Arena $30 million over budget

I confess I have not invested enough memory cells to keep up with the specifics. "Sort of a can't do everything, gotta generalize in some areas" shirking of responsibility.

With that caveat, a few comments:

1) No surprise that the over budget cost announcement got timed to take place after the recent elections.
2) What does 30 mil represent? By this I don't imply I cannot write 3 with enough zeroes following, nor that I have no clue how many lifetime incomes that represents (points I expect as the typical response to the over budget annoncement). Instead, I aim at pondering 30 mil as a percentage or fraction of the original cost projection. I'm thinking it comes in somewhere between a tenth to a sixth.
3) Any reason why we would not expect such fractions of cost overrun? Gasoline costs over a fourth more than it did a year ago, and may go up to half again last year's prices. ("Cost", of course, is an undefined word apart from discussing it in "constant dollars". After all, in college student days I worked 6 minutes to buy a gallon of gas, while sometimes in my professional career I worked only a couple minutes, and I anticipate before this year ends needing to work more than 6 minutes. But that's another rabbit trail.)
4) Speaking of rabbits, any reason to figure Mayor Taylor can pull one out of a hat and make the extra cost go away?
5)I will not entertain as credible anyone's claim of surprise at the newest estimates. Too many people predicted them. But the question before us is "What now?" Seems to me like a Catch 22 situation with a big price tag.

OK. Before someone else makes the point, I realize
I should have read the linked Medlock blog entry.

Costs half again estimates for the phase of building recently bid.

Question still is: what now?

Im shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!

In the T.W., the person overseeing the budget of the arena gave the Tulsa voters the impression that money was on target and everything was in order. Whoever is overseeing the arena bids and finances on the arena project, let them be interviewed and give the true facts.

That is so dishonest to the Tulsa voters where the arena was questionable to so many from the location of the arena to other factors.

I guarantee you if the BOK (bank of oklahoma) felt they were losing $30 million dollars over budget they would certainly have a different approach. However, BOK will only have to pay a small fraction of the cost of the arena to have it called the BOK Center.

Mayor Kathy Taylor -- I think by now she may be wondering if it was well worth the thousands and thousands of dollars she invested in her own campaign so she could win the $105,000 Mayor title. I would guess she was focusing on the big title and not all the many problems that
would be waiting for her. Didn't anybody see how Bill LaFortune looked like he aged in his face while holding the title of Mayor?

Can the whole arena please. They need a mom who manages a household to take charge of this project and make it go away, oh ya, KT is in the house.

Great, the plan is... to try and come up with a plan. They actually announced that the plan is to meet with people and try to come up with a plan. That's really letting us know what's going on an dputs faith in business leaders that the community is back on track.

1) If this was a surprise, then someone wasnt doing their job.
2) If it wasnt, thanks Bill for keying us in on the possibility.
3) As for the options, the CANNOT include anything less than 18,000 seats or the entire project is worthless. We already have one half-ass arena (2 really. Expo square and the convention center both serve well as small venue arenas, but not good enough to draw the big events), we dont need 2.

I'm fairly new to Tulsa and was excited to see Vision 2025 trying to pump new life into the city. Unfortunate that it took ALL public money to get the ball rolling, but since the old money world seems to be too invested in the status qou I guess it had to be this way. We finally get SOMETHING going and this happens. Great, it speaks volumes.

Now I see why Tulsa continues to stumble and revel in its past. It may have been the "oil capital of the world," but what is it now?