City Hall Consolidation (purchase of One Technolog

[DwnTwnTul]

Wasn't it mentioned that they would begin moving SOME city employees into One Tech in August?  Does that still hold true?  If so, does anyone know exactly when in August this will occur?

[Kiah]

quote:Originally posted by DwnTwnTul

Wasn't it mentioned that they would begin moving SOME city employees into One Tech in August?  Does that still hold true?  If so, does anyone know exactly when in August this will occur?

No, the closing won't even occur until September 10th (I think), assuming the Council's conditions (either a signed 10-year master lease agreement or assets of $12 mil.) are met.

The earliest I heard staff might start moving is mid to late fall.

[Wilbur]

I heard a rumor today, and will admit up front I have no idea if it's true.  The person who told me this said they read this info on a web site, which we all know, certainly could be false.  

With that being said:

The website said the property where city hall currently sits was donated to the city by a family with the stipulation that, if the city ever left the property (moved), the property would revert back to the family who made the donation.

I'm not smart enough to know how to search for that type of information in order to confirm.  Any of you?

I also heard the move to the new city hall could be postponed until the recent lawsuit filed against the city was resolved.  How long could that take?

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

I heard a rumor today, and will admit up front I have no idea if it's true.  The person who told me this said they read this info on a web site, which we all know, certainly could be false.  

With that being said:

The website said the property where city hall currently sits was donated to the city by a family with the stipulation that, if the city ever left the property (moved), the property would revert back to the family who made the donation.

I'm not smart enough to know how to search for that type of information in order to confirm.  Any of you?

I also heard the move to the new city hall could be postponed until the recent lawsuit filed against the city was resolved.  How long could that take?

An entire neighborhood was leveled for the civic center, it was not a single property

[Double A]

The One Tech fiasco is well on it's way to becoming the clusterf*#$k I predicted.

City land to be assesed for environmental issues

Councilors concerned over lack of master lease

City hall move not likely soon

A refresher on the third party master lease agreement

[sgrizzle]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?articleID=071017_238_E1_hLeve56181

quote:
Tower tenant: Tech firm stays logged on in Tulsa

by: D.R. STEWART World Staff Writer
10/17/2007

Level 3 extends lease


Level 3 Communications Inc., the Colorado wholesale telecommunications provider that acquired Tulsa-based WilTel Communications Group LLC two years ago for $749 million, will extend its stay in Tulsa, company executives said Tuesday.

Level 3 has signed a 10-year lease on 143,115 square feet of office space at 100 S. Cincinnati Ave., company executives said.

Known as One Technology Center, the 15-story glass-walled former WilTel office tower is home the majority of Level 3's 700 employees in Tulsa, said company spokesman Chris Hardman.

"There are other facilities" in Tulsa, Hardman said in a telephone interview from Level 3's corporate offices in Broomfield, Colo., north of Denver. He declined to say how much office space the company leased in Tulsa.

Hardman also declined to discuss Level 3's plans in Tulsa.

The city of Tulsa closed on the $52.25 million acquisition of One Technology Center on Sept. 24. The city, which plans to relocate City Hall employees to the office tower next spring, bought the former WilTel facility from Leucadia National Corp. of New York.

Don Himelfarb, director of economic development for the city of Tulsa, said signing a lease on nearly a fifth of One Technology Center's 750,000 square feet of office space is evidence of Level 3's commitment to Tulsa.

"You wouldn't think they would sign a lease if they didn't plan to stay," he said.

The lease contains options, at five years and seven years, for Level 3 to end the contract, with financial penalties, Himelfarb said.

Nine of the 15 floors will be occupied by city employees, Himelfarb said. Besides the three floors and the network operations center leased by Level 3, two floors remain to be leased to a third party, he said.

"City employees can begin moving in in spring," Himelfarb said. "You have to build (City) Council chambers, and other stuff has to be done with security."

The extension of Level 3's lease is surprising in light of the comments made by company executives last year. At the time, the former WilTel unit employed 1,200 people in Tulsa.

Level 3 President Kevin O'Hara noted that the Colorado company operated a primary network operations center in Broomfield, where it employed about 2,000 people, as it does today. The company also operates a backup network operations center in Atlanta, O'Hara said.

One Technology Center should not be viewed as a key to Level 3's future in Tulsa, O'Hara said a year ago.

"While it is a fairly state-of-the-art and attractive building as far as technical infrastructure, it compares to what we have at our other locations," he said. "More to the point are the abilities of the work force and the cost of the work force.

"Compared to Colorado, the lowest cost of doing business is in Tulsa. But looking at the hard costs -- the cost of running two or three locations as opposed to running one location -- there are clearly increased efficiencies by being in a smaller number of locations."

O'Hara couldn't be reached for further comment.

One Technology Center began as the jewel of Williams Communications Group Inc. The company was spun off in April 2001 from parent Williams Cos. Inc. as an independent telecommunications provider.

The new glass-and-steel facility proclaimed Tulsa as the heart of the "silicon prairie," the New York Times once reported.

At its peak, Williams Communications employed 4,500 people worldwide, 3,200 of them in Tulsa and most of them at 100 S. Cincinnati Ave.

But just a year after its initial public offering, Williams Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It claimed more than $7 billion in debt amid a telecom meltdown and a glut in fiber-optic capacity.

The company reorganized, discharged most of its debt and emerged in October 2002 as WilTel Communications Group.

[shadows]

quoted
Nine of the 15 floors will be occupied by city employees, Himelfarb said. Besides the three floors and the network operations center leased by Level 3, two floors remain to be leased to a third party, he said.

The lease contains options, at five years and seven years, for Level 3 to end the contract, with financial penalties, Himelfarb said.
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Level 3 who paid between 680 million and 800 million dollars for the networks operations center and fiber-optics lines has an outlet where they can use years to remove the high-tec network brains from the building that was the center of WilTel operations,  It seems that extending the lease would eliminated getting the same treatment from the city that Bell's got from the county commission.