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A legislative working group on Friday recommended approval of the city of Tulsa’s request for $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for a massive wastewater infrastructure project designed to spur economic development throughout northeastern Oklahoma.

The centerpiece of the proposal calls for providing wastewater services to a new industrial park and accompanying urban center to be built on Fair Oaks Ranch east of the city.

The roughly 17,000-acre property, located south of where the Creek Turnpike and U.S. 412 intersect, is the site where Tesla and other major companies have considered building facilities but never chose.

“Our case to the legislators has been: We have companies that really want to build facilities in Oklahoma on this site, but we just need to have the wastewater infrastructure,” said Mayor G.T. Bynum.

The city sees the proposed industrial park, which would be a minimum of 2,000 acres, as complementing other area employment centers, including the MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor and the ports of Catoosa and Inola.

“We are really trying to build these clusters in northeast Oklahoma because there is a proven private-sector market for these types of spaces if communities are willing to do the advance work to have them ready for businesses to plug in their facilities,” Bynum said.

The recommendation from the Joint Committee on Pandemic Relief working group on economic development now goes to the full joint committee. If approved there, it would be taken up by the Legislature, which is expected to meet in special session this fall.

Although city officials see the Fair Oaks Ranch development as a critical component of the plan, they stress that construction of expanded wastewater treatment and conveyance capacity would extend far beyond the boundaries of the property and benefit surrounding communities, such as Catoosa and Broken Arrow.

“While we are very focused on creating a space for industrial growth in that part of our city, the reality is that building out the wastewater infrastructure in that area benefits that whole region,” Bynum said.

Between 4,000 and 9,000 new jobs would be created as a result of the economic development made possible by the infrastructure project, according to an economic impact study conducted by McKinsey & Co. earlier this year.

The overall impact of the project to the state’s gross domestic product would be between $1.3 billion and $3.6 billion, the study found.

The city of Tulsa is negotiating with Fair Oaks Ranch LLC to establish a joint development agreement that is expected to be paired with a tax increment financing district.

Tulsa and Broken Arrow, meanwhile, are working with the property owner to incorporate the project into their comprehensive plans, which would provide the framework for a more detailed master plan.

“The public interest from our standpoint would be a minimum of a 2,000-acre industrial site,” Bynum said. “That is a pretty massive site, and they (the property owner) would have to agree to transfer that to the city as part of the development agreement. … The public would own the site where the industrial development would occur.”

The city has already spent more than $70 million on infrastructure in the area, Bynum said, but wastewater service remains the missing link.

Tackling that job and the associated costs would take the city 15 years or more, he said. If Tulsa is ultimately awarded the $50 million ARPA allocation, it would have four years to complete the project.

“That’s why we pursued this from the state,” Bynum said. “It allows us to move forward 15 years or so and get this stuff installed so we can be competitive for those jobs and that economic growth right now.”

Grace Wood and James Watts preview upcoming Scene features, including the 50th anniversary of Catoosa's Route 66 Blue Whale; monarch butterflies migration; the latest full Tulsa Ballet; and more.

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