OKC courts Heartland with TIF allocation
A $2.3 million allocation from the city’s increment financing fund for construction of a seven-story headquarters on Automobile Alley was recommended Thursday by a committee representing the city, county, library system and local schools.
The $2.3 million was sought by developers Andy and David Burnett, who are set to start construction on an approximately $40 million headquarters for Heartland, the U.S. headquarters for Global Payments Inc.
A similar unanimous recommendation of $1 million in job creation incentives was recently approved by the Oklahoma City Council for staff negotiation by the final terms.
Giving the history of the project for the first time in public, Andy Burnett told the committee he was approached by a friend two years ago who advised him Heartland, then a relatively small but growing third-party credit processing firm, was being bought by Global for $4.3 billion.
Burnett said he was advised at the time that Heartland was looking at multiple markets for relocation from its current office in Edmond and that Oklahoma City faced tough odds in landing the headquarters.
“It’s an $18.5 billion company,” Burnett said Thursday. “And it has nothing to do with oil and gas, which is very exciting for me.”
City staff, Cathy O’Connor with the Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City, and former Mayor Mick Cornett, current Mayor David Holt and City Manager Jim Couch all joined in recruiting the company.
The prize was not just the 150 jobs currently in Edmond, but 345 “new to market jobs” pledged with the job incentives and total potential employment at the new headquarters
of about 600 employees. The promised average wage is set at $55,000.
“Their real estate were getting one site chosen in each town and meeting with economic development trusts in each town to come up with the best numbers,” Burnett said. “With this site, they loved the streetcar. They loved that it’s on Broadway. They love the restaurants. And they specifically loved the 550-space parking garage owned by the YMCA that is almost 100 percent vacant.”
Brent Bryant, who oversees the city’s special projects office, said the deal required extensive negotiation and that the $2.3 million will be going toward reducing Heartland’s operational costs at the new headquarters. The company’s signed lease with the Burnett brothers for the building at NW 6 and Broadway is 12 years.
“Our approach was what are the taxes for this today and what will they be,” Bryant said. “Andy was trying to minimize Heartland’s operating cost to get them to Oklahoma City.”
Burnett said construction is scheduled to start this winter with occupancy targeted for summer 2020.
“We are 70 percent through design drawings,” Burnett said. “We are moving and are taking those risks. We believe we can break ground by December.”
Burnett added $1.5 million is being budgeted for the garage, which was originally built in the 1960s.
O’Connor stressed the Heartland headquarters represents an important step forward for downtown and the city in diversifying its economy. The new jobs are set to include sales, clerical, payroll, research, software developers, IT and executives.
O’Connor is part of a group hoping to link Automobile Alley and the Oklahoma Health Center to create an innovation district that links bioscience, medical and research anchors east of Interstate 235 with rising firms like We Go Look, GE Global Oil and Gas Research Center, the Oklahoma School of Sciences and Math and an array of creative firms located along Broadway.
“These are really good jobs,” O’Connor said. “They are tech jobs, software jobs, located in the innovation district and that’s important for Oklahoma City as we build this new technology culture that goes beyond biosciences.”