Press
Release
A Tiff Over TIFs
Commissioner Mike Ritz goes against the U of M on a Highland Street
development proposal.
BY JACKSON BAKER,
MemphisFlyer.com
November 1, 2007
Shelby County commissioner Mike Ritz is a first-termer who, on issues
ranging from outsourcing Head Start programs to combating sexually oriented
businesses, has indicated a willingness to stick his neck out. He is about
to do so again.
This time, Ritz is preparing to throw down the gauntlet against funding a
developmental proposal which the University of Memphis is pushing hard and
which Ritz sees as an out-and-out rip-off of the taxpayers.
The project would require TIF (tax increment financing) outlays for a
portion of the adjacent Highland Street strip as a "gateway" to the
university. The premise of TIF projects is that they generate significant
increases in the tax base over the long haul.
"These TIFs are supposed to be used for public projects," Ritz says. These
include such things, as he has pointed out in notes sent to the media, as
housing developments, street and sewer improvements, lighting, and parks.
But the Poag McEwen Lifestyle Center project on Highland, as Ritz sees it,
is little more than a "gift" to the developers, who propose building a
retail center/apartment complex on the west side of Highland from Fox
Channel 13 north to the site now occupied by Highland Church of Christ.
"The University of Memphis is running interference for something that
shouldn't get done," says Ritz, who maintains that the developers would be
using a total of $12 million from the city and county and would be under no
obligation to pay any of it back.
"There has been no analysis done on this project, and it contains no
performance requirements," says Ritz, who argues in his distributed notes
about the project that "retail centers move sales and jobs around, they do
not grow local economy; [there is] no growth of jobs or tax base." In a
conversation this week, he added, "It's like moving checkers around on
checkerboards. There's no lasting benefit."
Ritz's statement of concern comes on the heels of two new reports.
One report from county trustee Bob Patterson notes that 120 local companies
have tax freezes under PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) programs and that
some $44 million worth of county property taxes and 372 parcels of land are
involved in the programs.
Another report, from the Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development
Board's performance and assessment committee, indicates the likelihood of
default by several corporations on obligations relating to their tax breaks
under PILOT programs. Under the circumstances, Ritz says, the Highland
project amounts to an additional "giveaway" which the county simply can't
afford.
University of Memphis officials have been aggressively promoting the project
as a way of shoring up the university's "front door." One who concurs is
veteran U of M booster Harold Byrd, who has had his differences with
university president Shirley Raines concerning her lack of enthusiasm for an
on-campus football stadium, of which Byrd has been a strong proponent.
But Byrd says he's on "the same page" with Raines about the Highland Street
project. "It would shore up an area that, particularly south and west of
campus, has begun to deteriorate." Citing what he says is a prevalence of
"cash-for-title businesses, pawnshops, and fortune tellers," Byrd says,
"It's definitely a distressed commercial and retail area." Moreover, he
says, "the residential area south of the university is in strong decline."
Both circumstances would respond positively to the proposed Poag McEwen
Lifestyle Center, he said, and the "gateway" aspect of the project would
benefit the entire community, not just the university area itself. (For more
on this perspective, see In the Bluff, p. 10.)
Indications are that the Highland TIF project, which has the imprimatur of
the Memphis and Shelby County Redevelopment Agency, is gathering support on
the County Commission, too. One important supporter, however, may be
neutralized. "I may have to recuse myself," says Commissioner Steve Mulroy,
a University of Memphis law professor. Unsurprisingly, Ritz agrees.
The commission is scheduled to take up the matter next week.
• This week sees the formal completion of the 2007 Memphis election cycle,
with four City Council runoffs being decided on Thursday. The contests are
between Stephanie Gatewood and Bill Morrison in District 1; Bill Boyd and
Brian Stephens in District 2; Harold Collins and Ike Griffith in District 3;
and Edmund Ford Jr. and James O. Catchings in District 6. Pre-election
updates will be posted on memphisflyer.com, as well as full coverage of the
results.
