NEW OKC Thunder $1B Arena to be located next to a skyscraper?

NEW OKC Thunder $1B Arena to be located next to a skyscraper?

well ladies and gentlemen we do have an update on the potential location of a possible billion dooll new NBA arena going in Oklahoma City and possibly opening by 2029 the spot has been chosen in Downtown OKC for a new Thunder NBA arena the OKC Thunders ownership group has selected the footprint of the old Cox Convention Center that is currently Prairie surf Studios as their desired spot for a new NBA arena an agreement to develop on the site is on the agenda for the OKC council meeting that’s going to be happening on Tuesday and they’re saying it comes as little to no surprise so yeah you can take a look at where the potential new arena is going to be located it’s not surprising at all this is basically what happens with Arenas or stadiums eight times out of 10 you will get the new facility built right next to the old facility the paycom Center there I’m sure will be redeveloped into some something else the interesting aspect to this whole thing is the potential presence of the Legends tower now you can see potentially where the Legends Tower which could possibly be the biggest skyscraper in the United States we’re still not sure if that’s actually going to be the case but they might scale it down a little we’ll see you can see where it’s going to be located in relation to where the new Arena would go the paycom center right now is basically directly across the street and then it would be kind of Dian diagonal to where the new arena is in terms of the Legends Tower so again not very surprising this OKC project it’s kind of strange in the fact that we haven’t received any renderings with how far along the process is to where it’s already been agreed upon the sales tax the amount of money they’re going to be spending apparently it’s a minimum on this new Arena of 900 million do it’s very likely to be slightly over budget that’s normally how these things work it’ll probably be around a bill ion maybe $1.1 billion for the total Arena but still there’s been no renderings you would think now that there is a site there could possibly be renderings that would be released and looks like they’re really trying to build up that OKC area you can see via the Google Maps aerial shots that where the Legends Tower would be it’s totally undeveloped and then where the paycom Center is again I would imagine that’s going to be developed into some type of retail space because obviously once the new Arena gets built they’re saying by 20 30 at the latest but they want the OKC Thunder to open in their new arena in the fall of 2029 either 2029 or 2030 they’re going to be redeveloping that paycom Center space they’re going to immediately I would expect knock it down obviously there was a thought that maybe they would leave it up because people have kind of questioned the idea do they really need a new Arena this is really just one of two options and Oklahoma City is choosing the slightly more drastic one many other cities have chosen to go with a $300 million renovation to their current Arena which is something that Oklahoma City certainly could have done now I do think the brook X tior of this Arena looks really Obsolete and the main problem is also the interior seating design as well but the arena itself is not terrible considering it was built in the early 2000s it’s not like it’s 30 or 40 years old but it’s at this point coming up at a time where it probably needs a significant renovation or they’re going to have to replace it and they’ve taken the more aggressive route in terms of replacing it normally with situations like this it’s a combination of factors why they would replace an arena that’s only 20 years old the context to the paycom Center is it was originally built before the Thunder became a thing so it was built in 2001 Oklahoma City did not get the thunder until 2007 so you really can’t commit to a massive NBA arena project if you don’t even have a team and you’re not going to be having a team for five or six years now they built the paycom Center which was formerly Chesapeake Ena in to get an NBA team but it’s not like you can really invest a ton of Assets in it because it’s not confirmed now of course if they knew they were getting an NBA team the arena would be built up a lot better there would be way more sweets I believe the paycom Center has the lowest amount of sweets of any NBA arena which is obviously a major incentive on why they would want to move and it’s also hard to renovate Arenas and add Suites into them so I would imagine they want more luxury seating and it does seem like again when you look at where the paycom center is right now and you see where they’re potentially going to be putting the new Arena and you see the dilapidated area across from the paycom Center Oklahoma City might be extremely developed I would say at least this area by 2030 or 2031 if they actually build the Legends Tower because it’s not just the Legends Tower there’s also other smaller Towers surrounding that area and you would have kind of a nice cohesion with where the new OKC Arena could potentially be although we will see if that ends up happening I’m sure there’s going to be some type of development that they’re going to be building we just don’t know exactly how tall the Legends Tower will actually be and I almost wonder I don’t think this is going to happen but it’s interesting because of how close the new arena is going to be if they would consider where the paycom center is right now they’re going to knock down the paycom Center obviously possibly building some type of development some type of maybe Casino or bar area residential area and connecting it to the arena because I really see that kind of as the future when it comes to these Arenas their their entire areas and they’re actually connected with other buildings to where you don’t even have to walk outside to get from whether it’s a casino whether it’s a hotel into the arena because they could have a lot of space there if they still have the paycom Center area to possibly develop that into some type of Arena District and you also have potentially the leg the Legends Tower going up right across the street so when you look at an aerial shot right now of the paycom center it’s really not impressive but if you look at a maybe an aerial shot in the year 2032 of what this area could look like it’s going to have possibly billions of dollars dumped into it and it’s an interesting development because they’re potentially building America’s biggest skyscraper not even you know a half mile away from it so a unique thing nonetheless again the the kind of weirdness to this is that we haven’t received any renderings normally when it comes to an arena process or a stadium process where they’re trying to get a new place and they need money from the public they will release very nice renderings because renderings always look nice before they actually need to to pass whether it’s a bill whether it’s some type of you know vote Oklahoma City did none of that we’ve seen no renderings and they passed it back in December so normally we would have gotten renderings like in October or seven or eight months ago and we just haven’t gotten anything so and they were still able to pass it by the way some type of sales Tech so I would expect the new Arena at this point it seems like everything is going as planned to potentially open in 2029 although if it’s opening in 2029 they’re really not going to be starting construction for several years still you wouldn’t think because Arenas you’re looking at I would say around two and a half years in terms of build time another thing that they did last year is they kind of threatened relocation not really I mean that’s what these teams do when they try and get public money but they were like well we want to lock ourselves in till 2050 and if you vote on this you know Oklahoma City the Thunder are going to stay here till 2050 I never really thought Oklahoma City had any chance of relocation there it was never really a topic I mean they just got the team so obviously with the new Arena they’re locked in now to the area till 2050 so they also have that going for them but overall this will be a very interesting development it’ll be interesting to see what goes in the pcom site and then also if the legends power actually gets built because we are seeing more and more of a cohesion or a potential cohesion between these Arenas and the surrounding areas everything’s connected it seems like the 76ers are trying to do something like that the Mavericks are trying to do something like that the new Las Vegas team whatever it is they’re trying to do something like that so the newer Arenas seemingly are going more towards that route I don’t know what the Spurs are going to do that’s another situation to look at possibly building some type of District they’ve got a minor league park they to build right next to a potential new NBA arena in a different area and that’s another thing that is kind of unique with this situation if if a stadium or an arena is only 20 years old most of the time teams will abandon it is because of the location obviously with this Arena it’s not because of the location they’re building the new Arena right next to it I just assume that based on the way that this Arena was built there wouldn’t be much uh of an incentive to really throw massive money into a renovation like three 300 or $400 million although if that vote would have failed they probably would have had been forced to do something else maybe a renovation to the paycom Center but either way that is just the status of this project and apparently we’re going to be getting more news next week on Tuesday maybe we’ll get some actual building plans some rendering something like that but that is going to do it for this video make sure you follow me on X link to that’s always in the description

Discussing the Oklahoma City Thunder new arena and the Legends Tower

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