Eric, Tulsa (7/25/2009 4:20:02 PM)

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Ditto that, tulsaGuy!
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debbiewade, Tulsa (7/25/2009 5:03:03 PM)

SUCCESS. SWEET.

Thank you Mayor Kathy Taylor and Bill LaFortune.

They, and many others had to FIGHT very hard to bring this progress to Tulsa. Hope the ball field does as well.

Rocky Frisco, Tulsa (8/9/2009 11:56:51 AM)

I would like to see a revenue breakdown with the following: an estimate of how many ticket purchasers were from Tulsa, from Oklahoma and from out-of-state. How much of the money stayed here in the Tulsa area and how much went out-of-state to entertainers and crew. In other words, rather than talk about tax revenue and profits, ask "Which way did the money flow?" If the facility made a million dollars in profit, but took many more millions out of the Tulsa area, that's not really an advantage for us. Another valid question might be "How many Tulsans can afford the kind of ticket prices charged for the events there?" I'm running for City Council, District Four; if I were on the Council, this is the kind of question I would be asking.

moogle, Tulsa (7/26/2009 8:24:56 PM)

>> They'll come back again...in spite of whiners like you.

And then they will go back to their home in the burbs.

If the 200 million was just laying around with nothing to do, that's one thing. But when there is choice of how to spend money in a way that best benefits Tulsa -- all of Tulsa, that's entirely different. While special interests are obsessing over downtown, the north side still stews in its major problems, the east side continues to get worse, and there are pockets of crime and decline spread over the majority of Tulsa.

As long as we are pointing to a tiny area of a city and going wowee, how about pointing to the Detroit Rennaissance Center. Kinda makes you forget about all of Detroit's mess and want to move there, doesn't it?

Oh yeah, and Detroit has a Riverwalk too. We should be aspire to be just like Detroit. Building neato stuff and ignoring fundamental problems has worked so well for them, we should do that too.

And now, may I direct your attention to Cleveland, OH? Or how about St. Louis, MO? Judging from their declining population numbers, it's obvious they haven't spent enough money on glitz and major league sports teams. Maybe if they built a BOK center. Maybe if Detroit built a BOK center. Don't you think that would make their problems go away?

Why spend money fixing problems when you can spend it on buildings and ignore the problems?

moogle, Tulsa (7/26/2009 9:16:51 PM)

>> sorry, we will always have crime

We will if we keep throwing money at buildings. NYC proved beyond all doubt, a city can dramatically change its crime problems and attract new residents into the city. If you will take a few minutes to inform yourself, you will find that Tulsa has experienced low percentage growth since the 1970s. In that time, multiple grand and glorious projects have sucked up money with the result being no significant change in growth (while the burbs did great). Oh, but those past grand and glorious projects weren't a BOK center. OK, I get it. I'm having trouble seeing the magic pixie dust that emanates from the BOK center.

>> Tulsa is not Detroit or St. Louis

And your point is what, exactly? (Forgot about Cleveland) That their failure to fix their problems was their downfall, but Tulsa can ignore the same problems because ... uh ... we have a BOK center? Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about the magic pixie dust.

moogle, Tulsa (7/26/2009 11:44:16 PM)

>> it was built on the support of the people.

A little historical fog clearing needed here.

This was the third try by people who stood to profit from it. The first two were rejected. The third try came when Tulsa was going through the dot com bust, and enough saps were convinced that this would usher in a new golden age for Tulsa. It was a successful abuse and taking advantage of the fear people had at the time.

The whole premise on which that is built is that people are vain idiots who will always let their desire for status override any common sense. So the key is to do status-y kinds of things, then all those vain status seekers will come roaring in.

Think about this: OKC has built the status-y stuff and has a basketball team (wooooo). But Edmond is the place to live. Now, why is that?

Just a country boy, North Okmulgee County (7/25/2009 4:41:23 PM)

Nice to see Tulsa getting some positive news for a change.

Ayo, T-Town (7/25/2009 4:22:01 PM)

"That (*&$*%) thing isn't going to bring in any acts. &&^%, I mean we have to compete with OKC's Ford Center, and then there's Dallas. That *#@! thing isn't going to do squat".

Ha.....Ha.......Ha......Ha.......Ha.......Ha

Almost D O U B L E the sales tax revenue of projections!!!

Ha......Ha......Ha......Ha.......Ha....... Ha

BLAME IT ON KATHY TAYLOR!

Eric Robert, Bartlesville (7/27/2009 9:30:47 AM)

Downtown/urban development is not critical for a cities success. Dallas/Ft. Worth is a perfect example of this. For the most part the Dallas CBD is pretty comparable to Tulsa (except more jobs). Busy during work hours, pretty dead otherwise. While they might be "trying desperately" to change this, it will make little difference in the success of the city. Dallas is booming IN SPITE of having a dismal downtown area. However they do have plenty of other urbanized areas that draw the young hipsters or whatnot. Similarly Tulsa has the same types of areas (Brookside, Cherry Street, 18th & Boston, Utica Square). Dallas even has a few major sports arenas in the suburbs. Shocking! Maybe we should try to emulate Dallas and not do quit so many big spending projects (i.e. paying off friends) and figure out ways to make it easier for businesses to operate in this town and let the private sector build what is appropriate. Look at the areas in the city that thrive, government had little if not nothing to do with any of them (besides providing the basics that is like streets and utilities). It is the private sector that "spurs" the economy, never the government.

Webmeister, Tulsa (7/27/2009 1:52:20 PM)

I wonder if ALL the costs of the Arena are in the reported numbers....

How about the 30 extra police on overtime when there is a evening event??

Whose cost center is that lodged in.....City of Tulsa operations, or the Arena?

And, as a new facility, there is less maintenance and repair.

Give it time.....

misfit missy, no thanks (7/26/2009 12:24:41 AM)

Ive never been inside but its a beautiful building.The downtown area is really looking nice AND I HOPE IT DOES WELL FOR T.Town.

TK1, (7/25/2009 4:12:08 PM)

Always looking for a cloud, Rooster?

THESMOKEHOLE, Tulsa (7/26/2009 12:48:15 AM)

The BOK is awesome...back to cleaning windows I go...

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/26/2009 10:04:06 PM)

...uhh...pardon me for interjecting a little cautionary note here, but I continue to look for the bottom line. All this talk about tax revenue and ticket sales sound so wonderful, but where is the money going to come from; the money required to repay the debt that continues to accumulate on this giant eyesore? We will be paying for this monstosity long, long after the pigeons have taken over.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/26/2009 10:07:03 PM)

And there are some who, while raving over our lame duck mayor N227KT seem to wonder about the baseball situation. Don't they know this is headed to court? It is not going to turn out the way these silly people think.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/26/2009 10:08:54 PM)

....uhhh..late Sunday evening...folks, it is "monstrocity", and I beg your pardons.....

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/26/2009 10:10:36 PM)

monstrocity... monstrosity... ugly...

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/27/2009 3:22:43 PM)

uhhhh...brokenhill is a broken record...bits of stuff from City Hall, I think...if downtown goes down, so does the rest of Tulsa. A last-ditch effort to keep the baseball thing going, and a cover up for the real finances at the Hub Cap. Won't work for long brokenhill....remember the one about fooling all the people all the time?

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 10:34:35 AM)

Spending taxpayer dollars to build stuff downtown is a loser. People in Broken Arrow, Jenks and Bixby don't go downtown any more than they absolutely have to. Now then, if some entreprenuer wants to do a MacNellie's or an El Guapo, more power to them. This past weekend was a winner for downtown, but tax money had very little to do with it. I don't want the bureaucrats at City Hall messing with my money. They are careless and wasteful enough at the present. And the property around what may or may not turn out to be a baseball field is a cruel reminder of the illegal scam our mayor and her cronies at BOK have pulled on all of us.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 10:36:52 AM)

And the last resort of the hustler is to begin to compare Tulsa with megaplexes such as Dallas or Houston, or even OkieCity for that matter. Won't work, Mr. Hill.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 10:42:35 AM)

I lived, worked and went to school (SMU) in Dallas and have traveled there frequently. There is absolutely no way any comparisons can be made between Tulsa, which is a very nice city unfortunately located in a Third World Country, and a smashing, big-time metro area like Dallas. Taxes, cost of living, criminal activity, methods of transportation and much more are completely different.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 9:37:05 PM)

This is not rhetoric, Hill. Listen to that: "cities that filled out to their popular limits".....have you been there? No. You are full of it. What a downer....Tulsa is losing people, and the answer is to spend more money? All you and your cronies at City Hall are interested in is more "revenue". You couldn't care less about anything good about Tulsa. You just want the money!

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 9:40:13 PM)

there is no way to compare Tulsa and OKC. OkieCity is in the center of the state. It is twice the size of Tulsa. It is awash in federal and state dollars. Downtown OKC is in the middle of a large metro area. Downtown Tulsa is one mile from an empty Indian reservation. Come on, Hill, be a little more intelligent.

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/28/2009 9:42:19 PM)

Your posts, in my opinion, contain nothing but bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. I have never read such garbage. Please, let us change the subject!

nomosoetero, Tulsa (7/29/2009 3:55:29 PM)

I am familiar with The Heights and those areas. And, by the way, the correct spelling is "incentives". And, by the way, I am not talking about some contrived population figures: I am talking about the City of Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Tulsa does not have over 900,000 population. I know what the legal definition is of Osage County. My point is that no one lives there. And good luck getting into that "untapped region". Your facts are specious to say the least, and false in many cases. And your density of population dream is concocted. Large areas of eastern Oklahoma have very few people living in them. Western Oklahoma includes Enid and Lawton, with Ardmore, Norman and Pauls Valley close by. Draw a one hundred mile circle around Tulsa and Okie City and see what you get. It won't be what you said earlier.