MAYOR KARL NAIL’S STATE OF THE CITY - PART 2
New housing starts expected to continue to grow here
A recurring theme of Mayor Karl Nail’s State of the State speech at the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce luncheon was the challenges that the City faces with growth.
The Mayor was very aware that many of Newcastle’s older residents don’t like the fact that the city is changing due to its rapid growth.
Nail said, “We don’t have to lose Newcastle in the process. We are going to do everything we can to make Newcastle the best we can and have a place where people don’t decide to live because its easy or it’s close, but because they want to live in this community. That’s what drives us — the city council and city staff.”
Nail addressed the two main growth generators the City is facing, the coming East-to-West Connector and the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center.
“There is a lot coming. I know I keep saying that, and we’ve been talking about the hospital since probably since 2020. The turnpike is coming,” Nail said. “For Newcastle long-term its going to be, safety-factor wise and access wise, a really good thing for the City. The City has been wanting a crossing on the South Canadian River for generations now.
“This may not have been exactly where we wanted to put it, but this is another opportunity to get in and out of our community, and have the safety factor that we think is important.”
Nail said major developers and National brands have been looking at Newcastle. He said with the highways we have and the coming turnpike and hospital, that will be the cue for these major retailers to invest in Newcastle.
The importance to the major players is the amount of sales tax revenues they can generate, that will go into city coffers and can be used for services and quality of life for the residents.
As noted in a previous issue of the Newcastle Pacer, the City has purchased nine acres at the corner of State Highway 62 and Fox Lane. It is being engineered and the City’s plans are to set a tone, aesthetically, for future development in Newcastle. Nail said there is a lot happening there in the next six months.
Nail said Census numbers matter, and Newcastle is probably around 15,000 at this time. He said the City is awaiting 2024 numbers.
“Whether you like it or not, there will be 5,000-plus people working at the medical facility and looking for a place to live,” Nail said.
Housing permits were well over 300 new starts per year, according to the mayor, but starts in Newcastle had dropped off after COVID 19 and then interest rates began to rise. We anticipate hitting well over 300 next year and the couple of years moving forward. There are 1,643 total lots in already platted developments that are available.
Nail said there are a variety of homes available for sale in Newcastle at a variety of prices. He said its important in a community that you have all levels of housing so that people can afford to stay in their community.
The City has several projects that they’ve been working on for the last several years. Some of these were projects that were almost complete before the COVID 19 pandemic, but were temporarily placed on hold. Other projects are being moved forward in priority because of either the turnpike or the medical facility.
“We are doing things to get ahead of the game and we’ve seen a need to upgrade Country Club Road,” Nail said. “It is a half mile west of where the Chickasaw Medical Center is to built on S.W. 16th Street.”
Nail said the City has reached out to the landowners along Country Club and also on N.W. 24th Street and have retained 120 feet of rightof- way.
“We already have the engineering in place to widen Country Club Road to a four lane. We are also currently engineering N.W. 24th Street to be a four-laned road over to Country Club and over to the west. That area will change a whole lot,” Nail said.
He said the City continues to accommodate the traffic they know is coming down State Highway 37.
“As well, State Highway 62 is going to become very congested, and we know that drivers will take Country Club to come down south and on the west side of the medical facility,” Nail said.
He noted that the City is working with the Chickasaw Nation and also trying to get some funding through the federal government.
“We don’t know how much of that will be available in the current climate, but we are hopeful that we can get some assistance to build that facility, which is about a $6 million- plus road to take us down to south of 24th Street,” Nail said. “It doesn’t take us to the bridge over the turnpike, but we hopefully can get that bridge rebuilt at some point in the future, as well.”
To accompany the roads and provide for quality of life for Newcastle residents, the City hopes to get enough easement to build a walking trail, sidewalks, a multi-modal walking and a bike path. These could be connected to Veterans Park.
“We want to make a walk- STATE OF CITY on page 3 able community,” Nail said.
STATE OF CITY: Sports complex, park pavilion projects still underway
He added that the City is doing everything possible to make the roadways as safe as possible for the residents and for the people coming to the new hospital facility.
Nail said the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, as part of their project, is going to widen, rebuild and straighten N.W. 24th Street, and provide a four-lane overpass over 24th.
“It will connect a four-lane road from Country Club to that,” Nail said. “It will have a sidewalk on one side, and will really open up that area around Loves.”
The mayor said this also opens up the area to commercial development.
As a side note concerning roads, Nail said the City has very few gravel roads remaining, but one of those is a portion of May Avenue.
The City intends to widen it and pave it, hopefully within the next two years or budget cycles.
The Newcastle Sports Complex rebuild was announced by the City about two years ago as the COVID-19 pandemic was still underway, with architectural renderings showing major changes. Nail said the renderings showed a nicely designed and engineered idea of what was planned at the sports complex.
The City applied, and was approved for the grant funding, but tribal and federal clearance was required, according to the mayor. This delayed the grant, and the cost of the facility increased.
“The City is now going back to the State to change the plans, and will only be able to do a portion of the original design,” Nail said. “We hope to provide parking and some other things, but we won’t be able to do bathrooms, and things like that.”
Similar circumstances affected the proposal for a Veterans Park Pavilion. The City showed an architectual rending for this, as well, along with a bathroom facility. At the time, the City was awarded a grant in excess of $2 million.
“This grant also required tribal, historical, archeaological, and fish and wildlife — a thorough environmental assessment of the land and project,” Nail said.
These have now been done and the project was cleared with no issues, but the City is still awaiting for the acceptance of the studies and project.
“It will be amazing when we get it done,” Nail said.
In conclusion, the Mayor said the City is going to continue to not only take care of water, sewer and roads, but also take care of quality of life issues.
“You can count on us doing something every year as we try to fulfill that overall Parks Plan,” Nail said.
He said the Parks Plan can be viewed on the City of Newcastle website. The renderings of Veterans Park are on there and show where things are planned.
