SW Oklahoma ARPA Regional Alliance - City of Lawton

PROJECT PURPOSE

Beyond the Elmer Thomas Regional Park, the Lawton Community has two primary sub-regional parks that need additional improvements/facilities. Lee West Park is located in western Lawton and is approximately 10 acres. The park currently has an older playground and a basketball court. The plan is to invest in this park and make it a designation in west Lawton. With the current development occurring in the West Lawton Industrial Park, approximately 3 miles west of Lee West Park, potential employees will likely be focusing on this area for homes. Providing a safe, clean, family friendly recreation area in close proximity to home and work, positively impacts the overall quality of life for current and potential residents of this area. Likewise, Eastside Park is located in eastern Lawton and currently contains 4 baseball fields, that convert to youth football fields, and a playground. The plan is to invest in this park to make it a destination for east side residents. The I-44 corridor makes the east side of Lawton somewhat isolated from central and west Lawton, so with the improvements to this park, all Lawton residents will have a high quality park within a few miles of their home.

EVIDENCE

The economic impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic are still being felt in every community. Beyond the lost revenue and impact to tourism, our workforce has suffered and our costs to provide critical municipal services continues to increase. With this project, the scope of the services and recreations opportunities within the Lee West and Eastside Parks will touch every age group and demographic, every member of our community, and provide a safe location, with room to enjoy our community while respecting social distancing/personal space.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

While SWOK continues to work very hard to improve conditions for our citizens, we continue to struggle with poverty and decline. With 18.5% of our population in poverty and only 45% of our households in owner occupied homes. Our median household income of just less than $48,000 is more than 10% below the state. Lawton is a diverse, inclusive, and progressive community, but we lack the resources to create the kind of community improvement projects that can move us economically to the next level. SWOK has felt impact of the pandemic through stagnant municipal revenues and significantly increasing costs due to supply delays and labor shortage. Somewhat isolated from the region?s larger metropolitan communities, Lawton has seen our labor force slowly eroded through relocation to the larger cities that can provide more quality-of-life amenities. This project puts Lawton on equal footing with Bricktown in OKC and the Gathering Place in Tulsa. Quality of life should be for all communities.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

The number of visitors to each park can be measured directly using traffic counters. The Chamber of Commerce routinely survey hotel patrons to measure their reasons for visiting our community and the places and services they incur.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma