Old city hall sale may be underway
Tulsa took another step toward selling the old City Hall for $1.2 million for conversion to a 200-room hotel with retail space.
The deal won the approval of the Tulsa Development Authority. Brickhugger LLC to will turn the former building into a hotel.
Brickhugger and the authority will negotiate the sale of 2.5-acre downtown site. Brickhugger is the same group that renovated the Mayo Hotel downtown. Its initial offer was around $1 million.
The cost of renovation has been estimated at $29.5 million. An estimated 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space would be in the project and Fifth Street from the Convention Center to Denver Avenue would be opened.
Ex-mayor Kathy Taylor told the City Council that the sale of the old city hall was crucial to the financial deal to purchase the new city hall. Taylor spent more than $300,000 with Lang LaSalle of Chicago to list the building for sale but that out-of-state company never brought an offer to the table after two years of marketing.
In other city news, Mayor Dewey Bartlett issued two memos to the City Council - One reminded City Council members to follow the City Charter rules when requesting information and not to contact employees directly. The second memo requested that seven-day advance notice be given when a report or additional information from a city department is to be presented at a City Council committee meeting or regular meeting.
“Neither of these memos was retaliatory,” said Bartlett, who has been accused of lying to the councilors. “Regarding the first memo, about contacting city employees, this policy is established in the City Charter and I was simply affirming that policy. Some recent contacts by council members with city employees have bordered on ‘directing those employees,’ a direct violation of the Charter. These contacts leave employees feeling intimidated and confused over their careers if they say no.”
Bartlett clarified the second memo, which requested that when council members create an agenda item for a City Council committee or a regular meeting, the city department responsible for supplying that information be given a minimum of seven days notice.
“We have employees of city departments who find out late on Friday afternoons, when the Tuesday council committee meeting agendas are posted, that they have hours of work to complete - in addition to their normal work duties - in order to be prepared to present information or provide a report for the following Tuesday’s committee meeting,” Bartlett said. “There is no question that the Council is entitled to make those requests and to receive this information. However, the short time frame between the request and the presentation date creates a problem related to staff’s and department’s daily work plan. Over the last year, dropping city revenues have required budget reductions. Employees who have retired or taken other jobs have not been replaced. Most departments are short-staffed. City employees have extra heavy daily and weekly workloads.”
Tulsa’s latest sales tax check from the Oklahoma Tax Commission was $16,371,994, which is about 5 percent higher than the forecast of city financial planners. The projection was $15,607,000. It may mean the 16-month decline of sales tax revenue is coming to an end.
In July 2009, Tulsa got $16,514,778 - a 10 percent decline from $18,510,640 in July 2008.
The council overrode a veto by Bartlett of a handful of budget items that were changed from the Mayor’s original plan. That included police helicopters, potholes and highway lighting.
Bartlett said he doesn’t disagree with those budget items but he will not authorize funding until the money is in city coffers.