Northwest Indiana Discussion

You still haven't told us where you get we spent $30 mil on Cabelas. Answer please.

She won't.

I bet she will say she misstyped though, just like she did when she "misread" $ for 5

I think Hammond went in with backwards expectations of what Cabela's would bring them. It wasn't bad to bring Cabela's here but it wasn't this great epiphany either. Cabela's is out for themselves as well they should be and uses their leverage for THEIR benefit.

If Hammond is going to change it needs to be forward thinking change of bringing quality businesses here and helping Hammond residents open businesses of their own. The WCC land, River Park and the site of the Walmart up in Robertsdale all could have made quality professional business parks and we are apparently going to miss the boat on all 3 in terms of developing sustaining businesses.

Now Matt, how is she going to twist your post around to say that you were against it when you phrased it like that?

I do think the financial package came out much more in favor of Cabela's than it ever will for Hammond. They definitely took advantage of the "podunk" area thinking and they do that on a regular basis around the country.

Giving them such a huge TIF at a time where property taxes were in flux and nobody knew how it would go was a pretty insane method. Giving them an outright 10 year abatement would have been better than spreading out the TIF over a 20 + year length which can go longer still.

Hammond has WAY too many TIF's, but it seems that is the only method the city knows.

I've said it before and will say it again. I am fine with the TIF in this instance. But I would not be eager to hand out any more TIFs to anybody else without good reason, and that goes for RP.

That said, I demand Freetime tell us what she meant by Hammond spent $30 mil on Cabelas. She's said it many times and still refuses to tell us how she derived that money was spent.

Without being able to go search for the exact details .. I believe her to be closer to right than wrong on this one. I believe the TIF itself was $25 Million and the expected cost of the expenses for the Bond were somewhere around $3 Million. That is just from memory ....and it usually doesn't fail me ..but I did just turn 40.

TIF's are overused in Hammond. Hammond had 11 according to Dan Repay last fall. They were still trying to push one thru for Woodmar. By comparison the entire City of Chicago only has 35 for a population that is 50 times as large.

I believe the TIF itself was $25 Million

How does this mean we "spent" anything? If it wasn't there we would just be getting just a few $thousand in property tax from the country club anyway, so it's not like we lost significant revenue there.

exactly mirage.

worse case scenerio. cabela's closes tomarrow.

even in that instance cabelas holds the bond and would have to pay off the tif. meaning a whole lot of people made a lot of money building that thing and several hundred people were employed for over a year. and the net cost to the city was the loss of the country club (remember cabela's still must pay the taxes annually on the assessment of the land before the tif)

except that cabela's isnt going anywhere. and in the next year builders square will be developed into a cinema with the liscense branch moving to the front of the kmart site with other retail. and a water park will be built next to cabela's along with other retail, a few restaurants and possibly a new carsons.

meanwhile down the street on indy blvd we have a new dunkin donuts being built. the dodge dealership has been sold (still dont know to whom) and a high end auto body shop is moving in.

and none of those projects (possible exception of dunkin donuts) would be ongoing if it werent for first getting cabela's to that site.

I think MAtt answered this question well with special input from Mirage. But I would like to add that the development isnt over yet so who would know? Nice try dragging Matt into the thread Freetime when you were obviously struggling for material.

Steve,

You are wrong. Cabela's purchased the bonds on the open market. They own the bonds and are subsequently paid by the TIF on taxes that are collected. The City of Hammond is the issuer of the bonds and would be on tap if Cabela's were to default due to bankruptcy. In essence in some bizarre situation Hammond could be on tap paying cabela's or whoever their creditor would be.

Cabela's has in the past bought their own TIF bonds as a tax hedge since most municipal bonds are income tax free. They are in essence lending themselves the money to build and being able to take a huge tax advantage. However in the latest quarterly conference call Cabela's stated they would be selling a large section of their bond portfolio. So in the end they will probably be owned by someone else.

And as always don't count your eggs before they hatch. You have been burned before in counting things as done deals for the City of Hammond only to have them never appear. How is Woodmar mall going? I certainly wouldn't count on Praedium to get anything done at Interstate plaza either knowing their history. Not to mention that I have maintained for a long time that the water park will probably never happen. Splash Universe is running specials in Dundee during the middle of summer and the largest water park company (Great Wolf Lodge) has already said business is very bad in this economy. It is almost impossible for commercial borrowing in an industry where capital is a necessity.

and would be on tap if Cabela's were to default due to bankruptcy.

I mentioned that in loose terms remember but it's something we are unlikely to ever pay as Oracle mentioned. So we really haven't paid $30 mil at all. It's just a another typical outlandish Freetime claim. All we've really "lost" is tax revenue that wouldn't have existed anyway had Cabela's not been built.

And as Oracle said there is some development that probably wouldn't have come without Cabela's, more likely on the way, some more definitely on the way. Maybe not as much development as quickly as we would like, but it's coming all the same. And after all being that type of magnet was the whole justification for the terms in the 1st place.

I'd mention Carsons at this point, but again I don't want to say too much until it becomes a done deal either way. But I will say if it moves by Cabela's without a TIFF it would go a long way towards proving the Cabela's TIFF was beneficial after all. We will see!