This is fkn infuriating! He needs to answer for this
Fish, we are not talking about selling but leasing a development of said property. The last numbers I could find on the constructing and build out of a Bass Pro Shop was $69.5M. Now imagine the Bass Pro Shop as the anchor and major retail development around it. You could be talking an estimated $200m plus investment easily.
Think the Costco and Fish & Game development on Ambassador Caffery. That deal is worth millions, and the city allowed that development to be tax exempt for a number of years so they could recoup some of their cost of infrastructure. So I'm almost certain that this development with would have to be tax exempt for a number of years for the developers to recoup of their investment on infrastructure.
I don't see how this is hard to imagine at all when you consider the cost of development over a number of acres. Leasing such property would have brought in millions to the university's coffers. My understanding is that Dr. Savoie wasn't keen on the suggestion of using the funds to make his athletic program self funded. His idea would be those funds would go directly into the university foundation for his use period.
Seeing would be believing of course but this is a U.P. who gave away 100 acres on an always busy thoroughfare, (one mile away) for a mere one time fee of $6 mil.
Actually, this isn't how the Costco development ILOT was structured, and it won't work in this instance.
The Costco development is only exempt from PROPERTY taxes for several years; sales taxes are still being collected.
The University pays no property taxes on the land it owns. Subsequently, there would be no ILOT improvements that could be funded by tax exemption on land it leases. Hard infrastructure installation would be on the developer or UL (or LCG).
So the only thing left would be to forgive sales taxes. Not saying this couldn't happen, but Costco is not an accurate comparison for the development along Cajundome Blvd.
And as far as infrastructure development goes, I think we've had this conversation on this board before. I think there would need to be a massive overhaul of sewage and water capacity (not to mention traffic) in the area.
The conversation never got to that point, had it moved forward we would have gotten an idea of what our City/Parish Government was willing to do. But they were told with a tie-in to the Cajun Dome/Convention Center, there was a possibility of some monies being made available from the budget of State Tourism. There was also some discussion of a Motel Tax being passed to help offset the cost of infrastructure. But it never got to that level because of Dr. Savoie's stance.
Prove what wrong? I just laid out why a Bass Pro won’t be built near the Cajun Dome. It would be a horrible biz decision if they did anchor a dev there. Don’t understand why you take that as a personal insult. Plus there’s plenty of great local options that would suffer from another big box in your area.
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