As we reflect on the year that was 2021, words like adversity, resilience and perseverance immediately spring to mind. For northeast Oklahoma, another word is also just as true.
That word is investment.
During 2021, Tulsa and all of northeast Oklahoma made significant investments in itself. Seeing our region’s commitment to business and quality of life, many from outside our region saw fit to invest in us as well.
All of these investments increased our economic prospects, expanded our tourism and cultural offerings, and strengthened connectivity across our community.
Economic Investments
In 2021, the Tulsa region continued to invest in itself by advancing significant, game-changing projects. Projects like Zink Dam, the new Arkansas River Pedestrian Bridge, the reimagined Gilcrease Museum and the USA BMX headquarters all moved forward.
These projects were funded in whole or in part through Vision Tulsa. You’ll likely recall that the Chamber led the public campaign in support of passage of the Vision funding package back in 2016. All of the Vision projects are proof positive that ours is a community that invests in itself.
And it didn’t stop there. The opening of the Greenwood Rising history center helped our city commemorate the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre and invest in a better tomorrow. That tomorrow begins with the education of today, and Tulsa voters invested in future generations by overwhelmingly approving a $414 million Tulsa Public Schools bond package. A number of air carriers – including American Airlines and Breeze Airways – upped their investments in our region by adding new direct flights from Tulsa.
Individuals and companies from across the country and around the world saw the advantages our region offers. They saw our low costs of living and doing business, our high quality of life, our short commute times, our centralized location, our educational and training opportunities, and our talented workforce. As a result, they decided to invest in us, and the Chamber was there to help.
Tulsa’s Future, the Tulsa Regional Chamber-led regional economic development partnership, supported the creation of 4,125 jobs and $421 million of capital investment in northeast Oklahoma during 2021.
Tulsa’s Future is a collaborative economic development partnership that works with the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, more than 200 private investors, and numerous regional and tribal partners to further economic prosperity in the Tulsa region.
Since its inception 16 years ago, Tulsa’s Future has supported the creation of more than 72,000 jobs and more than $4.2 billion in capital investment.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 Tulsa County awarded the Chamber CARES Act funds to help tell the Tulsa recovery story to a national audience through a dedicated marketing campaign. In 2021 the Chamber pivoted to Tulsa’s Future: Road to Recovery, a one-year strategic work plan that addressed urgent needs for recovery and attracted new employers and transformative projects to the region.
And it worked. During 2021, the Chamber’s economic development team saw its largest uptick in project requests, prospective company site visits and general economic activity in years.
That bodes well for the future, and paves the way for new industry growth. During the past several years, northeast Oklahoma has positioned itself to support the growing automotive technology industry.
In June 2021, electric vehicle manufacturer Canoo announced it will build a $400 million, 400-acre micro-megafactory at MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor and create 2,000 new jobs in northeast Oklahoma. In November 2021, the company increased its investment in the region by announcing it will locate a technology hub and software development center in Tulsa, bringing an additional 375 jobs.
Other notable 2021 projects include RadNet’s customer operations center and 500 jobs; more than 300 new jobs at TAT Technologies and Limco; a $16 million expansion at Whirlpool’s factory distribution center; and more than 170 jobs at L3 Harris.
While most major metropolitan areas across the nation have two or more interstate highways, I-44 has been the only interstate to serve the Tulsa area—making us one of the only cities in the nation with a growing population of over one million residents but only one federal interstate. During 2021, the Chamber worked as part of a coalition to gain federal interstate designation for U.S. Route 412. This interstate designation will benefit northeastern Oklahoma by attracting new businesses and better connecting communities. The route will improve supply chain connectivity in the region and will serve two major inland ports.
What’s the secret to our region’s economic success? Collaboration. So much of the success seen in northeast Oklahoma despite the pandemic has been because of tremendous collaboration with the Chamber’s our state, county, city and tribal partners.
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, and Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce Scott Mueller have all been especially committed partners. The work the Chamber has done in conjunction with INCOG, the Tulsa Ports, Tulsa International Airport, the philanthropic community, other area chambers of commerce, David Stewart and his team at MidAmerica Industrial Park, and all of our Tulsa’s Future economic development group partners continues to make us a globally-competitive region.
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Tourism Investments
The scale of economic investment during 2021 generated investment from other arenas as well.
Much of Oklahoma’s economic identity has long been tied to the aviation and energy industries. That’s still true, but major investments in tourism and quality of life opportunities during the past decade have catapulted tourism into our state’s third largest industry. Tulsa is a big part of that.
For fiscal year from July 2020 to June 2021, Tulsa hosted conferences and events that generated a total economic impact of $227 million. More than 143,000 hotel room nights were booked along the way.
The cycle of economic success from the Tulsa region’s tourism industry is strong and growing stronger. Thanks to the hard work of Tulsa Regional Tourism staff, board members, volunteers and investors, Tulsa is known as a welcoming city for diverse events and visitors.
During the year ending June 2021, Tulsa Regional Tourism recruited 62 new events to the region, and 97 events that had already been held here came back again. What’s more, local tourism supports more than 15,300 jobs in Tulsa, and the state and local taxes sustained by tourism offsets $590 in taxes for each household in our city.
Family attractions such as Route 66, concerts and other big events at the BOK Center, outdoor activities at the Gathering Place riverfront park, and major sporting events such as the USA BMX Grand Nationals and PGA golf tournaments all combine to bring significant numbers of people—and dollars—into our region.
But the best news is that we continue to invest in our tourism portfolio as a region. Here’s a great example: Tulsa hosted its first-ever full-distance IRONMAN triathlon in 2021, making us the 42nd city in the world to host such an event. Better still, that Tulsa event was also the IRONMAN North American Championship. Hosting any IRONMAN event is extremely prestigious, but convening the world’s greatest triathletes to compete at the championship level affirms that Tulsa is truly a world-class sports destination.
This first edition of IRONMAN in Tulsa attracted more than 3,000 triathletes and more than 10,000 spectators. IRONMAN generated an estimated economic impact of more than $14 million for our region.
Film and television production are also becoming increasingly impactful aspects of our regional offerings. We worked with the legislature to pass SB 608, the Filmed in Oklahoma Act. This will increase the state’s film rebate incentive from $8 million up to $30 million, giving us momentum to capitalize on recent high-profile productions in northeast Oklahoma and further diversify our economy. For the fiscal year ending June 2021, the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture—the accredited film commission under Tulsa Regional Tourism—supported 41 film productions, with more in the pipeline for 2022.
Bottom line: Despite the challenges to tourism as a result of the pandemic, Tulsa’s tourism outlook remains strong, and there is every reason to believe it will grow even stronger in the years ahead. The Senior PGA returned in 2021 as a pre-cursor to the PGA Championship later this year. The Oklahoma Future Farmers of America State Convention and Expo announced it will bring thousands of high school students representing 365 FFA chapters to Tulsa this year. And USA Volleyball selected Tulsa to host its 2022 All-Star Championship.
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Community Investments
Of course, investment isn’t always a given, and sometimes it requires real intentionality.
In 2021, the Chamber led vocal support for the Oklahoma Supplier Diversity Initiative, which creates a state-sponsored database that will help agencies and businesses looking to invest in diverse Oklahoma-based suppliers, such as veteran- and minority-owned companies.
TYPROS, the Chamber’s young professional program, invested in developing the next generation of public servants through 918 Lead, a intensive boot camp to prepare young Tulsans to run for local, state and federal office. Throughout the program, the 30 participants in this first cohort learned about the roles and responsibilities of various levels of government, received a firsthand look at the challenges and opportunities of serving in public office, and gained the knowledge and skills to run a campaign. The 918 Lead program will continue in 2022.
Mosaic, the Chamber’s coalition of companies and nonprofits committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, invested in the future of our community by hosting a National Day of Racial Healing. More than 70 Tulsa-area organizations leveraged the annual Mosaic Inclusive Workplace Index to evaluate their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies and practices. The index results provide both macro-level insights and tailored feedback for participants to help them improve their own DEI efforts. A number of encouraging insights came from the results of the 2021 index. For example, of those organizations participating in the index:
Investing in communities means continuing to be a great place to start a business. We worked to strengthen our startup ecosystem by increasing the availability of venture capital in Oklahoma. SB 915 will provide an income tax deduction for investors to support high-growth startups. SB 922 allows state investment accounts to place a portion of their funds in venture capital firms that support Oklahoma startups.
The Chamber and dozens of other local companies and organizations invested in equity by signing the Mayor’s Pay Equity Pledge, a voluntary commitment to ensure equal pay for equal work. Women in Tulsa County still only earn 84 cents to every dollar earned by men. Developed with the help of the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women, the Mayor’s Pay Equity Pledge is a means to help reduce this inequality. The pledge includes several practical steps, including diversity and inclusion training, agreeing not to ask job candidates questions about their salary history, and regular reviews of employee pay to ensure compliance with the Equal Pay Act.
The Chamber also helped launch game-changing investments in our future workforce. Campus Tulsa was a new initiative launched in 2021 by the Chamber, the City of Tulsa and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. Campus Tulsa provides summer programming for Tulsa-area interns in hopes they will build connections and return following graduation. In 2021, Campus Tulsa hosted a variety of professional development opportunities and interns-only events for participating students to help strengthen their internship experiences in our region.
Also new in 2021, the Chamber also partnered with Sen. Kevin Matthews and Tulsa Public Schools to launch Tulsa’s NextGEN Talent, an initiative providing externship opportunities to African American high school students from TPS. The initiative was created to ensure a bright, diverse group of students are connected to business leaders and career opportunities in Tulsa before they leave for college. The program placed 20 Black juniors and seniors from Tulsa Public Schools at a Tulsa-area company for three weeks to explore career opportunities and engage in experiential learning. This annual initiative will increase the visibility of young, college-bound and entrepreneurially minded students and create new opportunities for access and mobility.
At the end of the day, a community that invests so heavily in itself is sure to attract the continued investment of others.
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That’s exactly what happened in 2021, and there’s no reason to think that 2022 will be any different.
With more projects in the pipeline than ever before, and new events being announced almost daily, our region is poised for an extremely bright future.
The continued investment of Chamber members helps make that possible.
Yes, adversity was one word for 2021.
But so was its opposite: prosperity.
As your partner in prosperity, the Tulsa Regional Chamber looks back proudly at all our region collaboratively accomplished this past year – despite the adversity.
And we look forward to the promise of a prosperous 2022 and beyond.