Sports at the Civic Center Music Hall? Is Dell staying in OKC? Your questions answered.

The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer fielded reader questions Friday during his weekly OKC Central Live Chat. Each week, Steve hosts a live chat, giving readers a chance to ask questions about Oklahoma City development and growth as well as an opportunity to ask direct questions of OKC newsmakers like Mayor David Holt and Dan Straughan, the executive director of the Homeless Alliance. You can join Steve most Fridays at 10 a.m. to add your comments and questions about downtown development.

To be able to ask questions and interact with Steve or special guests, you must have a digital subscription to The Oklahoman and you must be logged in. Right now, you can get unlimited digital access to all of our content for $1 for the first six months.

Reader questions consulate locations in Oklahoma City

Q: The Guatemalan Consulate is in an office building near Northwest Expressway and MacArthur. I recently saw the Mexican Consulate being readied in an older building just west of Western on Sheridan. I asked myself, “Why so far apart? What if we get more consulates?" 

Wouldn't it be more convenient to have all the consulates along the same street, like an Embassy Row? I was thinking about Lincoln Boulevard just north of the State Capitol, where the empty lots are. What say you? 

A: I'm not sure that Lincoln Boulevard is the best place for these consulates as they are primarily focused on constituent services. For whatever reason, the address for the Mexican Consulate was withheld from reporters when this deal was announced, but there are ample public documents including building permits that show the consulate is being opened in an older warehouse at 1131 W Sheridan Ave.

More: Will Rogers World Airport doesn't offer international flights, but growth could bring some

Twenty years ago, this property was boarded up and in an area that seemed out of reach for any sort of redevelopment. But with downtown momentum going south of Classen Boulevard, we're seeing this area take shape with StarSpace 46 next door and Beer City just a couple of blocks north at NW 2 and Klein.

The Northwest Expressway and MacArthur location for the Guatemalan consulate makes no sense to me, but it seems to me it also would want to be close to the core of the Hispanic and Latin American population between the river and SE 29. The Mexican consulate is pretty close to that area.

Did OKC get a good return on its money from the Dell customer service center?

Q: Back in 2004, Oklahoma City gave Dell a 62-acre site along the Oklahoma River and provided at least $17.2 million in job creation grants and infrastructure improvements to build the Dell-OKC campus, in which they constructed two 120,000-square-foot office buildings. They immediately began to employ thousands and the site was to kick off river development in a big way. 

The city and chamber folks touted its success, and we all agreed it was a job well done because it brought in a great employer and found a use for blighted land.  

Fast forward to now; with work-from-home and corporate layoffs, the entire Dell campus is basically empty, with maybe a dozen or two dozen working on-site. Nothing else of that magnitude along the river was ever developed in Dell's wake. My guess is that the Dell campus will eventually close its doors, and we have a 62-acre acre corporate campus sitting vacant at "America's Crossroads" of I-40/I-44 and the Oklahoma River. Question: In hindsight, how would you evaluate the success of this Dell project and did the city get their money's worth in the $17.2 million and the land giveaway? 

A: I don't have all the answers for this one, but I can explain why I think the city did really well on this deal. Oklahoma City was chosen among 100 competing sites for the operation when it was chosen in 2004. The site was a former landfill, and because of this deal, the city was able to work with Dell and use brownfields money to clean the site.

Oklahoma City provided $5.5 million in job creation incentives, funded by a forgivable section 108 loan, and $18.8 million in infrastructure improvements, such as water, sewer and street, traffic and site improvements, funded by a tax increment financing district. One year from the opening of the facility in Oklahoma City, Dell was eligible for job creation grants of $1,000 per employee based upon the average number of full-time employees employed during the previous year, not to exceed $5.5 million.

From what I can recall and see in our archives, the deal was all performance-based, meaning we got what we paid for. A deal that originally envisioned a few hundred jobs ultimately brought us more than 2,000 jobs. The company opened its 120,000-square-foot facility at 3501 SW 15 in 2005. A year later, the center doubled in size when Dell built a second office building at the same site. In 2011 I reported the company met all of its obligations set out in the agreement with the city.

Seven years after the opening, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber released a study showing the operation at that time was providing a $340.5 million annual benefit the metro area's economy, and had produced a $2.2 billion economic benefit since it opened in 2004.

I don't know exactly how many people are currently employed or how many are working at the center. I am aware Dell is doing quite a bit of work from home that started with the pandemic. Building permits also show the company is spending more than $3 million on renovations.

This is clearly a story to look into. But did Oklahoma City get its money's worth? I'd say yes.

Civic Center Music Hall once doubled as a basketball court and convention hall

Q: My late father played in the 1959 Class B state championship basketball game. Believe it or not, the championship game was played inside the Civics Center Musical Hall.... (and was reminded of that while walking the grounds this past weekend during the Arts Festival). Over the years I have tried to find photos of the Civic Center being used for sporting events such as this, but have been unsuccessful. Regarding old photos of Oklahoma City, what online resource do you believe has the largest collection of photographs available to the general public? 

A: I love questions like this because they allow me to put the spotlight on Retro Metro OKC, a non-profit that has since 2009 assembled collections showcasing our history in a way that is both educational and entertaining. And guess what? I have the very photos you are looking for in a collection I assembled for the site.

You will find the photo you are looking for on the Retro Metro OKC site. After clicking this link, choose the CCMH collection. You will see the original auditorium as it was used for concerts and plays and being used for a basketball game. If you wish to see more, under the Jon Spence collection you can also view a commercial for one of the first arts festivals during their first run at the Civic Center.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Sports at the Civic Center Music Hall? Is Dell staying in OKC?