Can requiring a fraction of a cent more from shoppers bring more businesses and higher-paying jobs to New Hanover County?

Chris Coudriet thinks so.

At an event downtown Thursday night, the county manager described how a sales tax increase could fuel ongoing economic development efforts. He updated the progress of those efforts before the event’s keynote speaker, with words and striking images, explained how Oklahoma City has used temporary sales tax increases to transform a formerly bleak economic outlook into a prosperous one.

For Wilmington, a quarter-cent sales tax increase with a seven-year time limit would raise $49 million, or $7 million a year for seven years, Coudriet said, and he encouraged local and state elected officials to craft the required legislation.

“But those dollars would have a clear plan,” Coudriet said Thursday, to an audience attending a Wilmington Downtown Inc. economic series session titled “The Garner Report: Oklahoma City as a Model.”

Of the $49 million that would be raised in New Hanover County, Coudriet said, $23 million would be spent on pay-as-you-go infrastructure projects, such as those in Oklahoma City that were described Thursday by Jane Jenkins, president and CEO of Downtown Oklahoma City Inc.

Before Jenkins began her presentation, Coudriet said $15 million of the $49 million could be used for site acquisition and preparedness; $8 million for incentives; and $3 million to establish a revolving loan program for existing small businesses.

The sales tax increase would address a recommendation about boosting the Wilmington area’s economic development efforts that was included in a report by Atlanta-based consulting firm Garner Economics: to create a sustainable funding source for economic development.

“First and foremost, the voters would have to approve” the quarter-cent increase, Coudriet said.

Jenkins said a majority of voters approved the first Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) sales tax of 1 cent for Oklahoma City in 1993, a result that led to the building of a baseball stadium, an arena that today is home to an NBA team; a convention center that will soon be replaced with an even bigger convention center; and a mile-long $23 million canal, among many other projects.

Murmurs of astonishment erupted from the crowd at the WDI event when Jenkins displayed before and after pictures of the area where OKC built Bricktown Canal. The scene in a Bricktown before picture (below) shows a gloomy street, while the after pictures display a vibrant, flourishing cityscape with the baseball stadium looming in the background as an anchor.



The canal “has really encouraged much development in that particular area – restaurants, shops, offices. People love being in Bricktown,” Jenkins said.

At one time, Oklahoma City was contractually obligated to mow its river, which had been decimated by flood mitigation measures.  After the river was filled back up and rebranded as the Oklahoma River, OKC became an international destination for rowing sports and the official training location for Olympic kayaking, canoeing and rowing, Jenkins said.

Improvements to the state fairgrounds appealed to people in more rural parts of Oklahoma City.

“We wanted the projects to be as citywide as we could possibly make them,” Jenkins said.

Oklahoma City has a population of 560,000, which grows to more than a million when outlying areas are factored in, Jenkins said. The city of Wilmington has about 113,000 residents.

But like what Oklahoma City did with the start of MAPS, Wilmington’s and New Hanover County’s economic development push has been gaining momentum, according to local leaders, and Jenkins provided some advice for them Thursday.
    
“When you start, you don’t have to have all the answers,” she said. “We didn’t have all the answers. We  involved the citizens of our community to tell us what they wanted, what would improve their quality of life.”

As the MAPS process has continued in OKC with a third round of raising money for more projects and improvements, so have the economic benefits, Jenkins said.

“We’re already seeing responses to MAPS 3 in terms of companies that want to locate or have already located there,” she said.