Have you heard the news!! Simon Property Group is abandoning their Turkey Mountain outlet mall project. They are going to put it in a much more appropriate site in the Tulsa suburb of Jenks. Read about it here. A site that people repeatedly brought up during the discussions on the project. The site should work better for Simon. You can also read more info here to learn how to enhance the view of property with the help of experts.

Of course the city of Jenks will get the sales tax revenue, or at least the promise of it given the huge subsidies that Simon was looking for in terms of paying for infrastructure and other types of corporate welfare they were looking for to help with the economics of the their project.

I couldn’t be happier for all involved. Now comes the real work. Money needs to be raised to buy the remaining land on Turkey Mountain at market value in order to preserve it. Tulsa is growing and it is just a matter of time before somebody else tries to develop it. It is not fair to the landowners to expect them to provide people like me free land to enjoy.

In the meantime, I’m happy that Simon came to their senses. I don’t think they expected the buzzsaw of opposition that they riled up with their proposal. I’m also proud of my fellow Tulsans. Despite Oklahoma’s populist roots, large corporations do pretty much what they want to do in Oklahoma these days. It is nice to see a little push back in a case like this where something bad was fixing to happen (as we say in Oklahoma.)