Everyone’s atwitter about Bass Pro Shops coming to EP

You’d think it was the biggest thing to hit Illinois since Caterpillar decided to locate their world headquarters here. A large chain store — Bass Pro Shops — is going to open a location in East Peoria by the river next year. Not many details are available about the deal, but the Journal Star article does say this:

The store will be about 145,000 square feet – almost twice the size of the Kohl’s department store on Main Street – and take up just more than 20 acres of the 35-acre site. It will produce about 300 full-time jobs when completed, and at least another 200 full-time workers will be hired during construction…. [T]he deal between the city and Bass Pro Shops is unusual in that East Peoria will own the land, building, parking lot and road leading to the store. Bass Pro Shops will be the tenant.

The city will issue $40 million in bonds to pay for the project, which will be paid off through sales and hotel/motel taxes. Further details about the deal will be released at upcoming council meetings.

Readers of my blog will not be surprised that I don’t get all excited about big box stores. According to glassdoor.com, most local jobs at Bass Pro Stores are in the $8-$12/hr. range, or about $17,000 to $25,000 per year. These aren’t what one would call “living wage” jobs. The construction jobs will be good, but temporary.

Of more interest to me is the City of East Peoria’s development plan, since it will undoubtedly be used as a benchmark for future City of Peoria projects, unfortunately. While the amount — $40 million — is the same, it’s really not the same deal as Peoria’s downtown hotel plan. Peoria is giving the $40 million to a private developer who will then own the whole block and be responsible for the maintenance of all the structures; furthermore the property will be on the property tax rolls. East Peoria, in contrast, will own the Bass Pro Shops building and grounds, making Bass Pro merely a tenant, meaning they will get no property tax revenue on those twenty acres. So East Peoria is now in the land development business, evidently. I wonder if East Peoria will be charging its tenant any rent. It appears they won’t, since the paper says the bonds will be paid off with taxes.

On the plus side, Bass Pro Shops actually has a track record of drawing in a lot of local and regional customers, unlike the current hotel and museum market. So sales tax revenue is more likely to go up. Most of that additional sales tax revenue will come from East Peoria, but Peoria will get some spillover, which is good.