Commercial Real Estate Opportunities in Oklahoma with Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell

Join us as Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell shares insights on Oklahoma's booming commercial real estate market, the state's economic growth, and exciting investor opportunities.

When you're in this sub orbital, th this without gravity, you can make a p more pure substance. They just made it. I hear the heroin is off the charts. He literally like, all right, what is up and welcome back to another episode of How to invest in commercial real estate. And we are super excited. We have another guest on today before we get into that. We also just relaunched um The Saint Louis acquisition. It is a uh kind of a big box retail deal with a pad site out front that we hope to spin off. Um The big box retailers are Michaels and Ulta and Petco and then a brand new 10 year lease on American Freight and it's actually right next door to a Target and an Aldi which are amazing retailers. So we launched that out today. We have commitments coming in. We're gonna close on that the first week of June. It's got, yeah, it's got the Chipotle uh great performing Chipotle, great performing panda all with a lot of lease term.

So we're excited about that deal and we close June 5th June 5th. So not a lot of time and we're already starting to, to fill up on the investment. So, uh, but yeah, let me introduce our guest, Matt Pinnell. Uh, many of you may know, lieutenant governor of the state, the great state of Oklahoma where we spent most of our lives. And, uh, Matt and I go way back, went to high school and college together and have been friends for years and I'm excited to have him on the show. Uh, Welcome, Matt. Thank you guys. Appreciate you having me. Actually, I watched this. I actually listened to this. That's not just saying that as a politician, I really do. We finally won. I've shared this with some people. He actually learned something listening to you guys. So that's, that's a change. But today Matt might be the most famous guest we've had. It's either him or the guy that the leisure suit guy may have it if you haven't seen the episode of the Jerry Rosenthal, the guy who invented the leisure suit. Uh You need to watch that. He seems like a super interesting guy. I was super skeptical when we were gonna have mom, but when I got to talking to him, I'm like, I want to spend the weekend with this guy and learn some stuff.

That's a good one. I wanna, I wanna buy a leisure suit. I'll bring it back. But uh today, uh Matt, you may not learn much, but I think we are gonna learn a lot and our guests are gonna learn a lot. Uh but I thought it would be interesting to have him on because a lot of our listeners are here in the state of Oklahoma and um kind of business uh of Oklahoma is your business. And, and so I think we're gonna try to come up with some interesting questions and hopefully the people can learn a little bit about what is going on in the state of Oklahoma. We, as we've said before, we don't want to always be a flyover state. We want to be impactful in some way. So uh Matt tell us uh if you can, I'm sure you have some general ideas. What, what are some of some of the highlights economically that are going on in Oklahoma? Sure. Well, so from a 30,000 ft view, what's, what's really fun is how many people are interested in Oklahoma today? Um So we have employees at the Department of Commerce. So I work a lot with our Department of Commerce and we have employees there that said, listen, we've never had this much interest, you know, people proactively calling the state of Oklahoma and, and what a lot of that is, is this net migration to the middle of the country that is actually happening.

So it, it doesn't mean it's just happening in Oklahoma. It's happening in Arkansas. It's happening in Kansas. It's, it's definitely happening down uh to the state, to the south of us. Texas about that. So that's, that really is, that's really happening. And, and so and it's not just us preaching about it. I mean, it, it the net the census census migration data that we recently got prove it. So this a couple of months ago, this data came out. So between June of 2022 to July of 2023 Oklahoma was number nine in the country in net migration growth. So people leaving the state versus people moving to the state, we were number nine in the country, which is quite the top 10, which is quite the flex for, you know, a state of our size. But what's even cooler particularly, I would think for, for your list, more Texans move to Oklahoma during that time period than Oklahomans that moved to Texas. It is slowing down and that really is the way to describe it. It's not, you know, it's slowing down. I mean, Texas is still recruiting a lot of people. Dallas will be the third largest city in a America in less than two years.

So it's gonna be larger, it'll be larger than Chicago in less than three years. And so, but we're using that to our advantage, we're saying, listen, Dallas is full, you know, so all of these, you know, young talent, young families, you know, they are tired of traffic, you know, can't afford a house in their urban core. We, we have a campaign targeted at them uh to try to get them back to Oklahoma. Um A lot of that's baby boomer growth of that net migration growth. But a lot of it's young families too. I mean, Tulsa, as you guys know, we have this Tulsa remote program that has been very, very popular. Um It's not just George Kaiser paying people $10,000 to move here. Uh They all have a lot of money, most of these people that have moved to the city, but then they stay here. I mean, well, over 1000 could be more than that. Um But we're, we, we're, we're building upon that. Uh And now that Oklahoma actually is a state that people are given a look at. Um, it's really helping Tulsa, Oklahoma City and other areas around the state that we can certainly get into grow. I mean, Oklahoma City is the 20th largest city in America today.

Uh Tulsa, well, over a million people inside the core of the city now. So we have a, a really good workforce. So we're on to something as a state. So does that, so that increase in population, does that help uh us recruit businesses to move here? Because now they have more talent because at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to, is, is, do you have uh a workforce that a lot of these companies are looking for when they come calling? So when, when Oklahoma City can say they're the 20th largest city in America that's telling companies. Ok, there's actually people here, you know, we've lost some deals to Dallas and Austin. Um, mostly because there's millions of more people that they can pull from. But now that Oklahoma is growing, uh, we're getting a much more aggressive, much more serious look because the quality of life is better. And then on top of that there's an actual talented workforce that you can pull from. Uh we're, we're able to deliver and we're able to pull in more companies and, and over the last couple of years, we, we've done that. We've, we've proven, our Department of Commerce has proven it that we can, uh we can pull in people that are not just in the oil and gas industry, which is the other big story.

Why Oklahoma City can build the largest building in, in the US, right? They can permit that building, they can permit it. That's right. We'll see where that goes. But Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City and the Disney and the Disney Desert Park, they can permit that. They can permit that as well. Uh We, we'll see if that ends up coming, but I, I'm glad that we are in some, we have some storylines of, of development project that, that uh could become real. Hey, you know, uh being in real estate, it's really important. Growth is a really important part. You need new apartments and then once you get uh more apartments and more housing you need retail and you need office. And so for our business, I mean, obviously we buy around the country but uh for people that want to, you know, be in real estate in Oklahoma, it's super important that we have that population growth and it, it, like I said, it's happening. We just have to be ready when they come calling, we gotta be ready when those companies come calling. Uh And I, I firmly believe over this, this next decade, you're gonna see real impressive growth inside the state of Oklahoma. There's just too many people that are leaving the coasts, too many people leaving states, you know, remote working environment that's not completely going to go away.

Oklahoma is very attractive uh for those type of individuals. And again, the numbers, the numbers prove it. It's funny. I, I take Ubers uh whenever I'm gonna drink and I'm gonna be out and a lot of times they're, I'll ask them, hey, where are you from? And they're like, oh, I moved from California. I moved from Arizona. Why? Well, I had some friends that lived in Tulsa and they said I could get a big house. They said I could have land, uh even my electrician that's putting in the, the cyber truck charging port at my house. Uh He's an electrician but uh just moved from California during COVID. Uh And so he started his own business out here because it was easier. So, other than the cost of living, what does Oklahoma have to offer these people? I mean, sure, I mean, affordability just from an energy perspective. Uh we're number one or number two, um when it comes to energy affordability, so 40% of our uh electricity now is off renewables in the state too that most people have no idea about. You know, we're traditionally an oil and gas state and we will continue to be. But does that make you want to drive an electric car?

Knowing we have the cheapest energy in, we got cheap energy. I, I don't know, maybe that's not completely the pitch that uh but what it, what where the pitch is a manufacturing company, right? That needs to move somewhere in America and they need a big, you know what warehouse they care um heating an air that in Google, for example. So Google is in the prior area. Uh If you haven't been to Pryor, you gotta go see what the MidAmerica Industrial Park, it's the eighth largest industrial park in the country. So it's, it's one of the best mega sites in the country. Well, Google's there and Google's all about renewables. I mean, some of the, and, and I was a little naive to that, you know, the companies, these big mega projects that we're talking to now that we've never really been in a room with before. They do care about that that's built into. Uh their company's mission statement, the culture, the mission statement. And you can either, uh uh like it or not, but it is a reality when it comes to a lot of these larger companies that they want to make sure that they're able to prove to, um, uh their shareholders, um, and the world for their pr machines that they're operating off renewables.

So, we're the Saudi Arabia of Wind. Oklahoma is, it's not just natural gas, it's wind as well. So, uh most of the renewables are wind and most of it's wind, the large majority of that is wind. We've got a little bit of solar. I think we could do a whole lot more solar in Oklahoma frankly. Um, and we're getting a little bit more into that, but wind is a big deal in Oklahoma today. Uh We got it, we might as well leverage it, you know, play to your strengths as a state and it's really helped Western Oklahoma in particular. I've been out and seen that wind farm and, uh, and so we have a whole lot more of that coming online. A natural gas has been a huge win for us the last couple of years as well. But uh the renewable piece. So that's one, um I would say again, drive times. We, we lean for me guys. I, having lived in a really big city overseas, my drive time was like an hour and a half in traffic each way. And I hated every second of that drive. So the fact that you can be anywhere in Tulsa in 20 minutes is, is an awesome perk. Buying a home certainly is a huge, is a huge deal.

And, and these Tulsa remote folks that have relocated, what, what I don't think can be discounted. They want to make a difference. So these, you know, these younger generations, they wanna change the world and they can be involved day one in Tulsa, like they can join the chamber, they can join the rotary, they can immediately get involved in the community. You can't do that in Dallas, you know, it may take you 10 years to, to, to be on a board, you know, at the, at their chamber. But in Tulsa, you can get involved right now. Oklahoma City involved today. And I again, was a little naive to that piece that, you know, individuals that make a lot of money that can live anywhere in the world they love Oklahoma because we are friendly and you can be involved and that shouldn't be discount, discounted. And these large Kansas cities and the Saint Louis and the Houstons and, and Dallas, it's, it's more difficult uh when you're a top five city in America to immediately be involved and to make a difference. And, and so we've used that a lot as well and it's helped us pull in more entrepreneurs, big businesses may, might not be as uh concerned with that, but they should be concerned keeping their employees happy and their employees are not gonna be happy if they're driving a couple of hours to work, how business friendly is Oklahoma compared to the rest of the nation, would you say in terms of tax incentives or whatever?

I mean, I would say very competitive. I mean, we do have an income tax. So there are certainly some states, Texas has used that to their advantage but, you know, they're getting their taxes from somewhere. We, we remind people of that. I don't, I don't want to pay Texas property taxes. So, but we, we do have an income tax but it's very competitive income tax. Our property taxes are very low, uh, from, it depends upon city to city as far as how, quote pro-business they are. But we've never heard anything other than, hey, it was a whole lot easier to do business in Oklahoma than California or Colorado or some of these other states that, uh, are a little bit more restricted. So you mentioned, uh, prior, but if you had to like, pick a top three or four locations around the state that are kind of really driving a lot of economic growth, maybe give us some of the highlights. Yeah, outside of Tulsa and Oklahoma City because again, those are, are gonna continue to be our economic drivers and I love what both of those cities are doing right now because they're both investing in themselves. So Oklahoma City has their maps program and if you don't know about the Maps program, I mean, that is a best practice economic development program that a lot of other cities are trying to copy Oklahoma City literally rebuilt itself over the last 25 years.

I think that map Maps program if you go back 1015 years, 20 years ago when they implemented it is what really kick started. Oklahoma City ahead of Tulsa and we're doing great, but we're trying to catch them now. Tulsa's just now putting water in the river. You know, we, we finally got our act together to get water. And that for 50 years, truly, we have the first one's opening up. It looks great. I'm excited about it. We, we did get our crap together. Eventually the skyline with that water in the river looks really cool and the development it's gonna spur along the river now because it's a beautiful place to be instead of a sand pit will be huge for the city. It would be like the Bo center downtown downtown was a pit. The Bok center goes in now, there's, you know, over a billion dollars private development. They're gonna do that same study on the river in a decade from now and it's gonna be that same thing and, and so I give the city a lot of credit there. So outside of those two and, and from a tourism perspective, you know, they've really leaned into events which is very, very important, uh sports teams, all everything else. Um I, I, you know, outside of those two areas, Lawton, so I, every time I go to Lawton, I, I say how Lawton needs to be mentioned in the same sentence as Tulsa Oklahoma City again, it used to be quote back in the day.

Um Lawton is growing again because of aerospace and for us as a state, um, we pres we protected all of these military bases in Oklahoma over the last multiple decades. And Senator Inhofe uh deserves a lot of credit there because he served on the armed Armed Forces committee in DC and protected a couple of our military bases from BRAC shutdowns. And, you know, a lot of that's kind of in the weeds, but that really has led the Boeings and Lockheed Martin's and others. They want to be in Oklahoma because they want those federal contracts. They're, they're, they're smart. And so Oklahoma City, one of the reasons they're the 20th largest city in America is because Boeing and Lockheed Martin and all these other companies want business at Tinker Air Force Base, which is the one of the largest military bases in the country. Um, and so based upon that growth now we have a space industry in Oklahoma that's, that's, that's growing in both in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. So aerospace is the number two industry in the state of Oklahoma. Well, over a 40 $45 billion economic impact, really big could be the number one industry in our state.

Within a decade, our aerospace industry is the majority of that government contract stuff or half and half. So drone technology has grown. It's still a small portion of it. But, but that's growing. Um We have a space port uh outside of Elk City, one of only 12 space ports in America where you can actually fire uh a space shuttle in outer space. Most people don't realize that it's the second longest runway in the world. Um It's outside of Elk City, Oklahoma, right? Who knew? Um But I wonder if you can drag race cars on the second. I'm sure you could for a price. Uh But so that's really cool to see about half the companies that we're talking to on any given month. It's aerospace and defense industry growth. Um I went to a big space symposium in Colorado Springs a couple of weeks ago. It's just, it'll blow your mind. I mean, making pharmaceuticals in outer space is kind of like where all of this is going. It's the craziest thing and it's all these start up companies. So I asked that same question because of the purity. So when you're in gravity, I can't believe we're talking about this on the podcast.

It's interesting, but it's interesting, right? Um Making a pharmaceutical and outer space that when, when you're in this suborbital, this without gravity, you can make a more pure substance. They just made a, I hear the heroin's off the charts like they did the first Meniscus. Uh uh last month, one of these start up companies in like Subor, it's the craziest stuff. And so now you have these start up pharmaceutical companies working with these space entrepreneurs. I love it. I love it. And so we're not, I'm not talking about exploring the moon anymore. We're talking about other cool stuff. Um And they're looking for places to build um uh manufacturing operations here to where then they can fire these space shuttles off to get five or six minutes or 10 minutes of of, you know, not being, not having gravity. So it's, I only know enough to be dangerous because we're, we're, we're just kind of starting to talk to those companies.

But Jim Bryden Stein, you may know that name. He was the NASA administrator. He's back in Oklahoma. And uh I felt like I was walking around with Michael Jordan at an all star game, walking around with the former NASA administrator at a space symposium. He was like the rock star. And so he's getting us in with all these meetings and way to go gym. And so that was a, a very productive couple days. Hopefully, it will lead to a few things. We were just with one of the companies that wants to be here uh in Tulsa down around the airport uh, and, and they want to build engines. I mean, we, we still build the engines in Oklahoma. We're a maintenance repair state so they call it MRO, we're a big MRO state. The largest maintenance repair facility in the world is 30 minutes from right here. The American Airlines facility, the largest employer in the city of Tulsa still. And, you know, again, most people don't know that like we build widgets, we build things, we fix rockets, we fix engines and that is the bread and butter of what we will continue to do.

But I hope we also can, you know, start firing as you know, space space shuttles up to build pharmaceuticals. But I went on a tangent there. But those are the two, you know, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Ardmore and Durant, Ardmore and Durant, Ardmore and Durant. Those are two communities that are an hour from Dallas. So, you know, let's not overcomplicate this th those two communities, but they both say they're kind of the front door to Dallas because they are both, those communities are in sovereign Indian nations as well. That's a whole other part of our story. That is a big advantage that we have is we have all these tribes now that are very diversified, they have more money than most anybody else. I mean, this will put it in perspective. The five largest Indian tribes in Oklahoma today have a large your fiscal budget than the state of Oklahoma if you combine those five trips. That's awesome. Which is awesome. Um, you know, when we were growing up in Oklahoma, they were operating bingo halls and they, they did cigarette counters, they didn't have money, they got money today and they're being smart with that money. So they're getting very diversified and, and we should work with them.

I mean, Cherokee Nation is building a 504 $500 million hospital in Tahlequah that will rival anything in the state. They're building roads and bridges, uh they're investing in entrepreneurs, but the, the, the, the Ardmore and Durant area, both, you know, Ardmore is Chickasaw nation. Durant is Choctaw nation. Those are the 22 most wealthy tribes in the state along with the Cherokees and they're just North Texas and Oklahoma are just growing into each other and we're either gonna take advantage of this or not. I mean, because all the cranes in the air in Texas are in Sherman and Anna Texas. Now they're not even in Dallas. Uh you know, the, the chip, the Taiwanese chip manufacturing uh company that uh largest deal in state history of the state of Texas wasn't Dallas. They're building that facility outside of Sherman. So you have a lot of Oklahomans that will work at that facility. I have no doubt but we want that on our side of the, the invisible line as well. So those eventually it's gonna grow across the state line. Ok. You have an hour commute to Dallas. Why not go 15 minutes more and double the size of your house?

No doubt. There's a lot of people that would love to live in Durant but can't, because there's no homes available, which is a whole other part of, you know, when the US and whole and Oklahoma has those same growing pains when it comes to. We, we don't have enough single family, um, homes available, uh or affordable housing. And that's something we're aggressively working on at the legislature. We, we created a, a 0% interest construction loan program for developers because most of these small, that's the one that we were talking about the other day, Oklahoma Housing Stability Act Housing Stability. Joel's a pro on it now all of a sudden, not a pro you do up to four units or something, 70 5% of the money it has to be spent in, in what we define as rural Oklahoma. And I don't know what the, how many people were talking about, but most of the communities that we just talked about would probably be defined as rural because we can't lure a developer to develop in a lot of these smaller communities because they can't make money.

And so, ok, well, let's fix that. And, and so we've had enough people tell the legislature to where the legislature said, you know what, maybe it's time for us to do something about this. So there's a couple of $100 million that we've pooled. Um It just launched. So we're literally, we're going to developers saying, tell us if it is this, will this be helpful? Uh Most of them say, yeah, in certain areas and, and um we, we, we hope that will fuel some development in, outside of the Tulsa Oklahoma city area and, and frankly in this area as well, but most of that money has to be spent in rural Oklahoma. So, uh we, we're getting to the point where we'll try to wrap it up. Uh We have people listening, maybe they're intrigued, maybe they want to find out more. Uh is there resources or a website or, or maybe your office, where should they go to find out more about what's going on in Oklahoma? And how could they even be part of it? Yeah, I mean, it, so our Oklahoma Department of Commerce is where we house page upon page pages and pages of, of what the state offers from the, from an incentive perspective because we have some very competitive incentives, um you know, quality Jobs Act and, you know, uh again, the Oklahoma Housing Stability Act, I mean, there, there's 10 to 15 different incentives uh that, that are kind of our uh main incentives that we offer to companies that are looking to relocate to Oklahoma.

We offer some incentives to existing businesses in Oklahoma as well. But that, that's what I would tell you is go to OK, commerce.gov, you can Google it as well. OK. It's our Oklahoma Department of Commerce. That's kind of a central clearinghouse for whether you're a developer, whether you're a company looking to grow in Oklahoma or move to Oklahoma. Um you know, and, and from a tourism perspective, it's travel. Ok.com, I, I always mention that because tourism is the front door to economic development. I, I truly believe that um Oklahoma is more, has more of an authentic tourism experience than I think any other state in the country. It is authentic uh from Black Wall Street to cowboys and Indians and Chisholm Trail. Like we got a very colorful history if we tell that history and we're going to tell that history. If we, I mean, people are completely fascinated by Oklahoma. They can't believe our, our story. And if we tell that story, it's gonna have a whole lot more people show up and then they leave and they look, you know, to their family members say, hey, this, this is a whole lot better than Kansas City.

There is a whole lot better in Dallas. Maybe we should move there. And so that's why I call it the front door to economic development. So those are the two websites that we send people to. It's crazy how big you can get because I went on the art deco architecture tour of downtown Tulsa and learned so much because we were this big roaring almost international city in the twenties and, and the oil capital of the world and the movie capital of the world and, and that was a big deal and then it just, it so easily fades and is forgotten, but still just the, the architecture of some of the office buildings downtown in Tulsa is stunning and you don't find that in a lot of places and we've got, we've had the majority of them torn down and we still have some of the most remaining. It, it's really cool. I, I have a question um out of everything kind of happening in Oklahoma and I know there may be some stuff that's still speculative, obviously, but what are you most excited about that, that you know of or have heard of or what's just something really awesome, you know.

Um I mentioned the aerospace uh excitement um and maybe that's not real sexy but um super interesting. There's three or four companies that I can't talk about because we can't publicly talk about them. But there's two or three very exciting companies that we're talking to kind of in that aerospace industry uh space that we hope to be in front of a podium announcing within, you know, fairly soon um from a development perspective. Uh A lot of that's still kind of in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City area. Um a number of tourism attractions that Oklahoma City again and, and, and the Tulsa area, I love the Tulsa sound movement in downtown Tulsa. Uh, Oklahoma City's building an indoor water park. Yes, that's a big deal for our state. Um, you don't have to do great great wolf lodge in Dallas anymore, you know. Um, so it, it, it does matter to me. Uh, there's some downtown development. Yes, in Oklahoma City. And, uh, and Tulsa that, um, that I'm excited about.

There's a downtown data center, uh, that Tulsa is about to announce. That's pretty exciting with a very big name attached to it. I got one, I got one that I'm excited about. It's the youngest team in NBA history to be a number one seed. That's what excites me. Big league. We really need to win tomorrow and Monday take it, take it to a game seven for sure. But I mean, so maybe it's a good thing that there's not just one, you know, big development. Yes, there's a lot of palace intrigue about a downtown Oklahoma City, a very tall building or a new amusement park in northeast Oklahoma. We'll see if those uh projects um uh come into uh come to fruition. But for me, it's much more diversifying our economy because we ride these waves in Oklahoma based upon oil and gas and we can't do that anymore. If we continue to do that, we're gonna have some good years and then in the bad years we cut state government. And so it's been very exciting over the last five years. For me to see. Oh, I'm not talking, I'm not talking to your traditional oil and gas company most of the time anymore.

I want that. 3 65 24 7. I'm talking to aerospace companies or defense industry companies. Um, uh, that's what's exciting to me because long term that's how we have a healthy state is to get much more diversified when it comes to our economy. I love it. Um, Matt, you've been an awesome lieutenant governor. Everybody hopes that you think about taking the next step. And if you do, we'll announce it here on the podcast with the choices we have this year. I think it'd be great. Uh, but no, thank you so much for coming on. Hopefully, it was interesting to everybody listening about everything that's going on in our state and check out the websites that he mentioned. Anything else, Braden? No, I'm gonna check out, uh, pure pharmaceuticals in space. We're getting blasted on the own podcast. All right, guys. Until next time on how to invest in commercial real estate. Thanks. And we'll see you next time. See you guys.