It is always good to check the facts when developers bring projects forward asking for large amounts of public tax spending.
The City of Norman has brought in the Center for Economic Development Law and also CoAlign to "run" the TIF numbers. O'Connor from CoAlign gave the city's presentation at the first public hearing for the proposed Arena TIF project in the north half of the University North Park.
O'Connor tried hard to make it seem like the difference between the City's independent analysis by HVS and Hunden was how much Land OU controls. HVS was hired by the Center for Economic Development Law to do economic impact analysis of the project. The performed estimates for a project that was significantly smaller than the original ones provided by OU Foundation and Rainier Partners done by Hunden Partners.
FACT CHECKING SHOWS THAT OU FOUNDATION OWNS MOST OF THE LAND
The bulk of the project spending would be for an arena and parking structure in the "improvement area" outlined in yellow. This is ALL owned by OU Foundation.
OU Foundation controls 159 acres if the data at the assessor's office is correct.
Of the land in the larger project area, the stuff outlined in red is already set to pop.
Southwest Wire has an industrial site and has stated it does not want to be included in the TIF district.
What about the remaining lots that might be developed in connection with the arena?
Norman Economic Development Coalition and Moore-Norman Vo-Tech are the primary land owners of the "larger" project area
The taxes paid in the larger increment district will be used to funnel public spending on OU Foundation land. OU Foundation and OU don't even pay property taxes making it interesting that they want to grab taxes paid by other businesses.
If you think of it this way, it is a shell game - where do the tax dollars flow? From one budget to another.
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