OKLAHOMA CITY – Amendments to a downtown tax increment finance district that will expire in 2026 would benefit two proposed residential developments and preserve the funding tool as an option for future projects on undeveloped properties.
The changes to TIF 2 – which lies between Western Avenue and Interstate 235 from NW 10th Street south to roughly Reno Avenue – were presented during Tuesday’s meeting of the Oklahoma City Council. A final hearing and vote are scheduled March 28.
The proposal removes several properties that were not developed in the current downtown TIF to give them “a longer runway” to be developed using funding from other TIF districts, said Kenton Tsoodle, president and CEO of the Alliance for Economic Development.
Two new TIF districts would be created – each with a 25-year life span.
Proposed increment district C is in Bricktown. It encompasses the surface parking lot around the U-Haul building, the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark property and the surface parking lot east of the ballpark.
“The lot that’s around the U-Haul building, this is really the big impetus here,” Tsoodle said. “There’s some potentially really dense development here, residential development that we’re looking at, in addition to a hotel.”
The property is controlled by developer Randy Hogan, who is working with other developers on plans for a Dream Hotel and anywhere from one to three residential towers, each more than 20 stories with 300 units, Tsoodle said. It would include associated parking and restaurants, he said.
The most recent plans for the Dream Hotel at the corner of Reno and Oklahoma avenues call for 315 guest rooms and suites. The hotel project would not be eligible for TIF funding because it lies in the no-subsidy zone under the agreement with Omni that prohibits tax incentives for any other hotel for 15 years.
However, any residential and parking development could be eligible for TIF funding.
Tsoodle said the property probably would support a $70 million to $80 million development without the tax incentive. “But with the TIF it could be three, four, five times the dollars and number of residents,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to try to bring much more dense and vertical development to this site.”
There are no plans at this time for the other two properties in the proposed TIF C, Tsoodle said. But both the parking lot east of the ballpark and parking on the northeast portion of the ballpark property (behind center field and right field) offer a lot of potential for future development, he said.
“We’re not proposing any changes to the ballpark (itself),” Tsoodle said. Under the city’s agreement with the baseball team, the city might have to provide a parking garage if future development takes out a significant number of parking spaces, he said.
Proposed increment district D carves out two properties – 101 N. Broadway, the former BancFirst headquarters, and 100 Park Ave., the Medical Arts Building. Developer Richard Tanenbaum plans to redevelop the two office buildings into The Harlow, a $60 million project that will offer 265 residential units along with restaurant and retail space.
The remaining properties that would be removed from TIF 2 mostly lie just west of I-235. Many of the properties are owned by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority and are difficult to develop, Tsoodle said.
“In the future we would come to you with an amendment to the Innovation District project plan to add these,” he said. “Putting them in the Innovation TIF plan would give them 25 years of TIF and the potential for more development and higher development.”
If approved, increment district C is expected to result in $215.5 million in tax revenues and increment district D another $12 million for a total of $227.5 million over 25 years that could be reinvested within the district.
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