We asked Oro Valley town finance chief, Stacey Lemos what the status of sales tax payments are between the town and Vestar. Recall that the town owes Vestar 45% of all sales tax receipts up to $23.2 million, earned between 2009 and 2029.Here's Stacey's response:
"The Oro Valley Marketplace has generated $6,606,136 in sales tax revenue since FY 2008/09. They [Vestar] receive 45% as a rebate, which equals $2,972,762 paid to them. Oro Valley receives 100% of all sales taxes paid from the retailers in the OV Marketplace, and we pay Vestar 45% of this amount on a quarterly basis."After 4 years, the town is barely 15% on the way to paying the $23.5 million bill. Things don't look like they are going to improve dramatically. The addition of the most recent store, "Dollar Express", is barely going to move sales tax revenue receipts. It is, after all, a dollar store!
Let's look beyond that.
Much of the vast Marketplace is unbuilt. There are empty storefronts. There is only one power retailer. Aside from that power retailer, Wal-Mart, the stores have low traffic. There are no upscale stores, as we were promised. We see one parking lot that is used to display 100 or so RV's from time-to-time, RV's whose sales don't generate sales tax revenues for Oro Valley.
Yes. We do have a nice movie theatre. Yes. We have a police substation there.
Still, we would hardly call the Oro Valley Marketplace a success.
We wonder: Was it really all worth it?
We wonder: Do those town council members who supported the marketplace think it was worth the political capital they used to get it approved? They were voted out of office or chose to not run again.
Yes. We know. It is all long past. We know that the type of economic development agreement to which the town signed with Vestar is no longer legally permissible in Arizona. Still, it is good to look at the past to learn for the future. And there are many lessons to be learned from this chapter of Oro Valley history.
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3 comments:
There are times when this blog reminds of my days in the midwest on my uncle's farm. The cows would regurgitate previously eaten food (the cud) and chew it all over again. This story is 'cudlike'.
Maybe next year we will once again regurgitate the take home vehicles again.
It looks like the regurgitation has begun a year early. On an aritcle that has absolutley nothing to do with the PD or their take home vehicles. I wonder why.
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