Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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34 S C T / A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 another that will cost me $15 million to build," Simmons said, "which one is my capital committee going to go with? If my prototype costs $15 million on average, then opening a $25 million store would force me to cut another one out of the loop." So even though it is true that retailers will open stores only where it makes sense, "incentives are what helps it make sense for a retailer to go to a particular location." Even so, retailers and developers seeking TIF or other incen- tives will still face skepticism among some officials. One way to counter this is to share the data on what the chain actually needs to make the deal work, Simmons suggests. The team, however, must take care to keep this information out of the public square and needs to receive assurances from officials that they will do the same. "Explain to them that you cannot provide them with a paper or electronic copy of what the sales might be, because at the end of the day, that could be subject to a [Freedom of Information Act] request," Simmons said. In today's hypercompetitive market, such information could give a competitor a strategic advantage, she says. "That information is truly proprietary," she said. "If a compet- itor gets it for one store, they could use that back into what you need for every single store." Simmons encourages retailers and developers to understand pre- cisely how TIF is defined in a given market — whether sales, property or income taxes, or some combina- tion of the three. Frequently, public officials assume TIF applies only to property taxes, says Simmons. "Even some of the larger cities that have been doing TIF forever, they often look at TIF and think it is all based on property tax," she said. "But if your state also gives the authority to enter into sales-tax sharing agree- ments, why aren't you getting sales tax as well?" Even if the local defi- nition of TIF does not include sales taxes, she says, the right approach can effectively win the developer or retailer an equivalent incentive. "At Target, we could not do sales- tax sharing agreements in North Carolina, but we had a city that was begging us to come," Simmons said. "I said, 'Hey, how can we do this?' We wrote a grant program for them and were able to use that grant to fund the development." Along with this latest edition of the guide, ICSC and CDFA continue to develop resources related to pub- lic-private partnerships, including educational courses and an ad- vanced incentives guide that is to be published later this year. For more information or to purchase the sec- ond edition of the TIF guide, visit ICSC.org or CDFA.net. n TIF