build it with less than 10,000 seats it will sit vacant outside of OU sports.

You are just spewing nonsense and negativity with no facts, just very slanted opinions.

[BimmerSooner]

Financial windfall is not true - UTC has cost the university a ton of money too. They MIGHT be revenue neutral on UTC. They have all sorts of messy real estate financing entanglements around UTC and other developments.

OU has a TON of debt for a public institution and this just flies in the face of everything university management has been saying they'd do.

I do not buy that the university isn't going to financially support this somehow. My guess is they will provide a lot of the equity via the foundation to the surrounding development to help offset the cost of the arena development. That is extremely risky. UTC isn't anything more than a glorified strip mall and always seems that OU and Norman officials want to think it's Classen Curve or Penn Square. It's not and will never be. OU's cash flow is already nearly 50% to debt payments - very high for a public university and they have a mediocre to bad credit rating for a public entity. If they keep spending like this they are going to get further debt downgrades and State of Oklahoma is eventually going to have to bail them out. Seems like that is OU's admins goals. Too big to fail essentially so lets spend and build anything we want because SEC, SEC, SEC and then let taxpayers bail out the university later when they can't make debt service payments anymore.

Add this into the Campus Corner BS and all their dorm/living public private partnership lawsuits, etc. and good grief OU is a mess.

An off campus basketball arena for a school that already could not care for any sport but football (with minor care for softball) is a stupid idea. It should at least be somewhat walk able from campus or you'll never get any students there unless they give tickets away for free. Under 10,000 seats and it will serve no purpose for concerts or other live events that could help float the facility revenue wise.

I can't think of a successful arena model in a suburban area like this that has ever created a vibrant and economically sustainable surrounding development. Most cities have a difficult time doing it in downtowns with more viable arenas. Look at Victory Park in Dallas, the retail/office in front of the arena is awful. The rest of the neighborhood is pretty decent now but that took two decades. Power and Light in KC nearly bankrupted the city. You're talking about building out a 'mixed-use' entertainment district with surrounding strip malls and not a more vibrant walk-able urban neighborhood and that retail is going to not be successful. If this had been proposed for Downtown Norman or somewhere closer to campus this would probably be a good thing but at UTC and likely more shady OU real estate financing deals, this will be a billon dollar disaster that taxpayers will look forward to bailing out.

Jealous much? The have-nots (you know who you are) are getting left further and further behind. And you know it.

[UrbanistPoke]

OU isn't putting anything into this -- they will be a tenant in a publically owned facility like the Thunder pays OKC.

And looking at the current OU budget, interest expense is 4% of expenses not 50%. I am not going to bother with the rest, especially with someone who has presented no facts and has a clear agenda.

I mean Google is free and Fitch/other credit ratings are pretty easy to find but I have no "facts"... right. OU's Fitch credit rating is A+, that's bad for a public entity.

OU has over $1 billion in debt. Hate to break it to you. They also have been sued by multiple developers, most recently the private/public dorm partnership they had. Plenty of articles about that messy entanglement but I guess that never happened either.

If you think OU isn't going to be financing this somehow through equity investments, etc. I've got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you - just like how they've done other investments on the strip malls at UTC.

[jedicurt]

I mean Google is free and Fitch/other credit ratings are pretty easy to find but I have no "facts"... right. OU's Fitch credit rating is A+, that's bad for a public entity.

OU has over $1 billion in debt. Hate to break it to you. They also have been sued by multiple developers, most recently the private/public dorm partnership they had. Plenty of articles about that messy entanglement but I guess that never happened either.

and that is why OU won't be putting the money in on this.... how hard is that for you to understand?

[UrbanistPoke]

Jealous much? The have-nots (you know who you are) are getting left further and further behind. And you know it.

HA! Yeah, OSU with Gallagher-Iba Arena is really jealous of this proposed arena development. How will the "have nots" ever compete with OU in basketball.... Quick, someone call KU and the other have nots and tell them the news hot off the press in Norman.

[UrbanistPoke]

and that is why OU won't be putting the money in on this.... how hard is that for you to understand?

Looks like there could be a flood of that ocean front property in Arizona to sell. Maybe I'll finance a $100 million dollar + arena with the proceeds. Seems easy enough to do with no university support, "limited" public investments with a TIF or something, etc.

OU couldn't raise money for one on campus but there's a mile long list of donors to build one at UTC with "private dollars"... got it. OU will not be helping at all.

[GoGators]

Jealous much? The have-nots (you know who you are) are getting left further and further behind. And you know it.

Having to play basketball in a Pets Mart parking lot miles from campus off of the interstate isn't really making OU look like they are one of the "haves."