MAPS moves forward with Oklahoma City civic improvements

Georgia Jones

Contributing Writer

The Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) plan is making progress in Oklahoma City as city leaders broke ground Wednesday on the new Oklahoma City Fairgrounds Coliseum. The $126 million project is just one of many initiatives scheduled to be completed in 2025, and is a product of both MAPS 3 and MAPS 4.

MAPS has been an OKC initiative since the 1990s and is funded by temporary, voter-approved penny sales tax increases. The debt-free public improvement plan is dedicated to community and human needs, aimed to help improve quality of life and job-creating initiatives in the city. The initial plan and schedule for MAPS 4 were set forth by Mayor David Holt, and was passed by voters in December 2019. Oklahoma City Council then approved a revision to the plan in August 2022, increasing the estimated revenue projected from $100 million to almost $1.1 billion over eight years.

“MAPS naturally gets better in terms of planning and implementation, as we always learn from each experience,” Holt said. “In MAPS 4, some notable improvements include the more detailed council resolution we passed initially that gives more definition to each project up front. Also, though we followed the same concept of having a Citizens Advisory Board, MAPS 4 has a far more inclusive group that reflects the city like never before. The overall group of nearly 60 mayoral appointments is majority women, the chair of MAPS 4 is a woman, and over 40 percent are people of color. Of course, I’m also proud of the new subject matter of MAPS 4, which hits on human and neighborhood needs, as well as the introduction of endowments, which will help with long-term operating costs.”

MAPS 4 is one of the largest approved implementation plans to date, with over 16 projects being developed and scheduled to improve Oklahoma City. The projects being developed revolve around parks, youth centers, senior wellness centers, mental health and addiction care, a family justice center, transit improvements, sidewalks, bike lanes, trails and streetlights, homelessness, animal shelters, the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, beautification, and more.

In the decades since MAPS began, nearly $5 billion in economic impact can be attributed to the original MAPS program. The original implementation brought multiple city staples such as the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, Paycom Center, the Bricktown Canal, the Oklahoma Spirit Trolleys, an improved Civic Center Music Hall and more. OKC also saw MAPS for Kids in 2001, a $700 million initiative to improve school districts whose boundaries connected with the City of Oklahoma City. In 2009, MAPS 3 improved public transportation, expanded the Oklahoma River project, created more neighborhood sidewalks, trails, public parks, and other various community needs.

“We were dying in 1993 when this passed. If we didn’t have MAPS, OKC would still exist, but in terms of size and energy, our peers today would be much smaller cities. Instead, we recently passed Nashville and DC to become the 20th-largest city in the U.S. That investment in our quality of life led to the Thunder and so many other things. It may only be 10 percent of our overall city budget each year, but it has made all the difference. It’s so exciting to think that over the next decade, we’ll add a billion dollars of quality-of-life improvements to the city. And that’s no small thing. It’s exciting to live in a city that always has something to look forward to.”

The MAPS 4 temporary penny sales tax began on April 1, 2020, and will end in 2028.