Philcade TIF incentives

The Aloft hotel owner and lifelong Tulsan objected to roughly $100 million in tax rebates for an out-of-state developer's Philcade hotel, saying lodging tax money should fund event attraction, not a competitor, and asked the board to reject the plan.

A historic hotel owner (Mayo Hotel, Aloft) said her projects got only standard abatements or none at all, and argued giving the Philcade project decades of tax back is unfair to hoteliers in a soft market.

A developer with Brickhugger argued the Philcade project already qualifies for roughly $86 million in existing federal and state incentives, so the added TIF would total about $186 million for a $90 million project, and asked the board not to approve.