Coliseum may be part of MAPS 4
Approval Wednesday of $2.2 million in drainage and utility work at State Fair Park is the latest indication a new coliseum specially designed for horse shows could be part of MAPS 4.
The Oklahoma State Fair board has endorsed the idea of including the coliseum among projects to be financed by the next iteration of the 25-yearold MAPS program.
Since 1993, the 1-cent MAPS sales tax has financed significant projects such as Chesapeake Energy Arena, home of the NBA’s Thunder, and the convention center now under construction.
“We’re going about the work to provide the data and information to be included in MAPS 4,” Tim O’Toole, the State Fair president, said Wednesday afternoon.
ADG PC, the firm that oversees and coordinates architectural, design and construction work for MAPS 3, recently completed a preliminary design report for the coliseum, he said.
The current Jim Norick Arena opened in 1965 and is known as the “Big House” for hosting the annual high school basketball tournament.
The Oklahoma City Council on Wednesday approved a contract with Crossland Heavy Contractors Inc. to relocate an existing box culvert, as well as water and sewer lines.
A city manager’s memo said the existing culvert is in the footprint of the new building, just southeast of Norick Arena. The memo emphasized the need for a replacement.
“Norick Arena is approaching the end of its usable service life,” it said.
State Fair Park is a significant driver of tourism dollars and the arena is central to continuing success of the shows that lend Oklahoma City the nickname “Horse Show Capital of the World.”
State Fair Park accounted for an annual average of $326.8 million in direct spending from 2016 to 2018, according to an economic impact report, O’Toole said.
That amounts to about 60 percent of the overall impact attributable to State Fair Park, the Cox Convention Center, Chesapeake Energy Arena and Bricktown ballpark, he said.
The latest cost estimate for the new coliseum is $96.6 million, O’Toole said.
It will compete for MAPS 4 dollars with a broad variety of proposals.
Mayor David Holt has put out a call for ideas, branding the campaign “Dream Big.”
MAPS, or Metropolitan Area Projects, has built its reputation with voters through “transformational” projects such as the ballpark and Bricktown canal, and the senior health and wellness centers being built
by MAPS 3.
MAPS 4 ideas are still being accepted at ideasformaps.com.
Holt described the effort as a collaborative process of forming ideas, in its early stages, and involving “ultimately all the people of Oklahoma City.”
“We’re just barely at the point in this MAPS 4 process where idea gathering might transition to preliminary hypothetical conversations,” he said by text Wednesday.
“No one is committing to any project right now,” Holt said.
MAPS 4 could be the first billion-dollar MAPS program.
Planning will consume much of 2019, with a vote on extending the penny sales tax likely toward the end of the year.