Beaufort, SC. “We Want Good Jobs”
Make sure projects lure high-paying jobs to county [Island Packet (S.C.)]
Beaufort County Council’s vote to designate Buckwalter Place a multicounty industrial park sets up the framework officials hope to use to attract higher-paying jobs to Beaufort County.That’s a laudable goal, but as with most things, there are tradeoffs in the deal. Officials will have to walk a fine line between economic development that brings better-paying jobs and subsidizing a developer by paying for projects that should be paid for by the private sector.
The agreement among Bluffton, where the 115-acre development site sits along Buckwalter Parkway, and Beaufort and Jasper counties sets up fees in lieu of property taxes on 11 parcels.
The fees, equal to what would be paid each year in property taxes, go to a special fund to be used for specific projects, such as buildings and roads, that benefit the industrial park area. The idea is to provide incentives for businesses to locate here. One of the first projects to be considered is a parking facility, according to the county’s 20-year agreement with the town of Bluffton. Bluffton and the county must agree on the scope, details and financing of any project.
The public money is spent only if there is a contractual commitment for private investment at the site, according to comments from Bluffton town manager Bill Workman in County Council meeting minutes. The designation also allows a business locating there to tap state economic incentives.
One percent of the money collected automatically goes to Jasper County, just as Beaufort County receives 1 percent of the fees in lieu of taxes collected for the multicounty industrial park that includes the Hardeeville Wal-Mart and New River Auto Mall. Taxes collected for the Beaufort County School District won’t be affected.
The concept is similar to a tax-increment financing district in that revenue is segregated and used for a specific purpose. And it operates like a TIF district in that it diverts revenue from the county’s operatingbudget.
County Councilman Steve Baer, the lone vote against the agreement on its third and final vote, points to the fact that the plan takes money away from important county services, such as parks,
libraries and law enforcement.
Now that the industrial park designation is in place, we expect county and town officials to thoroughly vet any proposed use of this money. It should not be used to benefit businesses locating there that bring the same type of service jobs already offered in Beaufort County.
The proposed projects should make the difference between a business offering high-skill, high-paying jobs locating here or going somewhere else. It should not be used to make it cheaper for Buckwalter Place to be developed.
Buckwalter Place already has enjoyed the benefits of a new Bluffton development rights bank that set up a mechanism to increase residential development at the site. That same developer
already had been paid by the county to reduce residential and commercial development on
another Buckwalter tract.
County Council Chairman Weston Newton says the council has the authority to put the diverted money back into the county’s operating fund if the council doesn’t deem infrastructure incentives worthwhile.
That’s good because the businesses and residents who will locate at Buckwalter Place in the future will be using those services Baer is worried about paying for.
The rest of us taxpayers should come out ahead, not behind, with this deal.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, May 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lake Wylie, SC. Residents Worry About What Wal-Mart Will Bring
Residents hope new Wal-Mart will maintain Lake Wylie feel [Herald Online]
Jacqui Marquez hopes to help her community get what it wants from Wal-Mart the old-fashioned way—by asking nicely.Marquez has gathered 250 signatures from the Landing neighborhood in Lake Wylie asking Wal-Mart to consider resident input before designing or building a store at the Three Points location.
“A lot of times with things like this, people just end up complaining,” said Marquez, who has lived in Lake Wylie for about four years. “What we wanted to do is to galvanize people in a positive direction.”
Marquez knows the Wal-Mart Supercenter is coming one way or another to the Mill Creek Commons development at the S.C. 274/557 intersection. She wants the new store to be as attractive as possible, especially for her Landing neighbors who live within eyesight of the new center.
“We just hope it looks nice,” Marquez said. “We want it to have a certain look and keep the feel of Lake Wylie as we know it.”
Across the lake, Tega Cay residents and city leaders had plenty of say on how its new Wal-Mart would look. The store recently opened with a village ambiance that looks anything but big box.
The Lake Wylie group hopes to accomplish similar results.
York County Councilman Tom Smith, who represents Lake Wylie, has passed the Marquez’s petition on to Wal-Mart.
“They’re certainly not coming in with the old blue box,” Smith said.
Plans for the Wal-Mart exterior have not been filed with York County, though the other Mill Creek Commons anchor, Lowe’s Home Improvement, has filed plans. The Lowe’s site will be the standard store layout, company spokeswoman Maureen Rich told the Lake Wylie Pilot earlier this year.
Smith also sent Wal-Mart a letter from the newly formed Citizens for the Preservation of Lake Wylie addressing similar cosmetic concerns.
“We are pretty close to the darn thing,” said group organizer Matt Cullen, also a Landing resident. “I think the way it looks, the aesthetics of the Wal-Mart, are pretty important to all of us.”
A construction time frame for Wal-Mart has not been released.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Blacksburg, VA. Website Reveals Delopment to be Wal-Mart Site
Web site labels big-box store a Wal-Mart [Roanoke Times (Va.)]
The case for a suspected plan to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Blacksburg continued to build this week as a posting for the project on a national construction Web site came to light.
Fairmount Properties—the Ohio development company that last year proposed an unnamed big-box store for land off South Main Street—declined Tuesday to discuss the posting found at bidclerk.com.
BidClerk is a membership site that bills itself as “the construction search engine.” According to the site, it connects contractors with land developers for the construction of public and private projects across the country.
A posting available to nonsubscribers and dated Jan. 29 advertises a need for contractors for site work and new construction for a Wal-Mart to be built in Blacksburg. The posting also contains a map that shows the general location of the site.
Fairmount lawyer Jim Cowan said Tuesday that the company has no comment on the posting.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lake Wylie, SC. Residents Want More Than Wal-Mart’s ‘Old Blue Box.’
“What we wanted to do is to galvanize people in a positive direction.” The group began with the assumption that they could not prevent Wal-Mart from opening a store in the Mill Creek Commons development. Having made that major concession, there’s little left for residents to do except try to put pearls on the pig. “We just hope it looks nice,” Marquez told the newspaper. “We want it to have a certain look and keep the feel of Lake Wylie as we know it.”
According to the Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce, the community is a “vibrant and thriving” place “where geography, people and economic vitality have fashioned a distinctive Southern lifestyle.” Lake Wylie is described as having a “comfortable, small town atmosphere” with “convenient proximity” to regional commercial centers. In short, “the perfect setting to live and do business.”
Into this perfect setting comes a Wal-Mart supercenter. The absurdity of this situation is that Wal-Mart recently opened a new supercenter across the lake in Tega Cay, South Carolina, roughly 5 miles away from Lake Wylie, and there is another superstore 7 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina. In fact, there are 12 Wal-Mart stores currently within 12 miles of Lake Wylie, ten of which are superstores. So this ‘distinctive Southern lifestyle’ is being crowded out by suburban sprawl. In Tega Cay, Wal-Mart used its “village superstore” format, which takes the façade of the building and makes it look like a series of small retail shops, using different building materials, roof lines, and elevations. But just behind the “skin” of the store, is the big box, with all its adverse impacts on the environment.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Little Egg Harbor, NJ. Wal-Mart Draws Opposition
LEHT Wal-Mart plan draws opposition [Press of Atlantic City (N.J.)]
Wal-Mart’s first presentation to the Planning Board was greeted Thursday night by a crowd of residents largely opposed to the planned superstore on Route 9.
The store itself, which would be more than 151,000 square feet including a 6,300-square-foot garden center, would be located on the southbound side of Route 9 approximately 700 feet north of Otis Bog Road.
William F. Harrison, one of the attorneys for Wal-Mart, explained that the store would offer everything that other large Wal-Mart locations in New Jersey offer but would not be nearly one of largest stores in the state, in terms of area. The developers also plan to put a bank on the property.
The plans introduced did not include details on traffic patterns, environmental effects or store operations, because the meeting was only an informal presentation of the plans.
Mayor Scott Stites spoke for the concerns he said he’s heard from many residents when he told the applicants that he was worried about the store’s ability to fit into the aesthetic theme the township has planned for that section of Route 9.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, May 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Little Egg Harbor, NJ. Big Box Wal-Mart Wants to Squeeze Into Little Egg
The Big Box of the retail world wants to come to the Little Egg. Wal-Mart is being reviewed May 1st by the Planning Board in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The giant retailer is presenting the township with a “concept plan” for a supercenter. The store would be located on Route 9, just north of Otis Bog Road. Wal-Mart’s Real Estate Business Trust is the applicant for the store. This is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that helps Wal-Mart avoid paying its fair share of state taxes. The Wal-Mart Business Trust has told township officials that it also plans to build a bank on an adjacent lot, according to the Press of Atlantic City. There’s currently a Wal-Mart store in Manahawkin, New Jersey about 9 miles away, and another in Mays Landing 19 miles south. The concept review is not a formal application. It allows a developer to make an informal presentation to the board. The public is permitted to be part of the discussion. The Planning Board then gives the developer their reactions to the plan, and the developer can return at a later date with a formal zoning application.
Wal-Mart is proposing a subdivision plan that would create four separate lots, according to the Asbury Park Press. The retailer had approached the state for a Coastal Area Facilities Review Act application, because the land Wal-Mart wants is in a coastal area. A spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection indicated about four months ago that a Cope’s gray tree frog, a state endangered species, and a Pine Barrens tree frog, a state threatened species, were found in parts of the wetlands. Therefore the wetland buffer setbacks will have to be readjusted in the area of the Cope’s gray tree frog area to require a 150-foot buffer. Other wetlands areas where there are no endangered species on the site would require only a 50-foot buffer.
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, May 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Pohatcong, NJ. Wal-Mart to Expand
Wal-Mart expands its Pohat presence [The Express-Times (N.J.)]
After years of wrangling over details, the township will have a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
In a unanimous vote, the township land use board gave final approval to the project Monday night.
“It sounds good,” township Mayor Stephen Babinsky said.
National Realty Development Corp. of Purchase, N.Y., plans to replace the abandoned Laneco shopping center on Route 22 with a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Wawa gas station, White Castle and Longhorn steakhouse.
Monday’s meeting was filled with discussion over the logistics of the project, part of which included realigning Bliss Boulevard.
National Realty owns the nearby Wal-Mart at Pohatcong Plaza as well as a shopping center in Lower Nazareth Township. The company had previously scrapped plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Plainfield Township after encountering opposition.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, April 29 | 0 comments | Permalink
Colorado Lawmakers Take Aim at Wal-Mart’s Tax Strategies
Wal-Mart has avoided paying thousands of dollars in state taxes over the years by paying rent to itself in a process known as “captive REITs.” After the Wall Street Journal exposed the practice last year, several states have revised their tax code to prevent large corporations from exploiting the hole. Colorado is now the latest state to move to close the controversial loophole, with legislation pending that would force corporations to pay their full share of taxes. “Captive REITs” and Wal-Mart’s other tax avoidance strategies are discussed in the latest issue of Wal-Mart Watch In Depth: “The Great Tax Dodge. Click the image at right to download the full document.
Bill targets Wal-Mart ‘tax evasion scheme’ [Rocky Mountain News]
Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, introduced a tax bill designed to stop Wal-Mart and other companies from deducting real-estate expenses they’re paying to themselves.
Levy calls the technique an illegal tax evasion scheme.
The tactic, revealed by The Wall Street Journal in February 2007, involves Wal-Mart giving its stores and land to a real estate investment trust, which it then pays rent to. REITs pay no corporate taxes if they pay out most of their income to shareholders.
Another Wal-Mart subsidiary owns the REIT and gets the income. The rent is then deducted on state income taxes as a business expense.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, April 23 | 7 comments | Permalink
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