The city is using four funding sources to bridge the $8 million gap between the $15 million approved by voters and the actual $23 million price tag: $3.6 million in Vision Tulsa funding reallocated from University Center at Tulsa/OSU-Tulsa; $900,000 from the Economic Development Infrastructure Fund; $2 million from the Tulsa Parking Authority; and a $1.5 million gift to USA BMX from the Hardesty Family Foundation.
How is the "Tulsa Parking Authority" funding this!?! Are they going to have fee collection jurisdiction to pay that money back?
How is this being paid for from money voters elected to go to the University Center at Tulsa/OSU-Tulsa!?!
The $66k/year rent (actually will be ~$40k minus up-front payment) is a drop in a bucket for a $22 million price tag. With such a massive and expensive place for such low price, it seems they could leave it empty most the time and just host those events there and it will be cheaper than renting space for those events otherwise.
I get there's many auxillary benefits (they claim 100k visitors per year... who knows if that will be close to reality), and that this might just sit vacant for years otherwise, but how would all of that fare vs just allowing the place to be redeveloped normally or turned into an area to build dense housing? Has the city done an ROI study to see if it is really worth paying $23 million to get a pretty small HQ with some small to mid sized events? Basically letting them stay virtually rent-free and if they ever break the contract, Tulsa will be left with the customized for-BMX buildings and nothing financially to show for it. BMX can get up and walk away at any time and all they lose is the initial $1.5 million investment (which for a facility like this is like a couple years rent or so). There's no teeth or substantial deposit on BMX's end vs the taxpayers' guaranteed $22 million being paid.
The BMX arena, headquarters and hall of fame will be constructed on the north end of the 22-acre property. It is expected to include a 2,000-seat outdoor arena, with a roof; an adjacent USA BMX headquarters and hall of fame; and an approximately 300-space parking lot.
This just seems like another version of corporate welfare like with NFL/NBA stadiums where taxpayers pay for a billionaire's new stadium. Despite claims, there's typically not much "trickle down" effect and it usually just acts as an economic centralizer for entertainment dollars. In this case,
maybe the visitors coming to Tulsa will be a big enough boost in that entertainment dollar pool to make up for it, but that is still to be seen and will only pay off if they stick around for some unknown amount of time (Is that 10 years? 20 years? All 30 years of the lease?).