Saturday, January 30, 2010

Destination Shopping Has Its Limitations

For the same reasons that the Pabst Farms Uber-Mall has flopped in Waukesha County, so has the Cabela's been a disappointment.

In both cases, governments offered up hefty subsidies, hoping for synergies that would keep the development machine rolling.

Lessons learned?




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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2010 at 5:40 PM

    I hope this will not be the case on the County Grounds. The plans are likely to include more commercial development than most people know about and the thought of ruining this last quadrant of ecosystem for speculative synergies is shameful.

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  2. jpkFebruary 1, 2010 at 11:28 AM

    Public Policy Forum published a report this past summer warning specifically about this trend.

    http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/pdfs/2009TIFBrief.pdf

    Huge TIF subsidies in exurban communities can be insanely risky.

    TIF works best when used in moderation and when large spillover effects are possible (i.e. in Wisconsin's biggest cities).

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