Squanto wrote:
slesh wrote:
Correct if I'm wrong here Squanto, but weren't they looking for 35 million in an incentives package?
If thats the case, it would have been money wisely spent given just how well those nitch stores do and how well the surrounding areas do when they open their doors.
I do also agree there needs to be sanity when dealing with businesses, but this type of business should have had an exception made given its reputation.
More like $60M and up.
They wanted about $35M in direct money, then they wanted another $25M in infrastructure built specifically for them. The sad thing that all that money was in place and ready to go. All Bass Pro had to do was commit to the project. Everything that Bass Pro wanted was given to them, but they refused to commit.
They refused. They jerked us around for NINE years, and when the development agency told them that they needed to sign or they were going to move on without them, they refused.
Bass Pro is a joke. They jerked Memphis around for 5 years on the store that's opening down there. They got the city to lease the the building dirt cheap, AND pony up $30M in cash for improvements on the building, AND got tax breaks. The $30M comes from a special sales tax imposed on the surrounding area, which isn't helpful in spinoff development. Who wants to start a business where the sales taxes are higher than they are 5 minutes away?
Multiple studies done on Bass Pro Shops around the country found that locations that were heavily subsidized by public dollars generally failed to generate spinoff development, and new sales tax revenue was often not enough to counteract the other tax breaks given.
Bass Pro has one business model: Prey on struggling cities, and extract as much public money as they can so they can profit. Good riddance to these tools.
60 million is a hard number to swallow, I'll agree with you there. Its not that I minded the 35 million figure I heard, I just knew that money could be recouped within 15 or 20 years. But 65 million for wha amounts to a glorified box store for outdoors men, even if it is a nitch store, is just to much to swallow, especially given the time parameter to recoup the money.
Oh well, hame them call up Cabellas for a whirl, other wise, Keep on moving forward with another plan.
Sad really, since it seems like a win/win fit for both the city and a store of that caliber.
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