Everybody's here, so I guess we can go ahead and get started.

It is 5 30, so yeah, we'll go ahead and get started.

Welcome to the city council conference for Tuesday, July 28th, 2026.

We have one item on the agenda, and that is a discussion regarding the Lindsay Street Water Tower contract with Dr.

Pepper slash seven up Inc.

And uh Parks Director and legal staff are here to talk about that with us.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to the council.

Uh very excited to talk about this today.

This has been something that's been in the works in the background for I would say about 90 days.

We've been 90 to 120 days.

We've been working uh with the representatives from Dr.

Pepper to try to put the a good contract uh together to bring um to you.

Uh like uh I was sitting here thinking about uh you have a great combination between me and Chris.

Uh I was thinking um Talla Day Gonites, um one of us a shake, one of us spake.

I'm not gonna tell you which one.

Uh but we've been working together.

He's been more working on the um construction side of trying to get the tower painted, and we've been uh me and Catherine have been working together trying to get the tourism contract together.

So, first thing we want to uh throw out there is uh Lindsay Street uh water tower is really really close to the football stadium.

Uh it does have some great angles um inside the stadium.

Uh so it's very attractive for a organization or a business like um Dr.

Pepper to uh want to put their their logo on there.

We're about 25, a little bit over 2500 feet from Water Tower to Football Stadium.

Uh and as you can see, we're right there on the corner of uh Lindsay and almost Class and Boulevard.

Uh so if y'all uh looked at the contract tonight, you saw that this is the conceptual drawing or art that uh Dr.

Pepper sent to us last week as we were uh finalizing our contract.

Um so we are referring to this uh as Fansville Water Tower.

Um when I'm saying we, that's city staff.

Um uh when it actually gets put together with a marketing campaign and everything that goes along with Dr.

Pepper.

Uh just want to be very upfront there.

They they control uh their brand.

Uh they will be able to uh call it what they want, you know, something different.

We might refer to it as Fansville, but we don't know how long that that marketing campaign will necessarily last.

So uh it will be uh Dr.

Pepper logo up there.

It's uh 10 years about and it's 500,000.

Uh the first payment you will see will be uh the 50,000 plus 25,000 for the painting of the logo.

Uh they will pay $50,000 a year until the 10th year of the contract, and that final payment will be $25,000.

We uh asked for more up front to help uh paint the the Dr.

Pepper logo on there.

Uh Dr.

Pepper can extend the the contract with a hundred days notice.

Uh if they choose to end the agreement, uh they will have to pay up to 120 or up to 25,000 to uh paint over the logo.

Uh we don't necessarily know what that will look like.

Uh our first thoughts would uh maybe we'll just go ahead and um paint it red to uh because it will be more than probably 25,000 to if we went back to a uh different color option of uh maybe painting it white or something like that.

Uh uh Dr.

Pepper 7 Up um will provide the final artwork, so this is not necessarily what will be painted on the tower, and they will pick the placement.

We would imagine that would line up pretty um close in in angle towards the stadium, and and they also want a logo on the other side, so it'd be Dr.

Pepper painted twice up there.

All work must be um completed by October 15th of 2026.

Uh, we were trying very hard to get all this work in before the start of the football season.

Uh it became as we were working and um negotiating and trying to put our bids together, it became very obvious that we weren't gonna hit that first football game date.

Uh schedule's very favorable once um we get past the the second game day and the first SEC game is after the week after OU Texas.

Uh so we all had agreed that that would be a great time to uh open uh this tourism attraction.

And want to point out this is what we're calling it.

And we do believe that this is gonna be a great regional tourism attraction.

Uh there is a lot of uh Laurel, Laurel and love for uh Dr.

Pepper and Fansville, especially with the uh tie-in uh with uh Brian Bosworth.

I snuck this question off or this picture off the the internet, and it also had a Dr.

Pepper Tower uh fixed in.

But uh so very great connection between Bosworth being the greatest linebacker of all time and playing uh uh uh OU.

Uh so we think it's gonna be very popular, gonna be a great tourist attraction, but miscellaneous items that are also included in the contract.

Uh uh Norman's utility authority in the city must maintain the site, which includes maintaining structural integrity, integrity, uh, electrical infrastructure, do general uh maintenance things like mow, weed eating, uh other general maintenance lighting.

Uh we are do have lighting out for bid right now.

We're trying to get um the best deal for it in for that uh lighting requires uh joint approval from both the city and Dr.

Pepper 7 Up.

Uh and this extends farther than just picking the lights that goes into the the water tower.

We also anytime that we change colors, we'll um both us and Dr.

Pepper will agree on what lighting package that we use or what color of the lightings that we use uh for the that particular day, or if it's um you know, if we're using for something or breast cancer awareness month or St.

Patrick's Day or Christmas, uh uh we'll work with them on making sure that those colors don't necessarily conflict with their branding.

Uh any vandalism uh that happens at the water tower uh must be uh basically removed within 15 days.

The only uh thing that we have in there that uh we want to be aware of if the vandalism is so bad that it goes above our bid limits, then we would have to actually have to put the repair of the bid out to uh for bid.

Uh so that might be the only caveat which we've explained to them and they've accepted.

And Dr.

Pepper 7up retains full ownership of their branding and artwork that goes on to the tower.

And we already made Mo Weedy control due maintenance and already remedy vandalism on it if they're running currently.

Correct.

Councilman Cansbury.

Also, um, when it comes to Dr.

Pepper retainer rights, the branding.

Do we have uh something to contract like work tourism and that could use it in marketing and stuff like that, you know, have it in the background of pictures and things like that.

It's a great segue.

It's like it looks like we rehearsed this um uh so we do have a portion of the contract uh is under tourism and event attraction.

Uh parks is currently, as you see this drawing right here, that was done by our own in-house landscape architects.

We are working to uh make the bottom of it aesthetically pleasing landscaping underneath uh and coming up with the pricing of that.

Dr.

Pepper is also working with um uh to or has the right uh to install temporary attractions and sample products.

Uh uh we we do believe that they have are willing to do some artwork and things that are be more uh permanent down there, uh and we're gonna work with them on all that.

Uh so parks is uh we also talked about so that there's roles and um we can put time limits and uh end times and everything underneath that.

The uh parks is uh we've talked about making this a special use park, which is uh if agreeable, we can have a set of rules because it's special use park uh uh time limits, um, special rules that are only um attached to this specific area, uh, and that would be as simple as uh us putting together rules, taking it to Parks Board and they accepting it as a special use park.

Uh the city and uh Dr.

Pepper Seven Up will uh partner together to promote the tower through visitor guides and digital tourism, which uh gives us the right to uh to take pictures of it or share them um in digital marketing or anything else that has to do with uh bringing visitors to this specific landmark.

Uh Dr.

Pepper 7 Up can hold um, they're talking about having a kickoff event which would coordinate with that first SEC game uh versus Kentucky, which I think is on October 17th, and up to five uh special events per year that the city would coordinate with uh Dr.

Pepper 7 Up to hold any kind of events uh underneath there, and as I said earlier, Dr.

Pepper 7 Up can hold um may install temporary attractions and sample products specifically.

I I would imagine those would coordinate with home football games if they chose to do that.

And then of course that would just be to be underneath it, but people could stand anywhere behind them and take pictures.

From the duck pond or whatever.

So this was uh they were asking us what could the bottom possibly look like, and this is what we submitted to them.

Uh we are uh currently hold um basically hosting twice uh a month coordination meetings with them and coordinating everything from construction, uh giving them the updates now, especially since y'all passed it.

We can go ahead and move forward with the painting of the tower.

Uh we are coordinating um events for coordinating what what it will look like underneath the tower.

Uh so all these things are already in action, and if y'all do uh follow through and approve that contract tonight, um you'll start seeing all these things to come to fruition in the upcoming months.

Uh so the order of action once the tower would get painted with the Dr.

Pepper's uh logo on that.

We anticipate covering that up until uh the kickoff event happens.

Uh we can't start working on the landscaping or anything underneath the water tower or the lighting until the uh tower is fully painted.

Uh once that gets painted, we'll start um landscaping and doing things underneath the tower and hopefully working on the lighting package that will follow up with that.

That includes replacing the existing fence around the fence and will be removed.

That's barbed wire and all that stuff, which is I understand Run there.

Yeah, okay.

So that's short and sweet.

Love to answer any questions that come along with that.

Councilmer Kirby.

Are the lights a requirement?

I know you said that you put it out for a bid, but say that they kind of back extremely high and we don't approve it.

Are they requiring the lights or were the contract still go on no matter what?

They uh they would I don't know if the uh should we have a lot of people?

Yeah, the contract doesn't require the lighting.

We've got language in here to address it if because the city intends to install lighting, but there's not a requirement in it there that we do.

So if it's come back, you know, astronomic astronomically high or something, we can always uh back off of the lighting.

Thank you.

And hopefully one of the options would just be like regular plain spotlights on versus an elaborate color scheme projection.

What we're what we're looking at right now is lighting on the catwalk, and then uh I think we have three lights on the legs.

There's five total legs, but we'll put lights on three of them to light up the the bottom bowl of that, any of that uh according to price could be changed or or or cut if it comes way back in.

But uh as we saw with the the contractor's estimate of painting of it, I think he's giving us very conservative pricing on his part because he doesn't want to be wrong.

So hopefully uh all those pricings that he came up to or gave us earlier would come in significantly lower.

No questions, Councilmore Steele.

Uh yeah, so the money from the contract, does that go back into the utilities account?

Yes, it'll go back into the utilities fund uh since it's an asset to be used by utilities and utilities funds are paying for the painting.

And since I don't think it's ever been claimed, we may have to make new business cards for the city council of Fansville and the mayor of Fansville.

I don't I don't think anybody's ever claimed that.

I think that's gotta be this can be a dog or something.

Mayor of Fan.

Uh well, be the OE mascot or somebody like that.

Or I wouldn't tiger.

I was looking back in the council minutes, and it was in March of 2024, is we first had a uh council committee meeting, I think, or study session about the water tower and about um tearing it down and how much that cost first, what it might cost to repaint it.

And we had a discussion about trying to work with OU and do Norman on one side and OU on the other, and we were repainting another water tower in North Norman at that same summer in 2024.

So there was a discussion about trying to do them both at the same time and have it potentially done by the first ever SEC game in Norman, or you know, as part of OU being the SEC.

Um that didn't work out, and then um I know I had talked to several different local organizations over the last two years about it.

Um, public art opportunities, mural, um, public art contest, uh, different things like that.

Um, and couldn't seem to get a lot of traction behind any particular idea and funding source.

And so um uh the Fansville commercials last fall.

They've been on for I don't know, six, seven, eight years now, every fall during football season, and uh noticed that water tower in there, and um that was just kind of an idea that got floated out and be like, oh, it kind of looks like the Fansville commercial water tower, and uh Councilmember Dixon knew somebody, knew somebody that knew somebody at Dr.

Pepper and was able to uh make a connection and conversation started and almost a year later uh here we are with this opportunity.

So that's kind of the history of where it came from.

Uh it could have been anything for those that have asked, and we've been talking about it for a couple years, and um I think this puts us in a position that uh in a few years from now uh it'll still be there, and then the council, the city at that time can decide to uh repaint it something else, or um maybe it'll be appropriate to put it into use for the uh reuse stuff by then, or for uh I mean for watering Reefs Park and the golf course and stuff like that, um, or whatever other idea might be out there at the time, but that prolongs it for a few more years.

And and like I mentioned before, this being um it's almost a hundred years old.

I I think it was I don't I don't know what specific year, like 35 or 34, but as far as we know, the oldest water tower standing in Norman.

And um, and uh I just always kind of felt like spending half a million dollars to tear it down was not really worth it.

So um, but also the sight of it and being a rusting water tower, most of the public doesn't know that it's not in use for 15 years and think that the water they're drinking is coming out of that and that it's full of rust, you know.

So the image of that is an issue that um kind of prompted the uh discussion about what should we do with this?

Should we tear it down or should we try to fix it up and do something neat with it or whatever?

And so um excited that this opportunity came up and what opportunities it might lend with uh potential tourism and things like that.

Who knows?

So um any other questions anybody has for staff about the agreement or um anything like that.

It when the bid on the repainting, was that based on just a total white paint of coat or coat of paint, and then does that change much with it being what color they want?

Okay, yeah, I wasn't sure if it being more that color.

They've turned in their colors, um kind of what they would want if this passes.

Okay, councilmer Dixon.

Or are they the like third coat?

Third coat.

The Dr.

Pepper logo, like no, it's like two coat systems still on the bottom, I think we gotta get exactly what they want.

We've got the witch's hat design, because that white stripe on the top, we don't know if they want that on the hat or right below the hat ramp.

Sorry, for some reason in my mind had a three-coat system, but well it is okay.

Oh, once they put the logo on, then they put it in the middle.

Their logo code on the last coat, yes, that's the third coat.

Um Tiffany, our uh chief communications officer, um she educated staff on colors and the you know, you walk into Home Depot or Lowe's and you look at how many colors of white are there?

How many colors of red are there?

And hundreds and hundreds.

And each color like this, it'll have a number on it.

And this may be Burgundy number 1462, and Dr.

Pepper knows exactly what color.

I would imagine that number's named Dr.

Pepper.

I mean, it would sell well if it was uh so that they'll have it dialed in just perfectly to fit all of their other brands and market stuff.

And another testament to council having a conversation, and at the time we really didn't have an idea about how the funds would come together to make this happen.

Um, but your priorities are our priorities, and and it's it's once you put it on the table, once you put it on the board, it stays there.

And we just wait and bite our time, and when we see the opportunity, puts us in a really good position to kind of spring into action and uh make something I think it'll be an awful lot of fun for a whole lot of folks.

The uh unveiling, I think will be uh fun and excitement and even our school kiddos they'll be able to tell us that their friends and family that you know where they live and where they go to school, it's it's here and it'll be on TV and everything.

It's close to Crumbs and But I also um have said to some folks too that I felt like um I might feel differently about it if it was an asset that we were currently using still about putting a corporate thing on it or something like that, but it being something that we're not using and would cost a lot of money to dispose of, it just seem like let's see.

And if we can make anything off the tourism, it's even better.

Yeah, hopefully it generates sales tax for businesses and things around there and throughout.

So who knows?

Okay, any other questions or comments or anything for staff about this?

Anything else from staff in all right.

Well, I look forward to it.

Hopefully, uh get the boss and everything, share.

We anticipate a big random.

A big event in that day.

Great.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you guys.

Meeting is adjourned.