Oklahoma City — The City Council unanimously adopted a joint resolution updating the Oklahoma City Retail Incentives Policy, clarifying administrative procedures and adding new size thresholds for destination retail and entertainment uses.
The Alliance for Economic Development and the City briefed the council on the changes. Kenny Sewell, representing the Alliance, said the policy — last adopted in 2008 — was being modernized to use NAICS industry codes instead of legacy SIC codes, to clarify that applications route through the Alliance, and to formally require approval by the Economic Development Trust and City Council.
Why it matters: The revisions preserve the policy’s stated limits — incentives should be performance-based and not exceed the net new taxes generated — while adjusting eligibility criteria to attract very large retailers and mixed-use entertainment projects.
Key changes explained at the meeting: Sewell said destination retail remains eligible at a threshold of $20 million in annual sales and that an additional threshold was added for very large users at $75 million. A new destination-entertainment category requires at least $25 million in sales and must be part of a mixed-use development. The regional retail criterion (250,000 square feet and more than half of sales from beyond a 25-mile radius) and small-retailer provisions for underserved areas were left unchanged.
Outcome and follow-up: Council voted to adopt the resolution unanimously. Sewell and council members emphasized that incentives remain capped by the amount of net new tax revenue and that the city has used retail incentives sparingly in the past.
Ending note: Officials said the update was intended to keep the policy current with modern business classifications and to clarify administrative roles while limiting incentives to large-scale destination retail or entertainment projects that produce substantial net new tax revenue.