While Minnehaha County is bracing for a property tax opt-out and the SF city council recently increased property taxes to most properties in Sioux Falls, with the stroke of a few votes the city council gave a 12 year, $2.9 million dollar property tax rebate for some condos;
The $30-million, mixed-use Washington Square project planned for Main Avenue has been granted a TIF by the City of Sioux Falls.
The city council approved a $2.9-million tax increment financing district for the project. The property tax revenue will be used to pay the TIF over a 10 to 12 year period.
But hey, we get to use their parking for free, only on nights and weekends though (you know, when it is free in all other spots DT also). Once again, the ones with the biggest wallets get the biggest rewards in Sioux Falls, while the rest of us working stiff homeowners have to scrape up the crumbs that fall from the 4th floor condos.
Still with this? Sheesh, this project taking a hole downtown and turning it into mixed use is precisely what TIF’s were designed to incentivize and also were the types of projects the City outlined they were after in the 2025 Downtown plan.
And this type of parking will eventually get absorbed as downtown grows so in 20 years they will be wishing they had approved the higher # of spots/larger TIF and it will cost 10x the amount to build or reclaim spots at that point.
Glad the City at least somewhat came to their senses on this one.
I thought some of the council were going to bust up some of this cronyism I was wrong Most living in this city are struggling with frozen wages. Food always going up. Etc etc. now we all know the rich are making the rules and no longer listening to taxpayers They must be working for Lloyd and Sanford. I can’t really stomach them anymore. I even voted and contributed funds to some of them. Never again. A clowns in our city.
Sy, I see your points, I just find it a little hypocritical they would hand out a 12 year property tax break then turn around and stick to the rest of the hardworking property owners in town and increase their taxes. All I ask for is consistency and fairness.
Per yesterday’s AL:
As the value of the property skyrockets with the project, developer H4J1 is asking for a rebate in up to $2.9 million in property taxes to help pay for the parking ramp…
Who is H4J1?
Characteristically, downtown redevelopment doesn’t work. There’s no highway access, food stores, service stations, and the like. What eventually happens is ethnic or welfare projects. Government incentives try to change or prevent the inevitable. Politicians are not businessmen and planners. I’d not buy or invest downtown knowing the risk and that taxes increase more in future years. Developers love these projects. They’re overpriced eligible political bidders who build with inferior quality. In 12 years when taxes rise, it’ll be falling apart. Then it becomes like crack shacks in Minneapolis, projects in Chicago, Watts in LA, etc..
H4Ji is the 4 Houwman brothers and one Jacobson (Malloy)
@ Daily you know not of what you speak. This project in particular will be steel, glass & quartzite and is being designed with high end finishes as they will be asking high end prices. And if you take a look today vs. 20 years ago in places like Omaha, Lincoln, MLPS, Des Moines, Fargo, Rapid City ad nauseum you will see that if planned & incentivized properly downtown redevelopment works quite well both aesthetically and financially.
Sy, we shall see. Access to/from downtown is poor. It’s going to be hard to sell upscale condos with guarranteed tax increases higher than for the rest of the city. This could very well become another Vista Towers. The first tower was never sold out. Planning for a second tower failed.
Vista had it’s own unique set of issues, timing being one of the more glaring ones.
The market’s changed since then, hence many other developers and investors who never in the past would’ve considered building downtown are now doing so in relative droves compared to back then.