Financial details and renderings revealed for OU’s $1 billion entertainment district

At a working session inside the president’s conference room at OU’s Evans Hall, new renderings of the project were revealed and it was announced that if all goes according to plan, construction of the district would begin in 2025. The centerpiece arena would be ready to host OU basketball games and women’s gymnastics meets in either 2027 or 2028.

New details regarding the financials of the arena were also made public. It’ll cost $330 million to build the venue and OU and private investors will pay $100 million of that. The remaining $230 million will be publicly funded. OU’s portion as the tier one tenant of the arena will be paid in an initial contribution of $25 million toward rent and operations with another $75 million spread out over 25 years.

While OU would receive a shiny new venue to replace its current sporting home, the 48-year-old Lloyd Noble Center, broader benefit for the city of Norman is also anticipated. The entertainment district is expected to create 5,000 new jobs, as well as new housing for at least 3,000 Norman residents. Those behind the project are optimistic that it’ll clear its next big hurdle on June 13 when it’s considered by the Norman planning commission.

“In just a few days we’re going to move to the Southeastern Conference, a historic move,” OU president Joseph Harroz Jr. said, alluding to OU athletics officially joining the SEC on July 1. “There’s so many things converging right now. This is what progress looks like. This is what being a unified city looking out for the interest of all others looks like. This could not be a more exciting opportunity.”

Team Norman, a coalition of city and university leaders trying to prepare the city for the impact of OU’s transition to the SEC, first announced plans for the more than $1 billion entertainment district on Sept. 6 at a breakfast at Norman North High School.

The district would be located on undeveloped land owned by the OU Foundation and the Norman Economic Development Coalition at Rock Creek Road and 24th Avenue Northwest, just east of Interstate-35 and in close proximity to the Max Westheimer Airport.

OU would be the anchor tenant of the arena within the district and would use 24% of its availability each year for sporting events, while the other 76% would be available for concerts, conventions and other occasions.

The arena would seat 8,000 fans for OU basketball games and gym meets, but seats could be added to increase capacity for other events. The Lloyd Noble Center currently seats 10,967, often feeling cavernous during OU basketball games, where the average attendance for men’s games in the 2023-24 season was 7,670 and 4,409 on average for women’s home games.

At OU men’s basketball coach Porter Moser’s preseason press conference last November, he opened by telling reporters he’d been dealing with leaks in the LNC roof as a subtle way of rebroadcasting his desire for a new arena. A smaller, improved arena appears paramount for enhancing gameday atmospheres, improving attendance and attracting elite basketball recruits.

“We’ve said it’s transformative… the synergy of an arena with an entertainment district is absolutely a game changer for our program,” OU athletics director Joe Castiglione said Wednesday. “We have to compete. We make that choice and we will (compete), make no mistake about it. But an arena like you will see… is something that helps us immensely in recruiting and developing teams that we’re going to fill it on a daily or nightly basis.”

There’s one logistical concern that continues to surface in regards to building an OU arena off campus, roughly seven miles north of where the current one sits: How will students get there? Will they make the trek?

Castiglione said that five years ago OU surveyed students who regularly attend games at the LNC and 85% said they were driving to the arena anyway, nor has there been much change since.

The university also plans to provide a shuttle for students who need transportation from campus to and from the new arena. Castiglione said future improvements to the city’s transportation system are also expected to help connect various areas of town to the entertainment district.

The walkability of the entertainment district has also been a big focus. It’s expected to create an atmosphere around the arena that will hopefully convince people to come early, stay late and support the businesses within the district.

“The synergy of all that has become the most important attraction for us as well as what it means to our partnership with the rest of the community,” Castiglione said.

It’s considered premature to know which tenants are coming into the district, but Castiglione said there has been significant outreach from the likes of retailers, hoteliers, the medical industry and restaurants. He said many who’ve reached out already own businesses in Norman and are looking to add new businesses to the mix.

That’s exciting to Dan Schemm, the executive director of VisitNorman, the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau.

“We’re the third largest city in the state and it’s time we start acting like it,” Schemm said. “Let’s make the same investment that our neighbors are doing. We see other communities around us investing food and dollars into new arenas, we see Luxury RV parks and other things being built. It’s time for us to act like the third largest city and make those same types of investments. What’s exciting about this, not only the arena but also the larger picture with the entertainment district: VisitNorman’s mission is to attract visitors to the community. And that’s important because they spend money here at our shops at our restaurants.

“They’re going to all of the mom and pop and local stores that they can’t experience anywhere else. But they don’t know where the city boundaries are. They go to where the menus are, where the restaurants are, and we don’t have enough of that for them to experience while they’re here. This will help alleviate that. Those that are staying at the Embassy (Suites) or the cluster of hotels that are right there, those that are coming to the Young Family Athletic Center for a tournament, they now will have the opportunity to stay, play, dine, shop in Norman and that’s why this is so important. This is a time and opportunity that we cannot pass up.”

There’s also the hope that people will decide to live and work in the district. It’ll produce 700 new multifamily housing units and roughly 75 low-density residential units, according to Danny Lovell, the CEO of Dallas-based Rainier Companies, the master developer for the project. The district will also have room for “shopping tenants, office users (and) additional housing options.”

Lovell, a Henrietta, Oklahoma native, and his company previously made a substantial investment in the community in 2019 when Rainier developed University Town Square, the shopping center just south of the proposed entertainment district site. He said Rainier is looking forward to being part of the new development and is “planning to build something that we don’t believe exists in the state of Oklahoma.”

In the nine months since the project was announced, progress has been slow, but of late, significant. The city of Norman is to pay 20% of the construction cost for the district, while the other 80% is to be funded by OU and private investment. Rather than pay its portion through city or county general funds or by raising taxes, the city opted to use tax increment financing (TIF) to come up with its contribution.

On May 23, a statutory review committee that was created to analyze the TIF plan for the project unanimously approved the plan and motioned to proceed. The project plan will now go before the Norman Planning Commission on June 13, and if approved, it will proceed to city council for a vote shortly thereafter.

Previously, the project plan was postponed from planning commission discussion for five straight months as work continued behind the scenes to make sure it was 100% ready to present.

Harroz seemed to be getting antsy, as in comments to OU Daily, he warned that if Norman city council did not approve the project, the university would look to other cities in which to build a new arena.

Now, with the process finally moving forward, there’s optimism that his warning, which mirrored that of a relocation threat by a professional sports franchise owner, will not have to come to fruition.

Norman Mayor Larry Heikkila said he’s confident the project will pass through city council. Two new council members who have voiced support for the project, Joshua Hinkle and Scott Dixon, were elected in February and will be sworn in on July 2, the day after OU officially moves into the SEC.

Heikkila said surveys by the Norman Economic Development Coalition and his own canvassing have conveyed “general support” for the project. Will all Norman residents be happy about the project? Harroz made his pitch to those who were concerned.

“There are some that get anxious over this, right? There are some that don’t like change. There are some that fear opportunity,” Harroz said. “I understand. But I think what you see right here are people fully committed collectively towards this and I think what we’ve seen with the unanimous vote of the statutory tip committee is that the diligence has been done.

“The time, the effort, the work, the crunching of numbers, 70-80-90 iterations of different documents to make sure they’re as honed as they can be. And now it’s time for all of that work to go to the vote.”

Scott Martin, president and CEO of the Norman Chamber of Commerce touted the university and city’s collaboration to make the project a possibility.

Martin previously led a few community leaders on a trip to Lexington, Kentucky, where they spent time around Rupp Arena, the Kentucky Wildcats basketball venue that is a similar co-op between the city and university and is positioned in an entertainment district.

“I’ve looked at other successful projects around the country that are like this,” Martin said. There are three key components. A championship university… governments come together and the private sector is the table working together to make this happen. And from day one, all three of those ingredients have been collaborating, locking arms to develop a project that we can all be proud of, and really elevate Norman’s game. We’ve been exceptional from day one. And this is going to shoot us into a new stratosphere.”

Fittingly, on the day OU softball plays Game 1 of the Women’s College World Series championship series, seeking its fourth-straight national title, Harroz was flashing one of the team’s championship rings around during the meeting.

That led Castiglione to put the significance of the present opportunity for the city and university in diamond sports terms.

“This is an opportunity (where) we feel like we’re in scoring position,” Castiglione said. “Now it’s time to score and not let that opportunity go by the wayside. We’re going to do everything we can to make this successful.”