Monday, December 17, 2007
Auburn and Opelika compete for new retailer
The cities of Auburn and Opelika, along with other communities across the state, are competing to land a retailer that could create more than 120 jobs and generate nearly $600,000 in capital investment.
July 27, 2007
The cities of Auburn and Opelika, along with other communities across the state, are competing to land a retailer that could create more than 120 jobs and generate nearly $600,000 in capital investment.
This is just one retail project of many that the sister cities along the Interstate 85 corridor are going head-to-head for.
“We’re competing against a variety of people,“ said Phillip Dunlap, Auburn’s director of economic development. “(Opelika) is working as hard as they can to recruit developments, too. We’re competing with everybody up and down this corridor. It’s not just an Opelika thing.“
With this particular retailer, Dunlap and Commercial Development Authority Chairman Dr. Warren McCord told Auburn City Council members Tuesday night that the city will need to spend approximately $1.8 million for site work in order to “win” the national company, which officials are not identifying. The request was approved.
“If we want this project, we participate,“ Dunlap told council members. “We are competing to recruit with our sister city on this retailer.“
To come to Auburn, the new tenant is asking the city to prepare the 10-acre site for an 86,000-square-foot development.
According to Dunlap, developers market the entire demographics.
“Externally, we’re considered one market, as far as Auburn and Opelika goes,“ said Al Cook, Opelika director of economic development. “But we are very competitive, both cities, in the attraction of retail.“
“Anybody coming into this market place is looking at multiple plots,“ Dunlap said. “We’re in an environment right now where it’s intensely competitive to locate those projects.
“It’s not a negative environment, but people come in and they’re looking for sites and we have to respond to those things,“ he said. “We have been targeting big-box developments or tax generators within the city of Auburn, things that generate sales taxes, which is the same thing our sister city is doing.“
Cook said that generally a big-box retailer, like the one that could create more than 120 jobs, will not go into both cities, with the exception of Wal-Mart.
“A population of the area does not want, at this point, more than one Target, more than one Lowe’s, more than one Home Depot, so it does become very competitive, in the attraction of big-box retail,“ he said.
“These large groups now, every single one of them, is looking for some type of incentive. That’s not just a phenomenon to Auburn or Opelika,“ Dunlap said. “We’re forced to (offer incentives), because where they locate makes a tremendous difference in tax sales.“
“We look at the payback, in terms of incentives,“ Cook said. “We generally work with the developer to offer the incentives in terms of public infrastructure. For instance, at TigerTown, the landscaping, public streets, lighting.
“It’s important to us that we have that tax revenue to go to our schools, repave our streets and improve the quality of life of our citizens,“ Cook said.
The sister cities are not always aware of what the other is doing to recruit an industry or retail developer.
“I can’t say what was or was not being offered, I just know that there was contact between this group and a group in Opelika,“ Dunlap said. “We’ve got to keep a defense up so we can get the sales tax for Auburn.
“There’s not animosity between the two cities; but in retail, we’re both doing what we think is necessary,“ Dunlap said. “It’s a market where people are out there asking for these things.“
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