So I stumbled upon item #42 at the city council meeting Tuesday night. They were amending the Sanford Sports Complex Development to include a full service restaurant (Document:Â snford). I was told this was coming, but am curious why this wasn’t included in the original plans. And of course, councilor Entenman excused himself from the vote without explaining why (as usual). He sits on the Sanford board of directors. Kenny Anderson asked if Sanford was going to sell the property to a private company for the restaurant. Director Cooper did not have an answer but the Sanford rep came up to answer the question. His response (paraphrasing), “Not sure, this area is still developing.”
So let me get this straight, you are asking for an amendment to have a full-service restaurant in the development, BUT you are not sure what that restaurant will be . . . yeah, sure, you betcha.
PROPOSED REGULATIONS/STANDARDS:
C. SUBAREA A.
It is the intent of Subarea A to be a planned medical/sports complex area including
the support services for the complex.
1. USES PERMITTED. A building or premises shall be permitted to be used for the
following purposes:
Recreational Complex
Office
Medical Office
Medical School
Medical Research
Medical Manufacturing
Day Care Center
Hotel/Motel
Full-Service Restaurant
Commercial Parking Lot or Parking Ramp
Communications Equipment
Warehouse
Retail
Retail Warehouse
Heliport
On-Sale Alcohol Establishment
Off-Sale
Probably not related, but I found it strangely ironic that Applebees was taking back ownership of the Whisk & Chop liquor license at the same council meeting. Hmmm.
His answer was a classic non-answer. I wished he would have been pressed on it. I’m not sure how a restaurant, let alone one that serves alcohol, has anything to do with the mission of a health care non-profit. But I digress.
I’m also pretty sure this entire complex would happen even without a TIF. So we’re rebating/giving up tax revenues back to a health care facility who apparently is not hurting for money, when it would have been built anyway. Does that sound logical?
I’d like to have some tax relief myself. Oh, Councilor Staggers suggested that weeks ago with the extra unobligated revenues we had….and he pretty much got laughed out of the chamber by the rest of the council.
And did I mention at the meeting on Tuesday first readings were held for various rate increases – water, sewer, garbage, etc?
Shake my head, Greg.
“I’m also pretty sure this entire complex would happen even without a TIF”…
I have to disagree with you Greg, I don’t recall businesses clamoring to build and develop property directly adjacent to the SF Airport. Hence, the use of a TIF to encourage the development. I am not going to argue on the restaurant portion of the development, but I do believe the TIF was appropriate in this case.
I love this idea – because if you are going to expect me to stand around and watch youth sports, then you better be serving alcohol somewhere nearby.
At least there’s steps into the river so we can back up and take a dump. Citizens can use the river and chemically treat the other toxins. Round about benefit but it can’t be as stupid as it looks.
Craig, I would have to agree.
To JTRAIN, point taken, maybe it would not have happened without a TIF. I wouldn’t want to build near the airport either. I wouldn’t build an event center at West and Russell either…Seems to me though they would have built it somewhere else if they thought it made economic sense. Whether its there or somewhere else in town, it has the same net effect as far as economic impact. I would say in general the city needs to be really careful. The slippery slope I worry about with TIFs, meaning the standard required to grant a TIF doesn’t seem clear and seems to be slipping. I think there is a place for a TIF but I get the feeling our city leaders are starting to take the attitude that if a development is desirable, it should be TIFable.
Craig and Pathloss’s comments were pretty awesome by the way!
Has anyone seen this yet?
http://www.siouxfalls.org/mayor/boards-commissions/planning-commission.aspx.
Looks like they are asking how WE want their meetngs ran.
As I have posted about in the past, this TIF is precedent, there has never been a TIF like it before because of the private sector involved. The ED office is really testing the waters on this. I have often felt that if something is NEEDED in this community, the private sector will step up and see an opportunity to make money ON IT’S OWN.
http://www.southdacola.com/blog/2012/05/the-precedent-of-the-sanford-sports-complex-tif/
Combine Huether and Smith
and greedy developers
with the State removing the requirement of “blight” and you have…..
the Perfect Storm!!
But Sanford already has a ‘Storm Center’ at the KELO studios 🙂