Went to Turkey this weekend, there was someone there taking a census of sorts for a graduate program. Hundreds of people, dozens of dogs, dozens of bikes, etc. Not one person commented on the lack of a restaurant in the middle of the woods. Actually, the ones I actually talked to about it thought I was joking.
But this isn't about park users. This is about "investing" in the growth of our tax base. That's the language Dewey and Bird like to use. Investing. So lets look at that. Lots of crappy assumptions probably, but lets do this "investment" exercise.
To have a restaraunt with a view of Tulsa, it has to be on top of Turkey itself and facing the river. Not near 61st. Not near the landing. Those don't meet the stated criteria of on top of turkey and view of Tulsa. To get there, there is at least a half mile of road that needs to be cut through Turkey, likely more because you would need switch backs, etc. But lets keep the math simple, .5 miles.
You would have to clear at least ten acres of land to accomplish this goal (BlueRose takes up just under 4 acres. This needs a new road, parking, restaurant itself, and would be on difficult terrain). An independent restaurant on top of Turkey might bring in $1mil a year in revenue (
similar to BlueRose conservative anticipated revenue, per their TIF application). For simplicity sake lets pretend its $100k in sales tax revenue. Let us also pretend that the people eating at that restaurant simply would not have eaten if this restaurant wasn't on top of Turkey, so this is all new revenue. Of course the City would have to front the land and a TIF would supply the infrastructure funding. We will also assume that the land, as is, provides no benefits to the city or its citizens (no opportunity cost).
So lets find out our return on investment!
- Road: $500k (
.5 mile of brand new road, done on the cheap side, but with extra site work required. Somehow we spent $250k in tax money on BlueRose, so this is CHEAP)
- Utilities: $100k (best guess from other utility work requests in Tulsa. Water, sewer, power)
- Land value: $400k (40k/acre, 10 acres) [even if we don't sell the land, we are diverting it from the current purpose. So from the parks perspective, it may as well be a sale. Simon land was ~40k per acre]
- Parking lot near the restaurant is free... just to keep the number even and conservative.
Lets pretend the actual building will be at the owners expense.
So for fun, we have $1mil in cost outlays for the City of Tulsa. Five year TIF, covering just this restaurant - 4% cost of borrowing [rate has been between 3-4% for a long time], or $40k per year cost. We bring back $100k in sales revenue, for a net "gain" of $60k per year (pretending, again, that all customers would not have spent money but for...). So of course the TIF can't even really pay for itself. But lets run it out on a straight line for simplicity - it breaks even at ~year 15.
Which happens to be how long an asphalt road should last before a major full-depth refurbishment. (realistically, on the terrain at Turkey it would be difficult to get a 15 years out of the road because there would be a limited road bed, but lets assume we hit average)
OK, so after 15 years we redo the road, outlaying another $~300k. Pretending we have no other maintenance costs and that this money is not borrowed funds, we add another 3 years to the project cost.
So, if this magical restaurant is finished in Dewey's second term (2017), the City of Tulsa can expect to see sales tax revenue "growth" of 0.04% in 2035. Add 7 years to get to a 25 year investment horizon, and the City would have gained $700k on an investment of $1mil over 25 years. Or an annual rate of return of about 2.1% The average inflation over the
long term in the USA is 3.22%. Since 2000 it is 2.4%. SO---- in reality, we expect to lose money on this "investment."
So the City gives up parkland, the citizens lose quality of life, and the tax payers lose money.
It's a win win win!