BOK Center v. Sprint Center

[JoeMommaBlake]

Prior to V-2025 passing in 2003, the Blue Dome was hardly "vibrant".  Arnie's had relocated there due to a tiff with the landlord on Cherry St.  At that time you had Arnie's, the pawn shop to the east, and I think Route 66 diner, plus Kitchell's various clubs and about anyone else David Sharp and Michael Sager could attract with cheap rent, in other words, not tennants with staying power. It was a sketchy area.  McNellie's did not open until 2004.  I'd love for Nelson to chime in and give some perspective as to whether or not the V-2025 projects weighed on him to bank so heavily on the Blue Dome in subsequent investments.

You are going to be hard-pressed to find a more recent business owner in the downtown area who will say the BOK Center and V-2025 improvements (Mayo included) didn't weigh on their decision to locate downtown.  Those businesses become the collection points of new revenue and are truly the payback for creating an arena.  I think it shows an overall pride in the area we would not have seen with our crumbling civic center.  Speaking of, civic centers have been a part of human culture ever since man decided to live in communities together.

Yep.

[BKDotCom]

Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett on Wednesday said of the BOK Center, which soon will enter its third year in business, "We've helped show the world what we're capable of, business-wise. ... We can do as good or better than anyone else in this country -- and the world."

Bolton noted that the venue is ranked one of the top in the world in ticket sales, too. Wednesday's announcement was the 77th concert and/or concert announcement made since it opened its doors.

It has since sold more than half a million tickets and raised more than $3.5 million in sales tax revenue for the city, he said.

Read more from this Tulsa World article

[MichaelBates]

It has since sold more than half a million tickets and raised more than $3.5 million in sales tax revenue for the city, he said.

So it's on track to repay the public's sales tax investment sometime around the year 2122.

[Townsend]

So it's on track to repay the public's sales tax investment sometime around the year 2122.

Man, it's like you only read what you write.

Try to read some of the very informative posts about how it's not just the Arena producing positives for the city.  The Arena's helped develop areas all around inner Tulsa raising values and producing business opportunities. 

[Renaissance]

When is the streets package set to pay for itself?

[Hoss]

So it's on track to repay the public's sales tax investment sometime around the year 2122.

Let it go.  Obsession is not healthy...

[Cats Cats Cats]

So it's on track to repay the public's sales tax investment sometime around the year 2122.

Based on current sales tax revenues, in a tough economy, not including things (like hopefully yearly NCAA tournament).  Or the other new businesses locating downtown.  Its not like you build a giant arena and then some magical fairy comes and drops off a truckload of money to the exact cost of the build within 364 days.

[nathanm]

So it's on track to repay the public's sales tax investment sometime around the year 2122.

Not everything in this world has to turn a profit, you know. I'm pleased as punch that it pays for its own operating expenses and puts a few million in extra sales tax revenue in our pocket to boot. Isn't that right around what the interest is costing us?

[Conan71]

Not everything in this world has to turn a profit, you know. I'm pleased as punch that it pays for its own operating expenses and puts a few million in extra sales tax revenue in our pocket to boot. Isn't that right around what the interest is costing us?

And the $3.5mm collected is only the arena itself.  That doesn't take into account how much more sales tax has been collected by businesses within the IDL on show and game nights.  Brookside, Cherry St. and SoBo get before and after show/game business as well. 

[DTowner]

And the $3.5mm collected is only the arena itself.  That doesn't take into account how much more sales tax has been collected by businesses within the IDL on show and game nights.  Brookside, Cherry St. and SoBo get before and after show/game business as well. 

Who cares.  Last time I was there the popcorn was too salty.  The BOK Center = fail.

[MichaelBates]

A few replies to previous points:

* $200 million is a lot of money, and it's worth debating whether it was well spent. It's money that we might have chosen to leave in the taxpayers' pockets or put directly into basic public services -- the services we haven't been able to fully fund for years. About a third of the V2025 tax went to the arena. If that had been a city sales tax instead, it would have brought an additional $13 million a year into the general fund.

* Not everything has to turn a profit, but a public investment should return a public benefit commensurate with the investment. Good streets, safe streets, clean water, fire protection, parks all provide a direct benefit to the general public. The BOK Center doesn't provide that kind of benefit.

* So does it provide an indirect benefit that justifies the investment? It's been claimed that the BOK Center benefits the public by bringing outside dollars into Tulsa that generates revenue to pay for more basic services than we could have otherwise afforded. But the sales tax revenue and hotel/motel revenue numbers don't back up that claim.

* The other indirect benefit claimed is the revitalization of downtown, the Blue Dome District in particular. I've quoted contemporaneous accounts from 2001, 2002, and 2003 indicating that Tulsans saw the Blue Dome as a lively, exciting place to be, before the BOK Center was even on the ballot. Certainly by the time the BOK Center opened its doors in 2008, plenty of people had found the Blue Dome District without the draw of a BOK Center event to get them into the neighborhood. In 2006, two young writers from the LA Times declared their Tulsa experience in the Blue Dome District as "perhaps the crowning experience" of a cross-country road trip. You may remember tumbleweeds rolling down Elgin the week before the Eagles concert, but written, contemporaneous descriptions contradict your memory.

* It seems silly to talk about an occasional 18,000-seat sellout as a draw to help businesses develop downtown, when DFEST drew 70,000 last year, downtown churches draw well over 10,000 every Sunday, TCC's downtown campus has 6,700 students, and enough people come downtown to work every day to fill the BOK Center at least twice over. (See the Trust for Public Land's stats.) The 1st Street exit alone was carrying 4,200 cars a day right to the Blue Dome District in 2006. In 2008, each leg of the IDL carried over 46,000 cars a day. The people have always been there; what was lacking was a collection of restaurants and pubs and shops to keep them around after work or church or school.

* It's important to understand what makes a city lively. If it's really mostly about interesting and affordable old buildings infused with entrepreneurial energy -- and that's the lesson I draw from the success of Brookside, Cherry Street, 18th and Boston, and Blue Dome and similar districts across the country -- then we can spend fewer tax dollars more strategically and save the rest for other purposes. I encourage you to read Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown by Roberta Brandes Gratz (or at least the excerpt I've linked). Gratz contrasts the "urban husbandry" approach -- targeted public investments to enhance what private individuals are doing -- with the "project planning" approach that most cities take.

* The arena fad has created a taxpayer-funded bidding war between cities, and it leaves event promoters in a position to demand ever bigger, ever more elaborate venues on someone else's dime. Acts and tournaments that would have happily made use of an 8K-10K seat arena once upon a time can now afford to skip smaller venues because so many cities have been suckered into building big venues. The Mabee Center hosted the NCAA Midwest Regional in 1974 (the regional finals), and early round games in 1975, 1978, 1982, and 1985. Now it takes 18K seats to get looked at for 1st and 2nd round games.

* The big-project mentality feeds a mindset of helplessness. For six or seven years Tulsans heard city leaders say that Tulsa was behind the times, had nothing to offer our younger citizens, and wouldn't improve until we convinced voters to tax themselves to build a big arena. How many entrepreneurs were discouraged from launching a business downtown by that kind of talk? How many more will we discourage by saying our progress depends on dropping another $200 million on another monolithic public works project?

* Blake mentioned downtown entertainment options as an important factor for conventions. When I'm at a convention, the odds are pretty slim that I'll have free time the evening the local arena has something I'm interested in seeing. Most evenings, I'll be at dinner with potential customers or potential suppliers, attending receptions or plenary sessions. The nearby entertainment options that make a convention locale attractive are the ones that are there every night of the week -- restaurants, pubs, galleries, shopping -- places open late, where you can go to relax after the day's official events are over. A place like the Blue Dome District offers far more to visiting conventioneers than the BOK Center does.

* Cities that don't have a big publicly-funded attraction? Savannah's a good example: The draw is the historic district, and its restoration was funded largely by two private entities (plus scores of individuals): The Historic Savannah Foundation and the Savannah College of Art and Design. The main thing government did to help was to stop demolishing history for public buildings, to turn down urban renewal money (voted down three times), and to approve zoning that protects historic buildings and streetscapes. There is a new convention center, but it came online in 2001, after Savannah had already become world-renowned thanks to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994). Even that book and the 1997 movie owes their existence and appeal to Savannah's historic district. If you have an interesting, beautiful city, and you protect what makes it interesting and beautiful, people will want to find a reason to visit. The biggest urban mistakes I saw in Savannah involved government-funded efforts that destroyed distinctive buildings, neighborhoods, and public spaces to try to make Savannah more like other "modern" cities for the sake of "economic development." Savannah finally gave up that game sometime in the 1980s before too much damage was done.

* Yes, I believe the BOK Center is a public subsidy for the lifestyles of Groups A and B. Blake mentioned the Talons and the Oilers. We already had a place for those teams to play and so far every crowd they've drawn to the BOK Center would have comfortably fit in the old arena. Nearly all of the special events that the BOK Center  has hosted would have fit in the old Convention Center arena or the Mabee Center. What's left are a small number of big concerts. The taxpayers spent $200 million to give people with enough disposable income the opportunity to drop $50 or more a ticket for a couple of hours of entertainment by touring nostalgia acts. Had we spent that money on pools (among other things), many more kids around Tulsa would have the chance for many more hours of entertainment this summer for a negligible admission fee.

[Conan71]

Michael, PM me your address and I will mail you a check for $332 to buy out your share of the BOK Center if you are so unhappy about it. I'll even add whatever you figure the debt service cost you will undoubtedly calculate out. I'm sure a couple of other members will be happy to buy out your wife and kids shares.

I've been to exactly one concert there, Dave Matthews. I would have spent money outside the Tulsa economy to go see him in KC, Dallas, or ABQ otherwise. I've not utilized the BOK and I'm perfectly happy it's here. I like the civic pride it's brought in that's why I'm making this offer- so that perhaps you will quit complaining about it.

Road repairs are coming, to my knowledge there's been no massive crime wave after losing the police officers and more people aren't dying in fires. I also disagree with BD being "vibrant" in 2002 unless I were to count kitchell's transient business model typified by plywood, lots of crappy paint and low lighting. How many of those places you cited still exist?  Yep life was coming back to downtown but it wasn't as sustainable as it is
now.

[Hoss]

Michael, PM me your address and I will mail you a check for $332 to buy out your share of the BOK Center if you are so unhappy about it. I'll even add whatever you figure the debt service cost you will undoubtedly calculate out. I'm sure a couple of other members will be happy to buy out your wife and kids shares.

I've been to exactly one concert there, Dave Matthews. I would have spent money outside the Tulsa economy to go see him in KC, Dallas, or ABQ otherwise. I've not utilized the BOK and I'm perfectly happy it's here. I like the civic pride it's brought in that's why I'm making this offer- so that perhaps you will quit complaining about it.

Road repairs are coming, to my knowledge there's been no massive crime wave after losing the police officers and more people aren't dying in fires. I also disagree with BD being "vibrant" in 2002 unless I were to count kitchell's transient business model typified by plywood, lots of crappy paint and low lighting. How many of those places you cited still exist?  Yep life was coming back to downtown but it wasn't as sustainable as it is
now.

Conan, don't you know it's just sour grapes?  I watched him rail on the arena (and other things) during his stint writing for UT.  He railed on it before the vote, then he railed on the process that selected the architect, then he railed on the design.  I don't think anything would have swayed him then, so it's not going to sway him now.

The line in the World the night V2025 passed was telling about him and the 30 other people at a watch party for the vote no crowd.

30?  Really?  Was that all you could muster up in a county of about 600,000?  Especially in a mainly anti-progress demographic.

Hell, Conan, I'll split that with you if buying him out means he quits fishing for reasons to tell people it was wrong to build.

Tell that to Eliot, or to Blake, or to any of the current business owners downtown.

Oh, wait, he already has.  They didn't buy it, either.

[MichaelBates]

Michael, PM me your address and I will mail you a check for $332 to buy out your share of the BOK Center if you are so unhappy about it. I'll even add whatever you figure the debt service cost you will undoubtedly calculate out. I'm sure a couple of other members will be happy to buy out your wife and kids shares.

I've been to exactly one concert there, Dave Matthews. I would have spent money outside the Tulsa economy to go see him in KC, Dallas, or ABQ otherwise. I've not utilized the BOK and I'm perfectly happy it's here. I like the civic pride it's brought in that's why I'm making this offer- so that perhaps you will quit complaining about it.

Road repairs are coming, to my knowledge there's been no massive crime wave after losing the police officers and more people aren't dying in fires. I also disagree with BD being "vibrant" in 2002 unless I were to count kitchell's transient business model typified by plywood, lots of crappy paint and low lighting. How many of those places you cited still exist?  Yep life was coming back to downtown but it wasn't as sustainable as it is
now.

For some odd reason I thought this was a forum where we could debate public policy.

I expected this kind of response from someone, but not from you, Conan. Your response, and responses like Hoss's, are why this forum has dwindled to a small number of regulars. The message that comes across time and again is that contrary opinions aren't welcome: "You think differently from us, you should kindly shut up and go away."

The BOK Center may be a fait accompli, but there will be future votes and future decisions about how to allocate public money, and those decisions should be grounded in a solid understanding of how we got to where we are. I'm trying to separate facts from mythology, and I've offered data to back up my opinions.  (The usual complaint about contrarians around here is that they don't back up their claims.)

I jumped into this discussion over the question of why there hadn't been significant development around the BOK Center. I offered an explanation, and when I was challenged on it, I defended my position.

By the way, Conan, way back on page 2 of this thread, you wrote:

"Granted, Blue Dome and Brady were developing at their own rate and had become sustainable districts before the arena was completed."

[YoungTulsan]

Let me try to re-make my point that I tried to make earlier in the thread.  Maybe I didn't get it across clearly.  And this is aimed at mainly the conservative types like Bates who are still opposing V2025 in hindsight based on its financial merits.

If you truly believe that amenities for the community are a waste of money because they don't pay dividends (Like buying a TV that doesn't spit out dollar bills from a slot every time you watch it) - so be it.  What I am worried has happened to your thought process on the whole matter is that you have applied the same opinions of government spending efficacy to the local level as you have formed about the Federal government.  They aren't the same.  Being one of those people who believes in dramatically reducing the size of the federal government, I can sympathize with your position - I just think you may be clouded by your understanding of federal waste.

Let me run some numbers here, and I am going to use the following rounded numbers to simplify things:

Tulsa County Population: Approximately 600,000

United States Population: Approximately 300,000,000

Tulsa County = 1/500th of the United States population

Estimated FY2011 Federal Budget expenditures: $3.8 trillion ($3,800,000,000,000.00)

Ignoring the "who pays what in taxes" and "donor state" arguments, we can break down the Tulsa County's share of the Federal spending forced on them at 1/500th of $3.8 trillion (annually)

Tulsa County's share of the federal spending:  $7.6 billion anually

For each citizen of Tulsa County that spending burden is $12,666.66 anually

The BOK center's cost is approx $200,000,000 (Not getting into every odd & end here)

The BOK center is being paid for by folks in Tulsa County over a period of 13 years through a sales tax.

$200,000,000 / 600,000 = $333 per citizen / 13 years = $25 anually

Just triple these for the approximate total for all of V2025 ($1,000 / $75 anually)

......

Amortized over 13 years thru V2025, the cost of the BOK Center amounts to roughly 1/500th of what is being asked of each citizen to send off to Washington at its current level.

Now, let's look at what Federal government was like 10 years ago.

FY2001 Federal Budget: $1.9 Trillion

The last budget submitted by President Bill Clinton was 1/2 of what is now being submitted by Obama.  Was the Federal government too small in 2001?

Just with the savings by cutting federal expenditures in half, we could build 250 BOK CENTERS OVER 13 YEARS or one every 2.7 weeks.

My point being, our local spending squabbles are minuscule in comparison to the federal spending behemoth we are faced with.  Yet when we invest locally, we get direct benefits, much more-so than sending dollars to Washington.  If our federal spending burden were reduced by just 12%, we could have Vision2025 x 10 while at the same time enjoy a cut in government spending.  (12% reduction from $12,666.66 burden = $1500 savings = 20 X the Vision2025 spending burden)

Your fight isn't with the community, it is with Washington.  And if Washington makes it harder on us to raise monies of our own to use on the community, it isn't a reason to just give up on the community.