Broken Arrow City Council Meeting - June 15, 2026
Broken Arrow City Council Meeting - June 15, 2026
The Broken Arrow City Council met on June 15, 2026, to receive a second-quarter update from the Tourism and Economic Development (TED) Department, approve the Fiscal Year 2027 budget for the city and the Economic Development Authority, and conduct other routine business. The meeting included a consent agenda, a presentation on retail and tourism activity, and discussion of an upcoming conference hosted by the city.
Consent Calendar
- The council moved to approve the consent agenda; the motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
Presentations
- Tourism and Economic Development Second Quarter 2026 Update – Travis Stevens (TED) reported on major retail center progress (Adams Creek: Five Below and Books-A-Million open; Hackberry Market: Home Depot, TJ Maxx, Hobby Lobby expected to open before Thanksgiving 2026). He presented population growth data (consistent growth since 1980s) and housing starts (Broken Arrow more than 1.5 times Tulsa’s rate, quadruple Bixby’s, and four times that of Wasco). In the Rose District, three businesses closed since January 1 (Records Studio, Rose Rock Creamy Creamery, and a third due to a car accident), but three new businesses opened (Funky Brems, Kilwinds, The Collective co-working space). Several new businesses are coming soon, including two ground-floor spaces in the Brio, a vegan head spa, a boutique replacing 46 Trading Company, a crepe shop in the former bank ATM building (Ledger’s food court), and expansions in New Orleans Square (only one for-lease sign, quickly backfilling).
- Tourism Update – Michaela Barton (Tourism Manager) reported key performance indicators for July 2025–April 2026: lodging tax up 2.8%, average occupancy up 2.9%, average daily rate (ADR) $101.70, revenue per available room (RevPAR) $58 (up 4.1%). Hotel sales tax collections up 5.1%. Visitors from 50+ miles away spent $140 million in Broken Arrow last year, generating $4.9 million in sales tax (6.7% of total city sales tax). The film incentive pilot program ($100,000) awarded $85,000, generating $500,000 in direct spending and over 1,000 hotel room nights. A new $100,000 film incentive budget for FY2027 is approved, with two applications already received. Upcoming events: Broken Arrow Film Festival (October 2–3), American Junior Golf Association tournament (August), and various conferences. The city won a Merit Award for Marketing Campaign (large budget). A national marketing agency has been hired, and a destination marketer is in place. The council expressed appreciation for the department’s work.
Discussion Items
- Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Approval – The council considered and discussed Resolution 1755 adopting the proposed FY2027 budget for the city and the Broken Arrow Economic Development Authority financial plan. A motion to approve was made and seconded; the motion passed. (No further debate recorded.)
- Upcoming WIMG Conference – Councilor Ford announced that the Women in Municipal Government (WIMG) summer conference, part of the National League of Cities, will be held in Broken Arrow the following week. Hundreds of attendees are expected; the first three days are organized by the Oklahoma Municipal League, followed by WIMG events Wednesday through Friday. Many attendees are staying for the weekend (including a block party and visiting local churches). City staff and council members are involved in the planning.
Key Outcomes
- Consent Agenda – Approved unanimously.
- FY2027 Budget – Approved via Resolution 1755 (motion carried).
- Executive Session – A motion to clear the room and enter executive session was made and seconded; the council unanimously agreed to proceed.
Note: The meeting adjourned from the regular session into executive session. No further public business was conducted.
Meeting Transcript
Call green for parks, Wimpy. Here. Any items to be removed from the consent agenda. Make a motion to appraise consent agenda. Second. Item five is public hearings, appeals, presentations, recognitions, and awards. 58 presentation by the City Tourism and Economic Development Department for the second quarter of a calendar year 2026. Travis Stevens. Good evening, Madam Chair Wimpy, Beta Trustees, City Manager Spurgeon, happy to be here. Travis Stevens with the Tourism and Economic Development Department. Honored to be here to give you a quick update on recent activity that's happening within the city and what the TED team's up to. So as you know, we're charged with growing retail and tourism activity in the city. Do you have a clicker? Oh yeah. I'm going forth all night. We were here back in March to give an update, and we really focused on the large retail centers and what was going on with those. So tonight we want to do a quick spotlight on the smaller businesses and the tourism activity. But I do just want to address some of the things happening at those large power centers. If you guys have driven by either one of those, Adams Creek, you've you've probably noticed that five below and books a million is open for business. And if you've driven out by Hackberry Market, you'll notice the Home Depot and TJ Maxx and Hobby Lobby is really taking shape. So all of those are expected to be open for business prior to Thanksgiving of this year. So just want to give a quick update on that. The beautiful TED team. Oh, thank you very much, whoever did that. Wanted to just uh bring your attention in the bottom right corner. That is Lisa Smith, the newest addition to our team. She's our new administrative assistant and is doing a fantastic job of keeping us organized and in line and on task. Um so we really appreciate her efforts. She she joined us back in February. So wanted to make sure you got uh got to see what she looks like. And then next slide, I want to just share what a couple macro data points. This is not really anything you guys don't already know. Uh this is the growth, uh, population growth over the past several decades. Uh Kenny Schwab had a fantastic quote uh in the Kobe U class last week, and he said that broken arrow has been growing since the 40s, uh, which is absolutely true. You can see this. We just went back to 1980. Um, you'll notice the I would just point out that the number of people uh that are adding to the population is I would say is relatively consistent over the years. Uh you just get a larger base, so the percentages are going down. Um, but just wanted to kind of make sure. I mean, you guys know this, but it is an impressive graph, so I want to share that. The next slide, something that's very closely related to the population growth is the housing starts. Um there's an organization new new orders weekly. They put this together for all the Tulsa Metro communities, and obviously what stands out is broken arrow in the last three plus years. Uh we haven't quite doubled Tulsa's housing rate, but it's more than a time and a half, double that at big speed, four times that of a WASO. Um, why is this important? It's because retail follows rooftops. And I use these two graphs, the one before previous to this, um, to show my audience, which is commercial developers, retail chains, retailers, small even small businesses. This graph was a a real attention grabber at ICSC a few weeks back. Um, and I saw a lot of eyebrows raised when I present this data in front of them because everybody thinks of Tulsa and you know just the Tulsa region. A lot of people aren't aware of what's happening in Broken Arrow, and so these graphs really tell that story.
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