The lease with the primary private tenant at the new Tulsa city hall won’t allow a “City Hall” sign on the building, so the city will string a large temporary banner across the building’s public entrance to identify it.
The new city hall opened for business in early October after Tulsa issued $76 million of bonds in November 2007 to buy the downtown high-rise headquarters of a defunct telecommunications company and move municipal departments into it. However, the city cannot put a large permanent sign on it or officially name it Tulsa City Hall due to provisions in the lease agreement with Bank of Oklahoma.
Dan Crossland, deputy director of public facilities for Tulsa, told councilors last week that the city has taken stops to resolve the identification issue.
“We do recognize that there is a problem,” he said. “You can literally stand outside on the corner here and try to find City Hall. It’s difficult. “
The debt issued by Tulsa Public Facilities Authority in 2007 for the city hall project included $37.5 million of tax-exempt bonds and $36.7 million of taxable bonds. The authority’s debt is rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-minus by Standard & Poor’s.
