Moore Welcomes a Top 10 Company from the Fortune 500

In Episode 5 of Moore's Stop, Assistant City Manager Deidre Ebrey joins the podcast to help walk us through the details of the exciting announcement about McKesson Corporation's plans to build a 330,000 square foot distribution center in Moore. Construction is already underway on the site just north of Moore First Baptist Church and the decision by a top 10 company in the Fortune 500 will obviously have a huge economic impact on Moore and Cleveland County.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hey there, welcome to the July episode of More Stop, All Things More. I'm Rob Morris. I'm here with Mayor Mark and our special guest today, Assistant City Manager Deidre Ebry. Mayor Mark, Dietra, I understand there's exciting news on the horizon for more.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Well, Rob, you have heard right. There is some real exciting news, and it's been difficult to keep it quiet, but we're finally at a point where we can talk about it. And that's one of the reasons that we brought our assistant city manager in, Dietra, who has been working on this project for probably over a little over a year, and we're at a point now that we get to share it with the rest of the community.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

That's fantastic. I just caught wind of this a couple of weeks ago. I mean, but it's it's a huge deal. It really is a big deal for Moore. Hey, and that big news revolves around the name of a company that is a big company. They're coming to Moore. You may not have heard of them. I hadn't heard of them until I heard the first about them coming. Um it's McKesson is the name of the company. And Mayor Mark, what do you know? What can Deedra tell us? I'm interested to hear more.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

You bet, Rob, and that's one of the reasons we had Deidre come in and visit with us today, because she's been working with this company and their representatives for probably a little bit over a year to see what we could do to maybe uh have them locate in Moore, Oklahoma. Um, and so Deidra, let why don't you just tell us a little bit about McKesson, who they are, what they do, and uh why is this an important thing for Moore Oklahoma?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Great. Well, thank you both for having me here. Love to bring good news to our citizens. McKesson Corporation is a very large company, no doubt about it. What they they have lots of different services. The service that they will feature here in the Moore location is their pharmaceutical piece. It's again one of the services that they offer. They are a very large company, as you mentioned. They are number nine on the Fortune 100 list, and that's of course very exciting to get a Fortune 100 company, but this is a Fortune 10 company, and they've vacillated in the in the Fortune 10 for quite some time. So they've been a little higher, a little lower, but um, again, right now they're currently sitting at number nine. They are headquartered in Irving, Texas, and they currently have a very small facility in Oklahoma City over by Will Rogers World Airport, and they are operating there doing distribution. So, again, they are not the makers of the pharmaceuticals, they are the distributors of the pharmaceuticals. So the makers manufacture the product, ship it into McKesson. McKesson then takes it, breaks it down into smaller batches, and then they deliver to the end user. So they would deliver to the pharmacies, then to the customer from there. So again, large, large company, they have over 80,000 employees worldwide. They are international actually. And it's just again an incredible story of having land, obviously. They needed a 25-acre site, and we had 50 acres that was available to the northern side of our city limits. So the site is exactly what drove them here initially. And there were sites in four other states, including Oklahoma, and there were other sites in Oklahoma. So it was very site-driven, and we just continued to bubble to the top every time that there was a cut based on finances or based on labor market or again cost of doing business within a state, Oklahoma continued to rise to the top. Some in some areas we were higher, in some areas we were lower, and of course, that's the job of the site selector to again offer to the city, I'm sorry, to the company what city is ultimately the best city to do business in.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

So and let me interrupt you real quick. Sure. So just to get a better understanding of what this company does, and this will be a distribution center, so it's not things aren't being manufactured there. Right. They will be shipped there and then distributed throughout this district that this uh distribution center will service. And the way it was explained to me, if you have to go to the hospital and you get one of those wristbands, anything from that point on has probably gone through a distribution center that's operated by McKesson. So it's it's all all of the things that the hospital needs to run and to operate, as well as they do provide uh prescription medications to various pharmacies throughout the the region. So it's primarily, I guess maybe 100%, just medical type supplies that will be they provide to uh various consumers or customers throughout the region.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Uh that's it, a hundred percent. And again, this one is specifically the pharmaceutical piece, but a lot of things can be under that umbrella considered uh pharmaceuticals. But yeah, so it's a 330,000 square foot building, and again, so they were looking for a 25-acre site, and we happen to have that. Now, when I say we, it's not the city, so this was a privately owned piece of real estate that was on the market for sale. So that's one piece that you have to have is you have to have the land and it has to be for sale. The city doesn't have to the city doesn't have to own it, but um the city does play a role in the infrastructure of where the land is located, and again, we did need to add infrastructure to that site where they chose, so we are able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

And that site, I'm curious, you said the northeast part of town, specifically where is the site?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So it is really on the it's it's north of First Baptist Moor, so it's north of Northeast 27th Street and Pole Road. So we are adding a new street for the purpose of this facility, so it will be northeast 35th Street, is the new industrial road that will be built, and it's gonna run just again almost right at the city limit line, and it's gonna connect Pole Road to the Access Road. So they'll just make a square again, and McKesson is going to be on the corner of Pole Road and a newly constructed Northeast 35th Street.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So if you're driving north on I-35 and you look to the right as you go past First Baptist, it's that empty area there between First Baptist and the car dealerships and all that stuff to the wind supply is in Oklahoma City City Limits, and they are they're a nice big building there, and they are adding on to their square footage currently, so it's going to be just to the south and then a bit to the east of where that is. Okay, closer to Pole Road? Close much closer to Pole Road, absolutely. Versus I-35.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Absolutely. And the way I understand these large companies when they're looking for a location, they often go through uh a real estate arm that uh works with that company and they say, hey, this is what we're looking for, and then that company's charged with just going across the United States and trying to find property that would suit what their customer wants. So, how do you think more kind of rose to the top of that and eventually became the place where it's going to be built?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Right. And that's exactly the process, that's how they work, and this will be the third national search that I've been a part of for primary industry. So this doesn't include retail. Retail is a side of economic development that we're all very familiar with, and it's the part that we feel most comfortable probably with because we shop in these locations, and that's been primarily what I've been focused on being here almost 25 years, bringing to our economy is the retail side of things. This is primary industry, so this is again jobs, you know, high-paying jobs, quality jobs with benefits, and the value of that is again the jobs and the square footage and the property taxes that these can yield. So three different national searches that I've been a part of, and again, it usually starts with the Department of Commerce. So a site selector, and all three of the searches that I've been a part of were driven by a site selector, they will reach out to different departments of commerce within different states, and they first want to know what state incentives are available. So the state of Oklahoma has a few incentives that McKesson was able to take advantage of. One was incentivizing businesses that are making improvements to their facilities or to their product and service. So McKesson qualified for that, and that would be a business expansion assistance, and that's a grant that they received from the state of Oklahoma for expanding their footprint. It doesn't have to be on the same site, so this was still within the state of Oklahoma. So they qualified for that. They also will qualify for the five-year manufacturer's exemption. So that exempts anyone that's in the distribution manufacturing service for five years of their property taxes. That doesn't affect the local community. They still receive those taxes. It's paid by the state of Oklahoma. It's just a gift then to those uh businesses for five years.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

And teacher, let me ask you, you talked a little bit about incentives. So is this going to cost the residents of more anything? Are we offering any kind of financial incentive to the company?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Well, no. That's a short answer. It's actually a very long answer. So it's complicated, but I love to talk about it because it is such an amazing deal for us as the city government and our residents here. So the company is coming in with a 330,000 square foot facility. So there are property taxes that will be paid to the county based on the size of the project. So again, 330,000 square feet, that's a large facility. In Oklahoma, inventory tax is also charged, which first can make businesses not look at Oklahoma because it does make the cost of business higher than it would in another state like Arizona, which is who we were competing against. They do not have inventory taxes on their property taxes. So strangely enough, Arizona has lower property taxes than the state of Oklahoma does. However, we have lower cost of land, lower cost of living. So when you put it all out there and you know do all your formulas, ultimately we came back as the better place for the cost of doing business. The big piece of the property taxes that will be paid into the county, and the big benefit is not just the 330,000 square foot facility, but also the product that's inside the building. The product that's inside are very small: pharmaceuticals, pills, injections, things like that, and they're very expensive. So the value of the inventory is enormous. It actually exceeds something of an Amazon distribution center. It's higher than that. So they will be paying taxes on a very, very, very highly valued inventory, and all of that goes into Cleveland County through property taxes. Exactly through property taxes. So there's a value there, obviously. Um, it goes to the property taxes, but then it also then makes the property taxes that we pay not have to be as much because it's absorbing some of that, which is taking the load off of the existing built-out environment that's already here. So, in addition to that, there is sales tax that's charged on all of the products that are being purchased to build this 330,000 square foot facility. And again, we are early on, we get to see the perspective of what those things look like and what the numbers look like. And that falls into roughly around the $4 million area as far as receiving sales tax back. So that piece of land is going to be under construction for a little over two years, again, with very, very high-end pieces of material and things that are being purchased to make up this facility. So we expect to pull in around $4 million in just sales tax alone from the construction of that. Once it's built, we won't receive any sales tax from that because again, it's a distribution center, and so there won't be any sales tax generated off of that. That's then when they'll start generating the property taxes from the minute they start operations.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

And just so everyone's clear, and I don't mean to talk down to our listeners, but it can be confusing. But the property tax funds our county government, funds our libraries, funds our public schools, our Moore Norman Technology Center, and a few other entities. And then the City of Moore has a little bit on there from some of the geobond projects that we have. So they're going to be adding to the pool of uh ad valorum taxes that are collected through the residents and the businesses in our county, and then helping us fund all of those other projects that I just mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Absolutely. And I'm really glad you brought that up because, well, at first let me say what they asked for. So what they were bringing was obvious and evident with regard to the size and the value of the inventory. What they asked for was a sixth year of their property taxes to be compensated. So that is roughly three million dollars. So the city of Moore said that we will take that on. Now you remember we talked about how much sales tax we would be receiving from the build of the project. So we could have paid for that through our sales tax. Okay. So we could do that if we needed to or wanted to. They also asked for some infrastructure improvements, specifically Northeast 35th Street, Industrial Road. That was one item that they needed, and that is estimated to be around a $3 million development. And then they asked for improvements to Poll Road along with signalization at 27th Street. That was already planned for the city. So all of that just sped up what we along with improvements to 27th Street, drainage, and things like that. So we will pay for all of those things with what's called a tax increment financing district, which basically takes those advalorum dollars that would go to those county entities and puts it into a fund, basically, which then pays for these improvements. All of those entities had to approve that, and so that's how the TIFF was created, and they all sat on the TIFF committee.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Well, I mean, I I'm just stunned to have a company of this size to hear this news. I mean, honestly, it it's not as texty as a Buckey's, but the impact seems to be much, much more profound than something like a Buckey's would be. What I really want to hear is the timeline. When are things going to start up? But we need to take a break. And so when we come back, uh get ready for some questions about construction timelines, all of the kind of the practical things that we can expect over the next two years as they break ground and begin to build and these road projects begin to happen. So we'll be right back after this. Beat the heat in July. Don't miss the big mom and son party at the pool. This event will take place on Friday, July 17th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Station Aquatic Center. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 on the day of event, or until tickets are sold out. You can get your tickets in person at the Station Front Desk or online at cityofmore.com slash fun. If you need more information, call 405793-5090 or visit cityofmore.com slash upcoming events. Mayor Mark, I like you, I'm kind of sitting here thinking, hey, when do they break ground?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

When do things get rolling on this thing? Exactly. And uh so did you tell us what do you what do you we see as the timeline? I understand with construction, nothing uh is uh has real hard dates. It kind of depends on weather and things that are beyond our control, but what does the timeline look for this?

SPEAKER_00 17:42

That is a great question. So they have already broken ground, they are currently working and have started the project. We will do a ceremonial groundbreaking tomorrow, which would be June 23rd. Today is Monday, tomorrow's Tuesday, doing a ceremonial groundbreaking, and then it will go on for quite a long time. People will be interested to know that it the building will go up relatively quickly, so let's say within maybe even a year's time, a little bit before that, but the amount of product that is moved through that building takes some of the highest grade equipment and the most sensitive uh equipment that that is manufactured. So the installation of that takes over 18 months. So the building will go up and you'll see it, but then they will not open until spring of 2029. So that's it will take about a full 18 months after the building is finished to then equip the building.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

And so maybe a a year to construct the building and then another a little over 18 months to uh get it equipped and ready to go into operation. So 2029?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

That's correct. Um spring of 29 is their goal.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

And and you said 300 and some odd square feet, three hundred and something thousand square feet.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

330,000 square feet and it's a hundred and seventy-nine million dollar capital expenditure. So once it's completed, again, the the expenditures for just that facility is 179 million.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Is there a building that people would immediately recognize if we said if you're looking for something in scale that, you know, here's something that it would be about the size of?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

I would say it's two and a half, three times larger than our Costco, and it's um about half the size of one of the Amazon distribution centers from what I recall.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

So still that's pretty big.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Very large, very large. And and I'm so impressed at how beautiful it is. It really is a gorgeous building. There's lots of windows and it looks very professional. It is light industrial, is what it would be considered, so it's not heavy at all. It's all enclosed, there's no outside storage, and again, um, they are just an incredible company, so they care very much about the the look of the building and their employees. They want to make sure that their employees are satisfied and happy when they come to work. So the inside and the outside are are just very nice, very nice.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

So it won't be just a brick building, said it. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

That is absolutely there will be a large distribution space, no doubt, and bays for the trucks to pull in and out of, but there's a uh office space at the front, and again, lots of windows and lots of natural light inside the building.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Well, Dietrich, tell me a little bit, because uh the north of the First Baptist Church, there is a uh big chunk of land there that's undeveloped. So do you think that this is going to spur other developments now that something uh is being built there within our city limits?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Absolutely no doubt. That has actually already happened. So not just because of this development. Obviously, the name McKesson means a whole lot, and so people know that if McKesson is making a decision to be on this site, then it takes the risk away for others. There is already a development that's going in next to McKesson. It's spec building right now, so there's a developer that knows that there are clients out there that they've worked with before that needs a distribution center, and obviously, if it's good enough for McKesson, it's going to be good enough for one of their Fortune 100 companies, most likely. So there is a 250,000 square foot spec building that is going next door to this site. There is another, it's about a 30-acre tract of land that is on the frontage, which would be on the access road there. That will not be industrial, that will be reserved for office, retail, and things like that. There are other smaller sites that are around there, and they've also seen interest. And I think it has a lot to do with the development that's happening there, the clearing out of that land and making it obvious that it's developable and it's in a very very, very good location. All of that again is the reason why we chose to do a TIF so that we could use those tax dollars from the property taxes that are being generated to then put back into that development so that that development can grow and succeed quickly.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Right. And I would I would just to go down a memory lane, I remember as a kid driving up down 27th Street or riding with my uh parent uh it was a two-lane blacktop road really rough there was no underpass even over the tracks and that field to the north of 27th used to be an oil tanker farm. And if you ever see an aerial view of it you can just see I don't know probably a couple of dozen of uh berms that are built in the shape of a a circle and had a big oil tank that would set in the middle of it big oil tank farm. And so it's fun it's interesting it's exciting to see how more is growing and developing. And the thing that I sometimes will encounter it it's not always embraced by everybody. But what I always tell people is well it's going to happen. So we as a city city elected officials and then our uh executive staff and all the other work really hard to ensure that it's something that fits within our uh community and then all of the issues that happen when you build things so more is going to continue to grow and we want to manage that growth and we definitely want to have businesses that are going to come here that are going to only make this a better place and allow us to continue to support police fire and all the infrastructure and things that we have come to like in our cities. So Deidra do you have any anything else that you'd like to add or something we we didn't ask?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

I just would say that this is by far the largest project that I've worked on. It's probably the longest project Costco was pretty long too but this has been continuous for a little over a year as far as just back and forth with the site selector and providing data and information. And again I think it's the most one of the the more fulfilling projects because of that what you just mentioned this is on a piece of ground that has seen no activity for a very very long time and it's in a great location it gives great access to the interstate which what is what distribution centers need 100%. So that's exciting to see that and again to kick off this development with such a marquee company like McKesson I just there's just not a whole lot more you can ask about and could you just just real briefly tell us who's going to be at the ribbon cutting this will kind of emphasize that how big of a deal this is for not only Moore but for our state. Well Governor Stitt is absolutely going to be at the rib or at the groundbreaking and he was adamant that he wanted to be a part of that and obviously he and his staff are very excited about welcoming this this expansion from an existing business into something just enormous based on where they currently are so he will be attending the Department of Commerce will be there our county commissioners and their staffs will be there the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition which we have merged our economic development efforts with others in the county which again has been a benefit to the entire county and we hope we'll continue to see that I'm certain that we will so yeah it's a very very big deal to groundbreak for a company like McKesson.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Wonderful well thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us and helping uh us to inform our community and our listeners about what's happening on that property north of 27th Street.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Exciting news I would also add thank my thanks and uh we'll be right back after this break with your question of the month for Mayor Mark coming up in August the 43rd annual National Night Out. It's one of the biggest community events of the year. This year National Night Out will take place on Tuesday August 4th from 7 p.m until 9 p.m you'll find all the excitement in the Warren Theater parking lot bring the whole family out to meet your local first responders enjoy free food and activities get an up close look at emergency vehicles and equipment and meet our community partners for more information on National Light Out call 405 793 4662 or email CSU at cityofmoor.com hey welcome back we're in our last segment for the July episode of Moore Stop uh Mayor Mark what are people really interested in hearing about yes I do have a question that Beth the Far Beam had asked and her question is what's being built by the Taco Casa on River Walk Road and I'm happy to announce that a Paris baguette is being built there and if you look at their website they've already got listed that it's coming soon. Now I don't know when it's going to open I don't we don't have those details but we do know they're gonna be here and that they are opening and and Rob I think you've actually been to one so can you maybe tell us a little bit about what they serve and what it's like absolutely they have baked goods treats cakes tarts um I mean it's this really going to be a nice addition to the Moore community folks need to go to the Parisbaguette.com website and just look at their menu I mean they've got chocolate supreme croissants regular croissants uh they have strawberry croissants um and those are just the croissants um they have things that I can't pronounce because they're French like the Feuillette au chocolat I didn't even get that the berry berry pastry the fruit pastry um they have turnovers they have danishes cream cheese pastries almond pastries they have all right this was um Abby the lady that I'm the caregiver for and my my best friend in roommate she loves their sweet potato pastry it doesn't sound like a great thing but sweet potato pastry um I they they have tiramasu they have cakes I just all sorts of things oh and sandwiches too I haven't had any yet but they do have sandwiches and quiches and and salads and things like that too so um it's going to be a really really nice addition to the Moore community.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

It does and I'm just scrolling through their menu as well and I will be one of their customers for sure as it looks delicious.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Well I'm gonna say a product name and you're probably just gonna start drooling right here some more's chocolate marshmallow layer cake slice.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

I mean does that just not make you go oh boy it does it sounds great and the uh pictures on their website it all looks fantastic but that's what's going in by the Taco Casa off of 19th Street Paris baguette well I tell you that that's exciting news it's been an exciting episode McKesson coming there are big changes headed our way there are more is continuing to grow and sometimes you think well how much more can you fit and we are running out of room but we actually need all of this development so that we can continue to maintain our infrastructure buy fire trucks and police cars and and build the uh maintain our residential streets it just is takes a lot of money to run a city so where are I as the mayor am excited about all the things that are happening here and more still a wonderful community to live in and visit uh so if you don't live here we'd love you to have come and visit our old town uh or go down to 19th or up on 12th street really just the whole city and just check it out and you mentioned old town there are things bubbling within old town over the next year that we're gonna see as well. They there is and those will be some future podcasts that will be coming up and this will be released I don't know if the 4th of July will have happened by the time this is uh is released but if it isn't be sure to go out on July 4th to the Buck Thomas Park or what is commonly known as the 12th Street Park and we're gonna have a fantastic 250th celebration of America's birthday and it will be a fireworks show there'll be drones uh in this fireworks show and there's a grand finale but don't leave right after grand finale because there's something a little special.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Coming your way uh and I will just add to that that yes this is a great community I love living here people are great cities are great and these are fun times and want to thank you because you really are have embraced this podcast uh listeners and users um downloaded and listening and feel free to send us emails uh comments uh questions anything that that's on your mind we would be happy to try and answer those as often as possible so until next month thank you for joining us for more stuff we'll see you next month have a great month