06/11/2021
Big news for the Britton District! Thank you City of Oklahoma City - Government for believe in our district and investing in our future.
The town of Britton was annexed by Oklahoma City 71 years ago. Its former main street still looks like the heart of a small town.
About the time I became mayor, a group of visionaries began talking to me about their hopes for the Britton District. One of the hallmarks of Oklahoma City’s renaissance has been the emergence of thriving new districts all over the city that give our neighborhoods a place to come together, close to home. In almost every case, at some point in a district’s revitalization, the City partnered on a project to enhance the look and feel of the place.
Projects like that are always funded by bond issues, approved by the voters every decade or so. The emergence of Britton didn’t fit the timetable. Its proponents were coming to me in 2018, just one year after passage of the most recent investment in this kind of infrastructure, the initiative known as “Better Streets, Safer City.” Because Britton was not a named project, it would take an extraordinary effort to fund a street enhancement project there. Having said that, it was not impossible. There are some dollars always set aside in bond issues for unnamed projects, but they are scarce. If Britton didn’t make it this time, they would be looking at the next bond issue, which could come in 2027 or beyond. That really seemed too late for what was happening there.
In the summer of 2018, I sat down with one of those Britton visionaries - Thomas Rossiter. He was dying of cancer and he knew and I knew he only had weeks to live. I told him I believed in the vision for Britton and I would do what I could to see it through.
In our form of government, getting a project funded out of the unlisted bond dollars is not something a mayor can just snap his fingers and do. You’ve got to persuade, and you’ve got to be persistent and patient. For the next three years, virtually every time I saw Public Works Director Eric Wenger, I would ask, “How we lookin’ on Britton? Can we get it done?” Eric believed in it, too, and he understood this was the moment for this district, and that if we didn’t meet it, that moment might pass.
Eric kept on top of it, and shepherded the project through the process. It was a three year journey, but this last month the final approvals made it through all the various bodies through which they needed to pass. And now, officially, I can say that Britton District is going to receive a multi-million dollar investment in infrastructure from the City that will serve as a catalyst for the success of this district.
There are already entrepreneurs investing in Britton, opening coffee shops, pizza shops and other amenities, as this new place begins to take shape on the bones of a very old place. One such person is Elijah Vick, owner of Brew Brother and pictured below in front of his new business, housed in the old Owl Court. There are quite a few Elijahs in Britton, pursuing their dreams of building a community there. I can’t wait to see it all come together in the years ahead.