BID Renewal Complications
I’m in the board room at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, which is playing host to the downtown business improvement district advisory board.
From where I’m sitting, this district is not close to reaching an agreement where the renewal plan can be finalized and then sent to property owners for signatures to be submitted to the Oklahoma City Council.
Some conflicts that have been left unsaid until now have come to surface, notably an identity for Rick Dowell’s MidTown Plaza development. Dowell is willing to add more of his property to the the district’s boundaries, but wants it officially designated as the MidTown Plaza District (it is now part of the Arts District). Such a move is opposed by Mickey Clagg, who represents Bob Howard in the redevelopment of the area formally known as MidTown. Clagg noted Dowell’s area is not historically part of MidTown, and that MidTown Plaza also describes the Plaza Court building, while Dowell argues he has called his area MidTown Plaza for the past eight years. Downtown OKC Inc. President Jane Jenkins, meanwhile, argued downtown doesn’t need more districts and needs to be more unified.
Dowell wants the designation for marketing and is only willing to add the additional property to the district if the designation is approved by the board. Not mentioned, but something to note: when fellow Arts District property owners promoted an “Arts Quarter” theme for their area, which included the addition of rooftop lighting, they excluded Dowell’s block. Ironically, after the lighting was added, Dowell followed suit with his own “arts quarter” lighting.
Automobile Alley developer Steve Mason noted the obvious: “There is branding confusion out there.”
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More notes…
The city is insisting that BID property owners pay for maintenance of new streetscapes funded and being built as part of the new Devon tower tax increment financing district. Right now the BID renewal plan calls for a $5 per foot on property frontage for assessments as city staff acknowledges they can’t provide an estimate right now for streetscapes that don’t exist.
This echoes the dilemna faced by the city and the BID upon its initial creation in 2001 when the city was unable to provide an exact projection of Bricktown Canal maintenance costs. A decade later the parks department still can’t provide an exact rundown of costs because their crew in Bricktown also maintain areas along the Oklahoma River.
Fun, fun, fun….
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A proposal to add Bob Meinders’ property in east Bricktown to the renewed BID doesn’t have his support, but it’s still on the table… the meeting continues…. more discussion to follow on that, and likely also on the proposal to have owner-occupied residential properties assessed in the new BID.
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Comments
The rooftop string lighting was a horrible idea. Especially deciding to srting them on the facade of John Johansen’s Stage Center. I realize this doesn’t relate much, but just wanted to know if anyone else felt the same. I believe an arts quarter should speak for itself, and our’s does without the silly waste of lighting.
one could wonder how much money some of the connected families in okc politics stand to make when C2S happens? there seems to be a fair amount of their influence going around here.
This is really Twilight Zone stuff. Who’s on first? Egos in the forefront are not only silly, such things also help to identify those who actually have a care about the city’s, as opposed to only their own, development. I could be more caustic, but I’ll not do that just now.