The Fred Jones heirs announced on November 17 that they have entered into an agreement with the OCU Law School to move the school into their historic building at 900. W. Main. The Jones family would retain ownership of the building formerly owned by Henry Ford to manufacture Model Ts, but would lease it to OCU.
Before we all pop corks to celebrate what a boon to downtown development this move supposedly will be, we must realize that they announced a "big IF" before the deed is done. To wit, voters must pass the Maps3 tax for downtown property developers first.
You see, the only way this idea makes any sense to Dean McDaniel is "IF" we have a $130 million street car system operating. Supposedly that is the only way that poor old law students can get around downtown, at least from 9th and Classen. They might even have to walk a half a mile to get to the Courthouse and County law library. I assume that the free sidewalks that already exist won't be good enough to help these students get some fresh air and exercise.
Every university I went to (4), walking a half a mile to class was nothing. We did it all the time. I guess things change if you're downtown. OCU is so small that maybe a quarter of a mile seems like a real hike.
You can see from this map of the proposed streetcar route, that they'd at least have to walk a block and a half to a trolley stop. Remember, those streetcars are projected to cost more than $22 million a mile to construct! Ten years ago the original Maps project put 9 trolleys into service for a measly $5 million. That's over half a million bucks per copy. Bet it would cost a lot less than that to add even a dedicated trolley to take law students wherever they want to go.
Will this generous offer with a hook work on OKC voters? Don't know. They were gullible enough to let Maps for Millionaires tax them for $120 million a few years ago to subsidize the OKC Thunder. Maybe OKC taxpayers have given up trying to fight the OKC Elite. Or maybe they haven't.
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Excellent point about the street cars. When are our mainstreet fraudsters going to offer us a Disney World to empty our pockets?
ReplyDeleteThey must be getting concerned. Every morning in the paper there is someone else offered a piece of the MAPS3 pie...
ReplyDeleteThe offer to OCU Law School from the Fred Jones family seemed out of place at the time, and now that I know more about it seems even more out of place. Why would OCU put millions of dollars into a building that they will never own? The Jones family will still retain ownership even after the millions have been spent on renovations. How often do you, as an individual, put money into an apartment that you rent and will never have a chance of owning? Hopefully never!
ReplyDeleteThis MAPS is an effort by the "insiders" to buy our vote with advertising, give them Carte Blanche with 3/4 of a BILLION, (of our) dollars, to spend on ill defined projects of their choosing.
ReplyDeleteCornett is the new Ex VP of Ackerman Associates, the Ad Agency representing the Chamber, Oklahoman, Devon, Thunder and others. The Chamber is rumored to recieve Hotel tax revenues for "Promotions".
Hundreds of thousands (of our dollars) are being used to sell us this MAPS in behalf of the "Boys".
None of these projects is coming within a half mile of Downtown Airpark--Says Kirk Humphries the owner--a half mile ? Four wide trips around a football field ?
This MAPS--when the complete truth is known, smells to high heaven and smacks of "Old School" Chicago.