Historic downtowns. A state of the art conference center with hotels. Shopping districts. Minor league baseball on the way.
Sarpy County already has many traits of a tourist destination, but a bill proposed on behalf of the United Cities of Sarpy County might help give the county as well as the state an edge in attracting future development and redevelopment aimed at tourism.
On Jan. 20, Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue introduced LB 1018, the Nebraska Advantage Transformational Tourism and Redevelopment Act, on behalf of United Cities, which includes Bellevue, Papillion, La Vista, Gretna and Springfield.
“This is another tool that we can use for economic development,” said La Vista Mayor Doug Kindig.
“It will add to our toolbox of what we can do to help draw business into our area.”
A hearing before the Revenue Committee is scheduled Feb. 11.
LB 1018 would allow Nebraska cities to collect local-option sales-tax revenue generated from a development project and give it to the developer to pay for some development costs.
The bill would require approval by a city’s voters as well as a minimum investment by the developer.
That requirement has several tiers depending on a county’s population. For Sarpy, Douglas and Lancaster counties, a minimum of a $50 million investment for a new development or a $10 million investment for redevelopment would be required to qualify for the rebate. Counties with smaller populations would require smaller investments. At a city’s discretion, the rebate could last for up to 10 years.
According to Papillion Mayor David Black, the bill is aimed at spurring development, whether it is entertainment, historical or retail, that attracts people to spend their money in Sarpy County and Nebraska.
“It can have a historic context that could come into play for Bellevue, Springfield or Gretna,” he said. “But it also allows for newer developing areas a large development where most of the existing stuff has to be blighted. A lot of [new developing areas] don’t have blighted areas.”
“Blighted” refers to declaring areas substandard in order for redevelopment to take place and benefit from tax increment financing. But to Black, it doesn’t make sense to blight an area such as a cornfield in order to get tax incentives for development.
The bill also has a different take than current incentive programs on the role of retail in tourism-generating developments.
“It would allow for large mixed-use [developments],” Black said. “That’s one of the differences between the existing incentives and this one. Most of the existing don’t allow for any retail at all.”
For Sarpy County, Kindig said there aren’t any projects that are resting their fate on the bill, waiting for it to be signed to move forward.
“What’s important is we can’t wait until there is a specific project out there to try to get this passed,” he said. “We need to have this to be able to offer this to the developers coming in.”
If passed, the bill could, however, play a role in several future developments in the county.
Bellevue Mayor Gary Mixan said he was also excited about the bill’s potential for development Bellevue’s Cat Osterman softball village.
“We see a huge [potential for] tourism based on recreation,” Mixan said.
“And we’re really trying to fill that niche to becoming a strong and powerful regional player as well as a national player.”
He said the bill would also aid redevelopment of Fort Crook Road.
The mayors met with Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman six weeks ago to discuss the bill and received a positive response.
Now, United Cities is reaching out to mayors and administrators across Nebraska to try to spread the word about what the bill could do for the rest of the state.
Cornett said the bill had generated some interest from other senators because it was an incentive that wouldn’t draw from state tax dollars and could be used statewide.
“In our economy the way it is,” she said, “we’re going to try to figure out what we can do to utilize the most bang for our buck to help our cities do development.”
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