Testosterone Replacement Therapy in The Village, OK

The Village is to be the new corporate home of Viridian Coffee Co. when the company opens in the old Casady Square Bank of Oklahoma location, 9300 N. Pennsylvania, later this year, bringing with it 40 employees.

The announcement was made during last week’s Village City Council meeting.

The 1960s-era building has been vacant since Bank of Oklahoma shuttered their branch location nearly three years ago. The building has a 3,403 square-foot footprint on the ground floor and a basement featuring 3,520 square-feet. Prior to Bank of Oklahoma, the building was occupied by Continental Federal Savings and Loan.

Viridian Coffee Co. joins Walmart Neighborhood Market, Braum’s Ice Cream & Dairy Store, and 7-Eleven on the southeast corner of Casady Square.

The Viridian presentation to the city council shows the new coffee house is to feature restaurant seating for 79 occupants, a lounge with seating for 17, a conference room, retail space and outdoor patio dining areas. The upper floor will be open to the public with offices on the lower level.

Shay and Lindsay Hayes, owners and founders of Viridian Coffee Co., brokered a long-term lease for the property through Spark Properties. Duncan is the current headquarters of Viridian Coffee Co. with additional stores located in Lawton, Chickasha and Cache. The Village location is the sixth Viridian Coffee Co location and the first in the metro area.

"We will relocate our corporate headquarters from Duncan to The Village, at least temporarily and bring about 40 employees with us,” said Shay Hayes as he addressed the council. "We’re encouraging our employees in Duncan to consider relocating to The Village when they move into the metro area.

"Eventually, we will outgrow the space at our Village location and will need additional room for our headquarter office,” said Hayes. "However, we plan on our headquarters being in The Village for at least the next two years.”

Hays told the council he is currently looking for nearby warehouse space for the company’s roasting and warehousing needs.

"We are thrilled to have a Made in Oklahoma corporate HQ here, even if it is just for a few years,” said Village City Manager Steve Slezickey. "Viridian provides great products with exceptional service and are amazing community supporters and partners.

"As someone that really enjoys a window to my workplace, I understand that the basement may not have long-term functionality, as they plan to locate their headquarters with roasting and warehousing operation in the new future,” he said. "Still, I’m hopeful that the charm of the area and NW Oklahoma City metro might make them reconsider staying here permanently.

"I’m pleased that additional staffing from the headquarters will be purchasing more goods in The Village and the area, which will always help sales tax,” he added. "I think the product and volume that Viridian will move in the coffee shop will increase sales tax to provide more services and opportunities for the city to the community.”

The coffee house is set to be open seven days a week and feature its own roasted coffee and blended teas, in addition to a menu featuring breakfast items, bakery goods and sandwiches.

Viridian Coffee Co. joins Love’s Travel Stop & Country Stores, OKC FRIDAY and Casady School with corporate headquarters in The Village once the move is complete.

The Village City Council is pleased to announce that a tentative offer of employment has been made to Mr. Dave Slezickey to be the city’s next City Manager. The offer is contingent on approval of an employment contract, which will be considered at the January 17th regular City Council meeting. Mr. Slezickey was selected after a nationwide search which began in October, led by Mayor Sonny Wilkinson, Council Member Bubba Symes, and City Attorney Jeff Sabin. He also completed an interview with the City Council and city staff.

Mr. Slezickey currently serves as the City Manager for the City of Kingfisher where he has been for the past 10 years. He earned his International City/County Managers Association Credentialed Manager (ICMA-CM) status in 2019, and is one of seven active managers in Oklahoma to hold this credential He earned his Accredited Manager from City Management Association of Oklahoma (CMAO) in 2018. In 2019, he was awarded the Gerald D. Wilkins Award for Outstanding Municipal Government Service from CMAO.

Slezickey’s municipal career began in 2002 as a volunteer firefighter with Anadarko Fire/EMS. He served as a Council Member with the City of Anadarko from 2005 until deployment to Iraq with his National Guard unit in August 2008. He served as the Town Coordinator for the Town of Hinton and City Manager for the City of Anadarko prior to assuming his current position in Kingfisher. His education includes a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts with a dual major in History and Political Science. He is also a graduate of the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy.

"I became a City Manager because I enjoy being part of a team that makes a daily contribution to improving the community,” said Slezickey. "I’m very excited to come to The Village, realizing that Bruce Stone is leaving big shoes to fill, and am definitely up for the task.”

Mayor Sonny Wilkinson stated that he and the City Council are thrilled to hire Mr. Slezickey. "Dave is coming to our city during a period of unprecedented investment and transformation. His commitment to serving his community and breadth of knowledge regarding municipal issues is vast,” stated Mayor Wilkinson. "The Village has been so fortunate to have the leadership of Bruce Stone for the past 37 years and we look forward to working with Dave to continue the precedent of excellence Bruce has established.”

The City of The Village anticipates that Mr. Slezickey will begin serving as the City Manager in mid-February. Bruce Stone will continue to serve as the City Manager until that time. Mr. Stone will retire as the longest serving City Manager in Oklahoma after 37 years in The Village.

Mr. Slezickey is an active member of the Oklahoma Army National Guard as a Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Battalion 158th Field Artillery (HIMARS) at Fort Sill, OK. He has been a member of the Board of Directors for International City/County Management Association (ICMA) since 2022; the Municipal Electric Systems of Oklahoma (MESO) since 2011 including two terms as Board Chair; has served on the Oklahoma Municipal Utility Services Authority (OMUSA) since 2011; has been a member of the City Management Association of Oklahoma (CMAO) since 2009 to include two terms as president; has been a board member of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority (OMPA) since 2014 and currently serves as Secretary; a member of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) since 2010 and serves on the Veterans Advisory Board; has been a board member of Oklahoma Municipal Management Services (OMMS) since its formation in 2018; and has been a member of the American Public Power Association (APPA) since 2010.

In other business, the council approved a proclamation calling for an April 4, 2023 election to fill City Council seats for Wards 1, 2 and 3. Council members in The Village serve a two-year term and receive $25 per month in compensation.

Ward 1 Councilwoman Wynter Griffis and Ward 2 Councilman Bubba Symes announced their intentions to seek re-election. David Glover, who was selected to fill the Ward 3 seat left vacant by the sudden resignation of Mayor Adam Graham last year, will not run for election.

Council members in The Village are elected at-large by the registered, qualified electors voting in their respective wards. Candidates for council positions must be qualified electors in their respective Wards and must live in the ward for which they are a candidate. The election is nonpartisan with no party designation or emblem placed on the ballot. There is no primary election, only a general election.

Any person qualified as an elector in their respective Ward may have their name placed on the ballot as a candidate by filing and paying a $50 fee at the Oklahoma County Election Board in Oklahoma City during the filing period scheduled Feb. 6-8.

Designated polling places for the April 4 election are:

Precinct 416: Christ The King Catholic Church, 8005 Dorset Drive

Precinct 417: Britton Road Church of Christ, 2520 W. Britton Rd.

Precinct 418: The Village Library, 10307 N. Pennsylvania Ave.

Precinct 419: Covenant Presbyterian Church, 10100 N. Ridgeview Dr.

Precinct 421: Britton Christian Church, 922 NW 91st St.

Precinct 423: Our Lord’s Lutheran Church, 2900 W. Hefner Rd.

The City of The Village has begun a nationwide search to replace current City Manager Bruce Stone, 69, who has announced his plans to retire Jan. 31 after 37 years as the chief administrative officer of the city.

Stone, who has a bachelor of arts degree in political science and government from Oklahoma State University, served as city manager of Stroud and Blackwell before being hired by The Village in June 1985. He has been city manager of the municipality for 37 years and five months.

At its last meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a 12-page, four-color position profile recruitment solicitation announcing the open city manager position. Those seeking the job have until the end of October to apply for the position. The council hopes to have the selection process completed by the second week of December.

"This is a high-profile position that requires us to ‘cast the nets wide’,” interim Ward 5 Councilman David Glover said during council discussions.

Former Councilman Stan Alexander, who represented Ward 3 for nearly 32 years during two stints of service, was in attendance and told the council, "I am proud to have been on the council that hired Bruce.”

"Bruce Stone brought this small community to a successful city, thriving and living among big city giants,” said Ward 2 Councilman Bubba Symes who is the most tenured member of the current council. "This less than three-square mile city is alive and well between Oklahoma City and Edmond and enjoying the small city life with great benefits.

"As Bruce grew, so did our Village,” he said. "We can thank him for his skilled leadership and setting the bar and standard so high. The new city manager will inherit a great city, ready for a qualified leader to continue and expand the leadership process.

"I would like to see a person with really great people skills take over the management position,” said Symes. "In today’s leadership positions it’s not just what you know and how smart and qualified you are, it’s the human factor, how you relate to your employees and how you lead by example and character. How you lead with a servant heart. Respect is earned and how a leader deals with so many different personalities and other skilled employees is so important.”

The position profile calls the city manager position "A Great Opportunity,” and describes The Village as, "a first-ring suburban city. An established, vibrant suburban community experiencing active economic reinvestment and stable population growth.

"The Village is considered a welcoming city that could be described as multi-cultural, socioeconomically diverse, caring and active in community affairs,” the profile continues. "Quality of life is a priority for the City of The Village and the quality services it provides to the community consistently receives favorable ratings from the city’s citizens.”

The job solicitation describes the city as "a full-service city serving a diverse population through the work of 76 excellent employees, with a total general fund budget of $18,715,609 for Fiscal Year 2022-23.

"The citizens of The Village have benefited from a consistently healthy economy and positive record of sales tax growth,” the document states. "For several consecutive fiscal years, the city has been at or near record levels of sales and use tax revenue. The Village’s city employees are highly valued and are provided career opportunities, benefits and incentive programs that result in a very low employee turnover rate.”

The document says, "This is an excellent career opportunity for a collaborative and visionary leader to live and work in a respected small community with a promising future in the heart of the vibrant Oklahoma City metropolitan area.”

"Because of the structure of our government which provides for a strong city manager, we need somebody with great managerial skills,” said Ward 4 Councilman Sean Cummings. "I would like to see somebody that has had vision in another city. Then been able to accomplish what their vision was.

"I don’t care if the new city manager is male or female or 35 years old or 70,” he said. "I would just like them to be open minded enough to enjoy the ride, knowing full well it’s extremely difficult to follow behind somebody that has been there for nearly four decades.

"I think this transition is probably the biggest thing that’s happened in The Village in decades,” said Cummings. "The Village has had such a renaissance in the last seven or eight years. We have to figure out are we still having a strong growth phase? Or are we moving into a management phase. Whoever the new city manager is must be able to navigate whichever path the city goes. I’m excited to see it happen!”

When Hertz first decided to build a new worldwide reservations center near the corner of Hefner Road and Pennsylvania Avenue in 1977, the announcement was greeted with excitement over the chance to add hundreds of jobs to the operation that opened a few years earlier at Lincoln Plaza.

The project was given a boost from the Oklahoma Industries Authority, which used its tax-free revenue bonding capacity to buy the land and pay for some of the equipment needed for the sprawling 126,000-square-foot operation.

Next door, a small, family-run operator of gas stations and truck stops, Tom Love, went about building a much smaller 10,000-square-foot office building for his company. The development made no headlines or the sort of hype that surrounded the Hertz reservation center. Love and his wife, Judy, had started their business a dozen years earlier when they leased a gas station in Watonga. By the mid-1970s, they had pioneered the idea of offering groceries and other services at their travel stops.

Hertz employed hundreds at its reservations center but vacated the complex a few years ago, leaving just a large, mostly windowless concrete bunker as a reminder of what was once the largest employer in The Village. But next door, that small gas station operator, Love’s Travel Stops, has grown to eclipse its one-time neighbor and has chosen to expand its campus with the former Hertz building.

The Village, always home for Love’s, will remain so.

“We like it out here,” Love said. “We started the business in The Village simply because we were living here. We had just gotten married. And if you look at our corporate charter, it’s at 1713 Westchester Drive.”

Love’s office remains in that original 10,000-square-foot building. But its footprint has grown to a cluster of buildings, including three it purchased from the late Aubrey McClendon at NW 63 and Hefner Parkway and leased space at Memorial and Western.

With 1,700 employed in The Village and Oklahoma City, Love is hoping to consolidate the workforce in The Village once the Hertz Building undergoes an extensive renovation. The project also will include a new event center built on the former 16-acre Hertz campus.

Spanning 126,000 square feet, the former Hertz center resembles a concrete bunker, with the southeast corner being located on a slope with a dirt berm built up along the eastern facade.

“It was a special use building,” Love said. “They had very few windows.”

FSB, the architecture firm that designed the Hertz building, was tasked with reinventing the complex for Love’s and modern office use.

“One of the main objectives is to provide a dynamic modern office environment,” said John Osborne, architect and principal with FSB. “That cave didn’t fit the bill. We’re cutting in 100 windows on the east, south and north. We’re pulling the dirt berm back to allow the light to come in from the east.”

The concrete bunker and dirt berms were intentional for the original use, with Hertz employees at the operation booking reservations for customers worldwide. Security, Osborne said, was a top concern.

“But it’s not what we would design for office space today,” he added.

The exterior, meanwhile, will get a makeover consisting of the rock and synthetic stucco mix used with the rest of the campus.

Love said he hopes to consolidate the entire workforce at the campus when the expansions are completed in two years. Over that time, he expects the corporate workforce will top 2,000. Just last week the family-owned company opened three new travel centers and expects to top 500 within the next year.

'Highway stores'

The company’s growth has extended beyond adding locations.

“We’ve extended our business a lot,” Love said. “By the end of the year, we will have more than 400 truck tire facilities. It was a natural extension of what we do. The hotel business was an idea we started thinking about and doing about three years ago, and we have about 20 hotels.”

Other additions include the acquisition of Speedco, which Love describes as “a Jiffy Lube for trucks.” Love’s also operates a CNG refueling company, Trillium.

Love’s Travel Stops can be found throughout the country, but the scarcity of any stations in Oklahoma City, Love’s hometown, is quite intentional. Only at the corner of the corporate headquarters can one gas up at a Love’s convenience store, grab some snacks or dine at Subway or Godfather’s Pizza.

But hit the highways, and the Love’s Travel Centers aren’t hard to find, usually purposely located every 60 to 80 miles. The locations are designed to make timing stops easy for truckers on tight schedules. Most of the travel plazas feature multiple restaurants and a hardware section resembling an Ace Hardware for truckers.

“Our model is we are highway stores,” Love said. “You might find us on the periphery (of Oklahoma City). Generally speaking, we’re way out there in 41 states, coast to coast. The truckers are our customers, and we’ve got to be where they want us to be.”

The results are in, and 2020 US Census figures indicate a 6.8 percent population increase over 2010 for the City of The Village. The city gained 609 people for a total of 9,538 residents in the 2.5 square mile municipality.

During consideration of the city’s code of ordinances at their most recent meeting, the city council voted unanimously for reapportionment of all five Ward boundaries to reflect demographic changes. Nearly 700 city residents will now find themselves living in a different Ward.

"Council elections in The Village are at-large so boundaries only matter for candidacy,” said Bruce Stone, city manager. "Adjusting Ward boundaries is basically a geographic and numbers game,” he said. "It’s a puzzle to solve which census blocks are moved from one Ward to another as each has an assigned population count.”

Stone said Wards 1 and 4 required the most change.

"The challenge was to take enough people from Ward 4 and somehow get a good part of those to Ward 1,” he said. "The Wards aren’t contiguous, so it was necessary to change other Wards (primarily Ward 3) in order to move people to Ward 1.”

The Village has experienced a renaissance of new home construction in recent years. Ward 3 grew nearly 150 new homes with the addition of Crossing at The Village Phase 1 and II. Ward 4 grew the most with the addition of The Villas and Hawthorn neighborhoods.

Populations for each Ward reflect approximately 20 percent of the city population. Utilizing 2020 Census figures Ward 1 now has 1872 residents or 19.63 percent of the population after reapportionment; Ward 2, 1903 residents or 19.95 percent ; Ward 3, 1930 residents or 20.23 percent ; Ward 4, 1936 residents or 20.30 percent ; and Ward 5, 1897 residents or 19.89 percent .The Village was first included in the 1960 Census when it recorded a population of 12,118. The city hit its peak in 1970 with 13,695 residents, while it recorded its lowest population during the 2010 Census with 8,929 residents.

"We lost about 1,000 residents when the old Whispering Hills Apartments were vacated in the late 2000’s,” said Stone. "This showed up in the 2010 Census resulting in redrawing of Ward 4 to make up for the loss.”

The population loss was partially reversed with the construction of The Villas and Hawthorn neighborhoods.

• • •

In other business:

• Ward 4 Councilwoman Cathy Cummings announced her resignation from the council effective immediately. She is currently a candidate for the District 3 seat on the Oklahoma County Commission, and has been actively running for the seat for eight months.

Last month the City of The Village was redistricted out of District 3 and into District 1 by a unanimous vote of all three Oklahoma County Commissioners. The move made it illegal for her to run in District 3 unless she changed her residence. She has since moved her residence to District 1.

There are no plans to appoint someone to fulfill the remainder of Cummings’ term. The regular election for the Ward 4 seat is April 5, 2022. Filing period is February 1-3, 2021.

• The Council voted unanimously to move City Council meetings from 7:30 pm to 6 pm beginning January 2022. The Village Planning and Zoning Commission meetings will be scheduled at 5 pm. All meetings are held on the first and third Monday of each month.

• The monthly sales tax check was for $550,709.88 which is an increase of $126,405 or 29.790% as compared to the same period last year. Use Tax was $119,695, a decrease of $20,884 or 14.86% as compared to the same period last year.