OWASSO, Okla. — This week the Owasso City Council voted to approve a financing package for a new industrial business park on a 10-acre parcel of land located just south of 76th Street North on the west side of U.S. 169.
Mayor Kelly Lewis, said the 5th Avenue Business Park LLC falls within the Redbud TIF District which will help the developer offset costs.
“A portion of the tax goes to kind of a reimbursement for that development,” Lewis explained, “so that in terms of dollars and cents is about $950,000 back to them so it’s a great partnership for both the city and the developer.”
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Dean West, President and Founder of West Development, is heading the project that will transform the 10-acres that sit just west of U.S. 169 into three buildings comprising 65,000 square feet of space for up to 26 individual businesses.
FOX23 News met up with West on site Friday morning, asking him about the incentive of investing in a TIF District:
“That was huge, " he said. “The property in Owasso is not cheap property and the cost to get utilities and services here were quite large as well so that helped us offset some of those additional costs that a normal development may not run into.”
West, who said he and his wife have lived in Owasso for more than twenty years, has witnessed the growth first hand.
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He says the industrial business park, which is estimated to cost $8.5 million dollars, will be very retail oriented, using what he calls “flex space” retail:
“So they’re real wide open spaces,” he explained, “so they stay flexible to the size of space someone wants, and then the demising wall from front to back determines if it’s a showroom or if its office space.”
The spaces will offer storage space in the back with large overhead doors that can accommodate 18-wheelers, as well showroom space in the front.
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West hopes the space will attract everything from power sports to construction suppliers, like a flooring store.
Construction will get underway next month, with a completion date of spring or summer of 2023.
West does not anticipate that the ongoing bridge widening project on U.S. 169 near 76th Street will be an issue during construction.
Chelsea Levo Feary, President and CEO of the Owasso Chamber of Commerce, said the 5th Avenue Business Park LLC in the Redbud District will give them something perspective businesses have been inquiring about for a long time:
“For years we’ve been hearing from perspective businesses about needing maker spaces so smaller, industrial type spaces that they can lease,” she explained, “whether it’s to run to their service business, their retail business or even their entrepreneurial or small kind of machine shop business.”
Feary said those are great potential jobs in the community, they offer great services, and they partner up with their regional manufacturing chain, and contribute to the supply chain.