By CAPRI GAHR
DOCKER HAUB
BALEY GARZA
Are Taco Bell, Braum’s and IHOP ever coming to Alva? Probably not.
With Northwestern Oklahoma State University being in the center of Alva, education is a core industry for the city. With a college comes students, but are the students satisfied with the number of businesses and food options that are available in Alva?
Often, students will travel over 45 minutes just to eat something different or to go to a mall or another type of business that is otherwise not available to them in Alva. Many rumors of new restaurants coming to Alva have floated around throughout the years, but in recent years, none of these rumors have come true. Last summer, there was rumors of a Braum’s coming to Alva. It disappointed many of the students when they returned to Alva and there was no Braum’s to be found.
A retail study conducted on Alva suggests the small population might be holding these businesses back. The economic development specialist for Alva is Alexandra Mantz. She networks with businesses and plans events. Her work includes going to nearby chamber meetings, networking trade shows and going to conference for The International Council of Shopping Centers. She said the general demographics that have to be met by Alva’s population are much larger than Alva’s retail population.
First, the population of Alva is about 5,000. The study conducted showed that Alva’s businesses serve around 13,000, which includes the consumers that come from local towns and farms around Alva. Bigger franchises demand a higher population before they can consider staking claim in a town.
This information takes Taco Bell and IHOP out of the picture because they each require a higher population. Braum’s, however, is still a possibility. Mantz said Braum’s has been in contact with the city for around two years. They just haven’t completed the process of communication to development.
Bo Hannaford, vice president for academic affairs at NWOSU, is also a member of the Economic Development Committee. Hannaford and Mantz both expressed concern about supplying any information about businesses that are looking at Alva currently. They didn’t release any further information about potential retailers.
Megan Caldwell, who sits on the planning commission, said she believes that the city has one big project that will contribute to the possibility of growth: building an arena, which is scheduled to be built in the near future.
The arena will be a large venue that can host concerts, rodeos and many more large-scale events. Being able to hold these larger events will pull more consumers into Alva.
Caldwell said she hopes that this step for Alva will help bring businesses and franchises. The arena will be called Alva Regional Multi-Purpose Facility.
Its purpose is to enhance and recruit business tourism to the region. This project and projects like this have to go through certain steps.
When someone wants to buy a building, space, or lot, the city inspector and fire marshal go in to check everything to make sure it’s OK to use. That’s called getting a certificate of ordinance. The city inspector’s name is Joe Don Dunham. “The main goal is to make citizens comfortable when building new things,” Dunham said.
Alva does not require a building license, but it does require a building permit for the area. Commercial projects have to be within zoning areas and comply with the zoning laws. Before something new is brought into town, the planning commission discusses it. Then if the members approve, they adopt the previous zoning laws to what is being built. The arena had to pass all of these steps to become a working project. Further work had to be done to procure logistics of this project.
The Alva Arena Authority engaged a consultant, the Center of Economic Development Law in Oklahoma City, who reviewed the information provided by the authority, county, and city and reported that the proposed project appeared eligible, feasible, and desirable
The consultant recommended that the city and county needed to proceed to undertake the formulation, procedural consideration, and adoption of a project plan with necessary financing mechanisms. This includes changing local taxation to be proposed so a special committee for further review.
They will also consider and determine whether the proposed plan and project are sustainable for the town. Then they reported its findings and make its recommendations to the governing bodies. This large project is not the only project that Alva is undertaking.
Smaller actions that Alva takes also contribute to the possible growth. Caldwell said the town puts on events almost every weekend to attract more community involvement from the college students. They host farmer’s markets, craft fairs, art walks and history events.
Building a website and shooting a video are two of the smaller things Alva is producing. The website is alvaok.net. It has a directory, list of events and more information to appeal to potential visitors. The video will showcase parts of Alva and will be distributed to the hotels for visitors to see and learn about Alva.
Alva uses its diverse history and small local attractions to attract consumers and adventure seekers. “Alva, where charm and adventure meet” is Alva’s tag line. The smaller attractions nearby include the Salt Plains, the Alabaster Caverns, the Menagerie and the Cherokee Strip Museum.
The low involvement from the college begs to ask this question: Is the college depending on the town to keep it running or is the town depending on the college?
Caldwell said she believes that Alva is certainly college friendly while the college seems to be less Alva friendly because of the low community involvement from college students. This forces Alva to take care of itself.
Why is there such low involvement from students? Well for starters, weekend events aren’t catching on with students because a large majority go home on weekends. Other students feel forced to drive to Enid or Woodward just to find a bigger variety of retailers and franchises.
In Alva, the economics have flourished and dwindled redundantly throughout the years. A couple of businesses downtown have been in Alva for a long time and are near to the townspeople’s hearts.
Starr Lumber Company, which is managed by John Ryerson, and Holder Drug, which is managed by Todd Holder, are two important businesses within the community. Every day, you can almost always find a good crowd of people in Holder Drug, which many people consider the heartbeat of downtown Alva.
After school, many kids will come to enjoy the snack parlor and have ice cream with their friends. Older people often meet to have coffee and enjoy conversations with each other. Holder said he takes pride in how comfortable his customers feel when they come to enjoy his business and how happy everyone is when they are inside Holder Drug.
Starr Lumber Company helps townspeople with any kind of needs for building, fixing or redecorating. “It always puts a smile on my face after a customer makes a purchase from us,” Ryerson said. “Knowing that my product will help someone in a positive way brings me a lot of joy.”
Ryerson is also responsible for the second tallest building in northwest Oklahoma, being turned into the newest apartment complex building in Alva. Built in 1926, this building on the corner of Barnes and Fifth streets is recognized as a national historical building. When it was built it was known as the Bell Hotel and was an important piece of the community. The building continues to be so important to the city of Alva that 600 people showed up to Ryerson’s recent grand opening of the apartment complex.
Two other large employers that have played a big role in the economy of Alva are Walmart and the Bill Johnson Correctional Center which is a prison. Both of these businesses were controversial before they opened. According to community members, townspeople were worried that Walmart would shut down a lot of the businesses around the town and were worried that the prison would bring bad people as well as a bad reputation to Alva.
On the contrary, both of these businesses have made huge impacts on the community in a positive light. The correctional facility has provided many jobs for the community and the inmates have even done a lot to provide up-keep as well as construction for the community.
The correctional facility helped to fund and to build the Alva Recreational Complex, which is now used for NWOSU softball as well as intramurals and little leagues of Alva.
No one can see into the future to predict Alva’s fate or whether an oil boom will return to the area, but Mantz said she sees positive things happening. Once the arena is built, Alva is predicted to see more economic growth, which will mean more services coming to town that should make NWOSU college students happy.