City of Oklahoma City Videos, 4 May 2018

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From YouTube: City News

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City News - Late April 2018 news:

EPA Grant
A new $800,000 grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency will support environmental cleanup in Oklahoma City to promote the redevelopment of under-used property.

The grant was announced during an event with Mayor David Holt and EPA Regional Administrator Anne Idsal at the Steelyard Apartments, a redevelopment project near Bricktown stemming from a public-private partnership similar to what the grant supports.

Finished streetscape project in Windsor District
Mayor David Holt and other civic leaders officially cut the ribbon on the new streetscape in the Windsor District, a re-emerging retail and entertainment district in west Oklahoma City.

The streetscape project included improvements benefiting drivers and pedestrians, plus beautification elements to complement the ongoing investment from business owners along the western NW 23rd Street corridor.

The $13 million project was funded by the 2007 bond program. It funded improved and repaved intersections, new and reconstructed sidewalks, improved decorative lighting, median beautification and more along NW 23rd Street between Interstate 44 and the Bethany city limit.

A

Let history record this is my first giant check and hopefully not the last. This.

B

Particular grant put to Oklahoma City over the 10 million dollar mark in EPA brownfields funding, which is a highly competitive grant process which makes this a major milestone and speaks to the professionalism and capability and capacity of the Oklahoma City brownfields program staff.

B

So I would like to express my gratitude and that of the EPA region six office, as well as all of EPA, that we have the opportunity to work with such tremendous and effective partners in the mayor, Amanda Gary, and we certainly look forward to seeing how this grant continues to help eliminate human exposure to lead and helps, develop and grow the Oklahoma City economy. So, thank you all very much. It's.

A

Really important to to create partnerships to address these issues so that this land can be redeveloped and that we don't have you know waste lands in the center of our city, and so we're very grateful that there are entities like the EPA, especially today, that are stepping forward and assisting us moving forward with some more projects. And that's what we're here today to celebrate. So I definitely want to make sure everybody understands how necessary this kind of assistance is to the future.

A

Development of our city and I also want to express the city's deepest gratitude to the EPA for for what they're doing what they have done in Oklahoma City, and what we'll continue to do together with the assistance they're providing today, the.

C

Brownfield program has allowed us to do something here that we probably couldn't have done. Otherwise it gave us some incentive and some early assistance to help move the project through when we're finished, we'll have 31, affordable units. Here this will be the first true mixed-use project like this at downtown Oklahoma City. It's probably what we're most excited about.

C

So not only did the brownfield program allow us to get to clean up a site, but it ultimately has led to people who otherwise couldn't afford to downtown rents, to be able to live, downtown and experience and enjoy that lifestyle.

D

I'm gonna take you on a bit of a history lesson in 2001, councilman Larry McAtee asked the leaders of all the neighborhoods in the Worcester area. What? If what? If we continued, the streetscape renovation, that's begun on the East corridor of Northwest 23rd at the Capitol and continued it into the 23rd Street West corridor from I 23rd to the bath aney limit and, as they say, the rest is history. His vision became the catalyst for change.

D

It's the type of change that occurs when like-minded citizens are empowered to work along city staff to begin a transformation of a renowned corridor in a city and watching a downward trend become an upward swing. This.

A

Is a thriving area and a thriving neighborhood I think this project is really about just making sure that we maintain that I mean there's parts of town that would kill to have the development that you see behind me in that shopping center there you know so we're we're trying here I think just to make sure that the Windsor area stays what it has been for a very long time and it's it's a it's kind of an established part of our city. I've been going around here. My whole life.

A

If I, if I look that direction, I can see my aunt's old apartment. If I look that direction, I can see my my family, accountants, old office I mean this is a place that we've all been kind of passing through for decades and decades here in Oklahoma City, because it is one of the most. You know traveled passages of our city. What.

E

You see today is what thirteen point two million dollars in taxpayer. Investment can do to an area to say to the people in Oklahoma City. We think these inner city is important and we want to make sure that it's available for our children and our grandchildren. The.

F

Streetscapes been a huge catalyst for much more than just a pretty pretty sidewalks and pretty lights. It's a sense of creating a sense of place for these communities to have ownership to em, to be proud to say they live in the Windsor district.