NORMAN — The Rock Creek Entertainment District, a $1.2 billion proposed development in north Norman that would include a new arena for OU sports, was approved by city council during a special meeting that began at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and went past 1 a.m. Wednesday.
Council voted 5-4 in favor of accepting the project plan for the entertainment district and by that same count in favor of establishing two tax increment financing districts to help fund the project.
“Yeah, so it’s 1:30 in the morning,” OU president Joseph Harroz Jr. said at city hall after the meeting. “This is democracy in action. Amazing night, couldn’t be more of the city council. Lot of discussion, but it ended in something that I believe is gonna go down in the history books of the city of Norman and for the University of Oklahoma as a watershed moment. This is a huge vote and this outcome is an absolute treat.”
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The decision came on the 378th day since the entertainment district was first announced by Team Norman, a coalition of civic and business leaders working to grow the local economy as the city is impacted by OU’s move to the Southeastern Conference.
The project plan underwent a lengthy statutory review process before it was approved by the Norman planning commission on June 13. From there, the city council was expected to vote on the project plan and economic development agreement in July.
However, the vote was delayed by an attempted non-binding special election set for August, which city council hoped would inform its vote. That election was then reportedly canceled after a legal challenge.
Team Norman leaders had said in June that they hoped the arena within the district would be ready to host OU basketball games and women’s gymnastics meets by 2027 or 2028. However, multiple delays in the project’s approval have already affected the development schedule for the arena.
Team Norman first announced plans for the $1 billion University North Park entertainment district on Sept. 6 at a breakfast at Norman North High School.
“I’m not prepared to say how much it has changed the schedule, but going back several months ago, we projected that we’d have to alter the schedule that we had, say, last fall,” OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said after the meeting. “I’m not prepared to speak in any specifics about the schedule, but the one that we’ve laid out in July is pretty close to the one that we’re going to try to meet and we’ll see if we can make it happen.”
The probability of a referendum could impact the timeline of the arena’s completion further. Based on the numerous public commentors at the meeting who were against the TIF, it seems highly likely that citizens will file a petition to repeal the city council’s vote. There would then be a vote of the people to ultimately determine if the city would contribute tax dollars to the project.
City council and the project applicants regrouped from the canceled August election and, in accordance with the Local Development Act, scheduled two pre-vote public hearings about the project. The first hearing, held Sept. 3, served as informational and allowed citizens to ask questions about the proposed development.
The second hearing preceded Tuesday night’s vote and featured presentations from Sean Rieger, the applicants’ attorney, and Danny Lovell, the CEO of Rainier, the project’s developer. Castiglione and Harroz then made one last pre-vote pitch for the district. Harroz also had a chance after the meeting to sell the project to anyone who still has doubts about it.
“I think this process has been over a year and a half. It’s gone through so many levels, so many reviews, and at every step, it passed,” Harroz said. “Many times unanimously. Obviously, tonight it wasn’t unanimous, but the city council spoke. I think that when a process goes through this lengthy of a review, the answer is the leaders worked hard, they did their diligence, and what’s being delivered is something that will change the city and the University of Oklahoma for the better.”
OU men’s basketball coach Porter Moser, women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk and women’s gymnastics coach K.J. Kindler also spoke in support of the project during a nearly-three-hour public comment session.
The new arena would replace their teams’ current competition space, the 49-year-old Lloyd Noble Center on the south edge of OU’s campus. That venue would be used as a practice facility and for other university events in the future.
The University North Park entertainment district is expected to create 5,000 new jobs, as well as new housing for at least 3,000 Norman residents.
The entertainment district and new arena would be located on undeveloped land owned by the OU Foundation at Rock Creek Road and 24th Avenue Northwest, just east of Interstate-35 and in close proximity to Max Westheimer Airport.
The development would center shops, restaurants, office space, new housing and a hotel around a state-of-the-art performance venue.
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.
“This is going to serve so many people and contribute to the quality of life in our community for generations to come,” Castiglione said.
The city of Norman has been asked to contribute, at most, $600 million toward the entertainment district with funds garnered through tax increment financing.
OU is expected to contribute $100 million toward the $330 million total project cost of the arena and supporting infrastructure. The remaining $230 million would be paid by the TIF.
The university will pay $25 million of its portion up front and the other $75 million as rent and operations costs over a 25-year period. 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.
ORG XMIT: KOD Kansas and Sooner fans watch the first half as the University of Oklahoma Sooner (OU) men’s basketball team plays the Kansas Jayhawks (KU) at the Lloyd Noble Center on Saturday, February 26, 2011, in Norman, Okla. Photo by Steve Sisney, The Oklahoman
The Lloyd Noble Center currently seats 10,967, often feeling cavernous during OU basketball games. The average attendance for men’s games in the 2023-24 season was 7,670 and it was 4,409 on average for women’s home games.
OU hopes the smaller arena can create a more intimate atmosphere and that it will serve as a recruiting attraction for prospective athletes.
For that to become a possibility, though, the project will have to withstand the likely challenge of Normanites who do not want to see the city contribute a significant amount of tax dollars to the development.
“We certainly understand what the statutes allow and we will continue to work with the key leaders (who are) a part of this project to manage what develops here in the near future,” Castiglione said. “But as far as we’re concerned, we’re gonna continue to also move forward to the next phases of the project, so we can continue to at least be active in the planning stage.”
So what’s next for the parties invested in the project?
“We need to have a next steps type of meeting… to go through the sequential approach and prioritize what needs to be done,” Castiglione said. “We’ve been so focused on all the specific details, the transparency of every single aspect of this project and trying to educate and inform everybody that wanted to know and wanted to make sound, well-grounded decisions.
“And so now that we’ve moved forward, we’ll continue to do the education process as needed, manage what comes our way and simultaneously work to try to move toward those next steps, whatever they may be.”
