TULSA, Okla. — “Building a new 650-room convention center attached hotel is no longer a nice to have for us; it’s a must-have,” said Bill Knight.
Tulsa Regional Chamber’s new Board President Bill Knight made these comments on tourism at the Chamber inauguration on Jan. 23.
Now, 2 News is following up with the President of Tulsa Regional Tourism, who said bringing more hotel rooms to downtown will benefit Tulsa’s economy.
Inside Steakfinger House at 4th and Boulder, Manager Shiran Murad was working the lunchtime crowd.
“This area is really busy, best for the restaurant,” said Shiran Murad.
Steakfinger House is about half a mile from the Cox Business Convention Center. That’s the same distance the president of Tulsa Regional Tourism, Renee McKenney, said is considered walkable for conventions.
“If you look just down the road at Oklahoma City, for example, you can do a group of 3,000 people walking to and from the convention center. Our walkability is less than 1,000,” said Renee McKenney.
McKenney said Tulsa must change that because in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Tulsa lost more than 154 events partly because there aren’t enough hotel rooms downtown.
Here's a map of the hotels in walkable distance from the Cox Business Convention Center:
“A 650-room hotel is going to be what you need for a headquarters hotel that basically just gets us in the game,” said McKenney.
McKenney said they’re heading into the request for proposals (RFP) process for the hotel, where they’ll select a developer. The plan is for it to be located at the current police headquarters once they move out. They’ll tear down the old building and create an attached hotel.
“It will make for our businesses to grow a better way….to be more profitable,” said Murad.
Murad said those extra rooms and the weekly conventions that could accompany them are welcome news for his business.
“We are excited for that,” said Murad. “Bring it on.”
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Keller Taylor, Vice President of the Cox Business Convention Center and BOK Center, agrees.
“We’re looking at lost business reports that have literally hundreds of events, hundreds of thousands of room nights that we’re missing out on today, and it would revolutionize what we’re able to do with our event mix in that space,” said Keller Taylor.
“Our goal is to keep both buildings as active as they can every day of the week, and that allows us to put more people in the downtown community, creating that secondary impact that we want to see,” he said.
The 650-room hotel likely won’t be finished until 2029, but McKenney says once they break ground, they can start selling against it.
She said the benefit is to the whole city of Tulsa.
“People are not only meeting during the day, but then they’re going out at night, and they’re spending their dollars in our local economy that really helps us across the board,” said McKenney.
After they select a developer, they’ll have a better timeline of when they can break ground on the hotel.
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