Toledo City Council will vote on Tuesday whether to offer tax incentives to the company redeveloping the former Elder-Beerman site on Secor Road.
California-based property owner Niki Toledo I, LLC plans to demolish the former department store and build about 50,000 square feet of retail space in two new buildings. One will house Bob’s Discount Furniture, and one will house a TJ Maxx. Toledo Plan Commission documents indicate there also are plans for another retail store and a restaurant at the site in the future.
The Elder-Beerman store at 3301 Secor Road closed in July, 2018, after its parent company Bon-Ton Stores went bankrupt. The closure left a 154,000-square-foot, two-story building empty.
Brandon Sehlhorst, the city’s commissioner of economic development, told city council members this week that the Kapszukiewicz administration would like to offer the property owner an enterprise zone property tax exemption to help the project succeed. The tax incentive is typically offered to assist economic development projects that create or retain permanent jobs, he said.
“This project includes demolition of an environmentally contaminated, vacant, functionally obsolete building located in the heart of this region’s primary retail corridor, the creation of 63 jobs with an associated payroll of $1.8 million, and a capital investment of $12.3 million into the site for new buildings and demolition of the existing buildings,” Mr. Sehlhorst said.
Should city council approve, the property owner would receive a 50 percent tax exemption for 15 years of the property’s assessed value prior to remediation and a 100 percent tax exemption for 15 years on the increase in assessed value on the project after remediation.
“This incentive agreement is similar to what the city authorized for the redevelopment of the Westgate property in 2007,” Mr. Sehlhorst said.
Lucas County property records show current annual taxes on the property total about $107,000.
The site is located in the Washington Local Schools district, which will continue to receive its share of property taxes from the project if the incentives are approved, Mr. Sehlhorst said.
Councilman Rob Ludeman, who chair’s council’s regional growth, development, and small business committee, said he hopes for a vote on Tuesday.
“We’d like to see that redevelopment get going,” he said.
First Published January 24, 2020, 7:25 p.m.
