North Moore's New Pharmaceutical Warehouse Is Paying for the Roads Around It. Here's How That Deal Works.

McKesson Corporation is building a 330,000-square-foot automated pharmaceutical distribution center at the North Moore Industrial Park. Under a plan the City of Moore calls Project Vernors, the building's future property taxes are set aside to pay for the streets, water lines and drainage that north and northeast Moore need before the land can be developed. If you're comparing neighborhoods on Moore's north side, that plan tells you more about the next few years than any jobs figure. One of its key pieces was still waiting on a council vote in late October.

How the money moves

The tool is tax increment financing, or TIF, authorized under Oklahoma's Local Development Act. The Project Vernors Economic Development Project Plan takes a base assessed value for each increment district, as set by the Cleveland County Assessor. Any ad valorem tax generated above that base goes toward approved project costs. That lasts for up to 15 fiscal years after each district's effective date, or until the costs are paid off, whichever comes first. The money goes into a special fund held by the Moore Economic Development Authority, a public trust, and is not part of the city's general fund.

Put simply, the warehouse's new value pays for the infrastructure that made the warehouse possible. The plan admits as much, saying the site lacked "sufficient public infrastructure to make the Project Site developable."

The plan caps the authorized spending at $42 million:

The seven things the increment is meant to build

The infrastructure line is the part a homeowner on the north side will actually drive on, drink from and watch during storms. The plan lists these needs:

1. Reconstruction and enhancement of NE 27th Street from I-35 to Eastern Avenue
2. Improvements to Eastern Avenue from NE 27th Street to the city limits
3. Upgrades to the existing pump station "to improve water pressure serving the northeast portion of the City"
4. Drainage channel improvements for stormwater management
5. A new east-west public street connecting the I-35 frontage road to Pole Road
6. Upgrades to Pole Road north of NE 27th Street "to sustain industrial traffic"
7. Water and sewer expansion and connections to the site

Items 3 and 6 matter most for people who live nearby. The pump station upgrade serves all of northeast Moore, not just McKesson's parcel. The Pole Road work is described in the plan as built for industrial traffic, which tells you what kind of vehicles that road is expected to carry once the facility runs. The plan's project area extends well past the warehouse lot too. It runs from North Santa Fe Avenue east to North Eastern Avenue, and from the northern city limits south to a line about half a mile north of 12th Street.

The revenue is front-loaded, and the plan says so

The plan estimates the increment will average about $3.5 million a year, "with higher generation potential in the near term, gradually declining annually as business personal property depreciates."

In plain terms, much of the new taxable value comes from what's inside the building. The state describes the facility as highly automated, with precision inventory management, expanded cold chain capacity and 100% standby power. The Journal Record reports that it will also use robotics. Equipment loses taxable value year after year in a way land does not. The fund therefore takes in its biggest checks in the early years and smaller ones later.

Simple division shows that $42 million is about 12 years of the $3.5 million average, which fits inside the 15-year cap. Because the money shrinks over time, though, the order in which projects get built matters. Work paid for early gets built during the strongest revenue years. The plan also lets the authority issue tax apportionment bonds or notes, borrowing now against future increment. No such bond issue has come before the council yet.

The jobs figure has a moving part

The state's announcement lists a $179 million capital investment, more than 200 direct jobs, and 633 total direct, indirect and induced jobs by 2029, which it calls the first year of full operations. During construction, from 2026 to 2028, it projects roughly 1,156 jobs and $85.7 million in wages. The Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition produced those projections.

The Journal Record adds context the headline leaves out. The Moore facility "will replace the older regional center in Oklahoma City." McKesson's Gene Cavacini told the paper that recruiting would focus on current openings at the Oklahoma City distribution center, and that hiring specific to Moore would ramp up closer to opening. Some of these jobs already exist on the other side of the metro, so the facility partly moves employment south into Cleveland County and doesn't create all of it from nothing. That still matters for Moore's tax base. It just isn't 633 brand-new paychecks.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, Mayor Mark Hamm credited the site's competitiveness to the city's own groundwork:

"Through infrastructure planning and the creation of a Tax Increment Financing district, we delivered a site that meets the expectations of a Fortune 10 company."

The Department of Commerce also calls McKesson the first large-scale industrial investment in the North Moore Industrial Park. The plan expects more than one user. Beyond the distribution center, it describes "adjacent mixed light industrial and commercial uses."

Where the paperwork stood heading into November

Here is the sequence so far:

• May 4, 2026: The council adopted Ordinance No. 1077(26) unanimously, approving the plan and setting up the increment districts. The minutes record that no one at that second public hearing asked to speak.
• June 23, 2026: McKesson, developer Scannell Properties and contractor Kadean Construction held a ceremonial groundbreaking, as KOKH reported.
• August 17, 2026: The council approved a $40,000 amendment with Olsson for a Phase 2 environmental assessment of Pole Road property bought from BNSF for the NE 27th Street and Pole Road Improvement Project. The minutes say the purchase agreement required it.
• October 19, 2026: Ordinance No. 1080(26) would have named the districts Increment District No. 1 and No. 2 and set the date they are created. City staff asked the council to table it, and the council voted 4-0 to do so.

The plan itself leaves each district's effective date to a later council action. The 15-year window runs from that date, so the ordinance that sets it is the one to watch. The city's TIF page lists Project Vernors as active under the label "N. Commercial Park/NE 27th and Pole Rd." No construction dates have been posted yet for NE 27th Street, the new east-west street, the Pole Road upgrades or the pump station.

The road work around it that this deal doesn't fund

North-side drivers will see cones on several projects over the next few years. Not all of them come from Project Vernors. Here is how the city's citywide projects page describes the nearby jobs:

The Eastern Avenue work starting in spring is the southern stretch between SE 4th and NE 9th. The Eastern Avenue improvements in the TIF plan run north from NE 27th to the city limits, a separate segment paid for by separate money.

Reading north Moore with this in mind

If you're looking at homes north of 12th Street and east of Santa Fe, the TIF plan is a public list of what the city intends to build near you and how it plans to pay for it. Better water pressure in the northeast, rebuilt streets and drainage work are all on that list. So is a Pole Road designed for trucks. None of it has a posted construction calendar yet. Ask the same street-level questions you'd ask anywhere else. Which of the seven projects touches this block? Is the route you'd use to commute or reach school one that industrial traffic will share once the facility opens in 2029?

Quick answers

Where is the McKesson site? It's in the North Moore Industrial Park, between I-35 and Pole Road just south of Moore's northern city limits. The city labels the TIF "NE 27th and Pole Rd."

When does it open? The state lists 2026 to 2028 as the construction phase and 2029 as the first year of full operations.

Is the Project Vernors plan public? Yes. The full plan and ordinance are linked from the city's TIF page.

This post is general information about how Moore's TIF plan is set up. It isn't legal, tax or financial advice, so check how any of it applies to your own property with a qualified professional.

If you're weighing a home on Moore's north side and want to know which of these projects touches your street, Andrea Chambers can go through the Project Vernors map and the city's project updates with you, block by block. If you already own nearby, start with a free home valuation built on comparable sales around NE 27th and Pole Road, not citywide averages.