New Renderings, Updates on Norman's Proposed Entertainment District and Oklahoma Arena

The Sooners have called Lloyd Noble Center home since 1975, but a new, 8,000-seat arena could change that as soon as 2027.

New renderings of the City of Norman's proposed entertainment district, which will include a new arena for Oklahoma's athletic teams, were provided during a Wednesday meeting at the University of Oklahoma's Evans Hall. A vote by the city Planning Commission will take place on June 13, after which it will go to City Council for final approval and could begin construction as early as 2025. /

NORMAN — If the process for passing Norman’s proposed entertainment district and arena was a college football season, the City of Norman, University of Oklahoma and developers have made it to the first round of the playoff.

The semifinal — a vote by the city planning commission — will take place next Thursday, June 13. If it passes — “something about which we are optimistic,” OU president Joseph Harroz Jr. told the media at Evans Hall on Wednesday — the championship vote will take place in the City Council, “shortly thereafter.”

Athletic director Joe Castiglione, Norman mayor Larry Heikkila and several other key figures associated with the passage of the new entertainment district provided an update on its development at Wednesday’s meeting. The university also provided new renderings of the proposed district.

New renderings of the proposed $1B Norman entertainment district development, which will include a new arena for #Sooners athletic teams.

The arena is expected to hold 8,000 fans and could house Oklahoma’s basketball and gymnastics teams as soon as 2027-28, pending passage. pic.twitter.com/ibMcE1MTXs

— Bryce McKinnis (@McKinnisBryce) June 5, 2024

If passed, the 8,000-seat arena could house Oklahoma's basketball and gymnastics teams as early as the 2027-28 school year, said Danny Lovell, a Henryetta native and CEO of Dallas-based Ranier Companies. The development's first phase would include the arena, retail and at least 250 of the project's expected 700 multi-family housing units.

In total, developers expect the development to generate over 5,000 new jobs and house over 3,000 residents.

"We would expect to go out for financing later this year, post-positive outcome, through the planning commission and city council," Lovell said. "And then likely, pending financing, start turning dirt in 2025. That would be our plan. We have a seven-to-an-eight-year build-out of various phases of the site plan, some of which you guys will see that will continue to evolve and get better over time as we continue to refine it."

Mayor Heikkila is optimistic the plan will pass through City Council and believes the city's residents are "generally in support" of the development, a sentiment which he has ascertained through surveys and personal conversations. He alluded to Oklahoma City's successful vote to build a new $900 million arena that will secure the Thunder's future in Oklahoma last December.

"We are at a mode now that we need to change, and we need to move into a grown-up mode of being able to deal with Norman as the third-largest city in Oklahoma. A lot of that is already pre-patterned. We can see in Oklahoma City what this kind of pattern does. We're not going in there blind. It's not all about faith. We can see that. We can track the numbers, and we can do it," Heikkila said. "I'm looking forward to the challenge over the next month of getting the goal made."

The development would be north of University Town Center near the intersection of 24th Avenue and Rock Creek Road. Its neighbor, the 122,000-square-foot Young Family Athletic Center, recently generated over $7,500 in sales tax during a three-day tournament.

"That's very indicative of what we hope will still keep on happening with a bigger picture when we get all of that working together," Heikkila said. "As people have mentioned, it's not just that spot. It's the halo effect, the synergy of things that are working around it in Moore, in Noble, in Norman, in [Cleveland] County just to be able to get that economic engine working."

Private investment and the university's contributions will foot about 80% of the plan's bill, leaving about one-fifth of its one-billion-dollar price tag to taxpayers, whose taxes, the university said, will not increase.

Castiglione said the university's total commitment to the project will total over $100 million, including a $25 million investment and roughly $75 million towards "a combination of rent and operations in going to the bottom line of the arena itself" over about a 25-year period.

"The arena that's being put together is not just for the use of the university but well beyond the university. Seventy-six percent of its use is for other community events," Harroz said, sporting his 2023 softball national championship ring for good luck. "In just a few days, we're going to move to the Southeastern Conference, an historic move. There's so many things converging right now. This is what progress looks like. This is what being a unified city looking out for the interest of all others looks like. This could not be a more exciting university."

Ownership of the arena is still a pending subject; While the University of Oklahoma Foundation currently owns the land, "it is not exactly clear yet who will own and operate the arena once constructed," said Guy Patton, CEO of the Foundation.

"There's a couple of options that will be driven by financing and the best structure to get the best rate for financing," Patton said. "It could be privately owned. It could be publicly owned through a public trust are the two big options. If it's privately owned, there are a bunch of options within that, which would include the Foundation playing a role."

The new arena would be about a four-mile trip from campus, a substantially longer commute for students. Castiglione isn't worried that distance will deter students from attending games.

"We anticipated that would be a major issue for both of us, both the athletic program, because we want our student body heavily involved in all of our athletic programs, as well as the anticipated question about moving the arena off the primary campus," Castiglione said. "We did surveys several years ago. . . of the students that were coming to Lloyd Noble on a regular basis. Eighty-five percent of them were driving to Lloyd Noble.

"That hasn't changed. So, we know that access to the arena will be coming to the current location or over to the new location, they'll get there the same way. That being said, for students who may need transportation, we have built in a plan to shuttle over from campus to the new arena, and there's also going to be a lot of other improvements made, I think, over a period of time that include a transportation system all around the city," Castiglione said.

Castiglione added that a "high focus of walkability" has been a significant facet of the plan since the development's inception.