While the city’s use of sales tax revenue through MAPS has gained the most attention over the past decade, the city has also turned to tax increment financing (TIF) as another way to leverage tax dollars into economic development. By creating a TIF district, the city provides public incentives to developers with the increase in […]
build
Posted inNews
If we build it …
Convention center exhibit hall space increased 36 percent nationally from 2000 to 2011 while attendance at convention center events fell 1.7 percent during the same time period, according to Heywood Sanders, a professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the nation’s leading expert on convention centers and city planning. […]
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Another hotel and convention center?
Shadid claims city and Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce officials were not honest with voters before the 2009 MAPS 3 election, particularly with the convention center project and a related convention center hotel. The convention center could cost taxpayers an estimated $250 million, but the hotel would not receive MAPS 3 funding. Voters approved […]
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OGE Energy’s new home?
“This project will continue to build on the revitalization of this exciting area of downtown Oklahoma City,” Rainey Williams, president of Kestrel Investments, Inc, said in a media statement. “We want the development to complement its surroundings and provide another opportunity to enjoy our downtown. With OGE Energy as our anchor tenant, we are confident […]
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It still hurts
Although homes and businesses have been rebuilt since the May 20 twisters ripped through Moore, people’s lives are a different story. One of countless victims from the devastating tornadoes, Waldroop still suffers from physical and emotional scars that may never heal. Her daughter, Shannon Quick, died at her side as the EF5 twister mangled sections […]
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Resilient repetition
From our elected officials and our local celebrities to those survivors affected directly by the most current crisis, some version of these words gushes out each time: “You can replace things, not lives. We’re going to rebuild. Oklahomans are a resilient people.” The adjective “resilient,” in particular, has become the word du jour following a […]
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Indian museum builds culture, future
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:1″><span style=" Times New Roman” ,”serif”;mso-fareast-times=”” new=”” roman”;=”” mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:es-bo”=””> My grandmother was raised near Atoka and was told as a child to never tell someone she was a Native American because it was not something to be proud of, because “Indians are drunks and lazy.” We have come so far. As a […]
Posted inMusic
Lotus flowers
Photo: Tobin Voggesser American music’s evolving scope hasn’t played into the hands of many bands as well as it has for instrumental act Lotus. The collective of Deadheads with penchants for Aphex Twin and The Orb has ridden the rise of electronic dance music to sold-out tours and high-profile festival slots. “When we first started […]