Mayor: ‘That won’t do anybody any good’
Newcastle has a lot of challenges and is experiencing a lot of change. Mayor Karl Nail said people don’t always like change.
“There’s going to be a huge leapfrog change between the hospital and the turnpike extension, and I hope you all will embrace it because we can’t stop it,” Nail said.
His words came during last Thursday’s “Evening with the Mayor,” held at Newcastle Fire Station #1 and co-sponsored by the City of Newcastle and the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce.
Nail said area residents could let the changes coming frustrate them or upset them, but he added, “That won’t do anybody any good.”
He said, “Let’s make this the best that we can, and keep Newcastle, Newcastle. Don’t let this change us and change our community.”
Nail’s thoughts and advice came on the heels of his talk about the enormous amount of preplanning that is going into City government projects. He discussed the growth, infrastructure projects and future needs — many of these in light of the Chickasaw Nation Health Facility and the East-to-West Connector Turnpike projects. He also addressed retail development and the importance of retail sales tax dollars to fund the City’s needs.
“We try to preplan so we know that these things that we are doing that are going to cost a lot of money, aren’t going to cripple the City, and our ability to provide good services to the community,” Nail said. “These things are all things that have been years in the planning. We want to build things generationally. We are going to do it right, and make sure we have the money to do it right. This could mean that things take a little longer.”
Nail said Newcastle is one of the fastest growing cities in the state percentage-wise. He said that according to U.S. Census information from July 2023, Newcastle had 15,001 residents. By the July 2024 release of information, Newcastle had 15,677.
“By the time the new numbers are released for July 2025 we should be well over 16,000,” Nail said. “We should double within the next 15 years.”
INFRASTRUCTURE
As for infrastructure, Nail said the City has worked long and hard to make sure Newcastle is ahead of the game.
He said, “When we talk with developers as they come in from across the country, and they see what we’ve done to prepare this community for growth. Without fail, every one of them says we’ve never come into a community of your size that was better prepared for growth.
“We have a water plant that can consistently produce 2.1 million gallons per day, and can push it upwards. We also have a 24-inch water line from Oklahoma City that we can pull upwards of 10 million gallons per day. As far as capacity- wise, we have all the water we need currently and to grow for a significant time period.
“What we don’t have fully is the distribution network throughout town. We have a lot of two-, four- and six-inch lines.”
Nail said the City is working to replace them with 12” lines and some 14” or 16” lines on the City section lines.
The City recently installed a new pump at Rockwell and State Highway 130 which increased pressure in that area of town. They are also working on a pump in the northwest portion of town in the Oakmont and Willow Springs area.
When the Chickasaw Nation Health Facility is built, this will open up additional opportunities for growth, Nail said.
“We are working on section lines and looping to make sure we have adequate water and pressure,” he said. “Additionally, we will be working on in the future to put in another 24” water line in and bringing it into our system, and have another 10 million gallon capacity available for the City.
Nail said water from Oklahoma City does come at a cost.
“You have to buy with a service availability agreement. They base what we use during our peak capacity for the use we have year-round,” the mayor said.
The City just opened its new state-of-the-art $52 million Wastewater Treatment facility. This replaces an old, out-of-date two-basin aeration unit.
Nail said there is much less smell and much cleaner product coming out the other end.
“This is more than adequate sewer capacity for the area to grow. As we build out the sewer system more areas will have the ability to have sewer,” Nail said. “We have also just acquired a 14-acre tract of land on State Highway 9 just east of State Highway 62, where we will build a new waste treatment facility that is a membrane bioreactor facility.”
Nail said it will have a 1 million gallon initial capacity, and produces a cleaner waste coming out of it than the aeromod system. It is expandable and the waste coming out of it is almost undetectable, according to the mayor.
He said the south plant will serve the Chickasaw Nation Medical Facility, but will also open up the entire southern end of the community to have sanitary sewer. This opens up more opportunity for housing and retail, he added.
THE TURNPIKE
“Whether you like it or not, the East-West Connector Turnpike in the Access Oklahoma program through the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is coming,” Nail said. “This will be an outlet to get to Norman, and eventually provide an outlet to US Interstate 40 and the Kickapoo Turnpike.”
The city has been working with OTA to get the best help it can from the project.
“With the turnpike project, we are having to relocate a lot of sewer and water lines. The OTA is helping the City with this and we are upsizing all of the infrastructure in those areas affected by the turnpike,” Nail said. “OTA has done a lot of things for the City that they really didn’t have to do, but we negotiated and are working together.
“We are hoping that we’ll have a lot of retail that will build up along the turnpike and it will draw travelers to get off the turnpike and spend money in Newcastle.
“There will be increased demand in single-family residential, multi-family residences, and commercial due to the turnpike. This gives the opportunity for people who grew up here and for those who work here to be able to live here.”
Nail said the City met with OTA last Friday, and learned that they sent out bid packages Thursday morning for east to Pennsylvania Avenue on the other side of the river.
“They’ll award bids in December and we will see some things happening in January 2026 with a desire to get people driving on the turnpike by January 2027,” Nail said. “The rest of the bids will be for the sections between I-44 and Portland. Those will likely be in May, and then award in August 2026. They are offering incentives to the builders to get things done fast.”
For those people who like to go down Portland to get on I-44 in the morning, once they start on phase 2 of this project, Portland will be closed for at least eight months. Nail said drivers will have to find alternative routes.
He said, “They’ll also be rebuilding the access roads. They want to get those complete because it will be kind of a mess at I-44. There will be a lot of disruption to the flow on I-44 and north SH-62 area there.”
THE HOSPITAL & RETAIL This is going to be a $3 billion- plus facility, according to Nail, and Phase One will be over 700,000 square feet. They are expecting to employ 5,500 and have more than 2.4 million square feet of space.
Nail said, “It is hard to visualize what something like that will do to our community. They will have literally hundreds of exam rooms. There will be 1,000s of people coming to see their doctor each day. They will have outpatient procedures available for people who are coming from throughout the country. This will be the largest, most comprehensive Native American hospital in the country.
“We meet regularly with the Chickasaw Nation, and they don’t have a timeline but we will see movement on that in 2026. The Chickasaw Nation governor will make that announcement. It will have an impact on this community that we have not ever seen before.”
Nail said it will have a 24hour, 365-day a year emergency room that will take anybody. The rest of the facility is for Native Americans only.
He said there will be a commercial impact from the visitors.
Nail said, “They will need to have places to eat, and places to stay. When they start building they expect between 600-800 employees working construction. There will be increased demand for single- family and multi-family homes. Developers are waiting for construction to begin.”
