Eyes on Milwaukee
Couture Seeks Commercial Tenants
44-story apartment tower will have 40,000 square left for a grocer, restaurants, medical office.
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44-story apartment tower will have 40,000 square left for a grocer, restaurants, medical office. Back to the full article.
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City has to kick in $20 million in aid to prime lakefront real estate and liberals want to moan about Foxconn. Better yet, the most expensive transportation per mile in Wisconsin history is being built downtown and it’s demand is so great that it’s free for the user.
Troll doesn’t understand TIFs.
Troll is pretty on point.
@Trolll
“City has to kick in $20 million in aid to prime lakefront real estate and liberals want to moan about Foxconn”
Corporate welfare is corporate welfare, I’ll give you that. But seems apples and oranges. Couture- $20 million back on property tax assessments. Foxconn- $3 billion dollars cash from the good citizens of WI. Not a tax break cause manufacturers don’t pay taxes any more due to earlier corporate welfare scheme cooked up by the GOPers.
“Better yet, the most expensive transportation per mile in Wisconsin history is being built downtown and it’s demand is so great that it’s free for the user.”
Any citation this is the most expensive mile in transportation history? How much do users of our transportation system called roads and freeways pay each time they use it?
Thanks for playing!
Adam, you must not own a combustion engine. A vehicular driver pays $130 dollars annually. For every gallon of gas a driver pays over 50 Cents a gallon to the Feds and the State. Also, that same driver pays to subsidize public transportation, bike lanes and crappy art along Freeway walls.
@Troll-
I do own an internal combustion engine. Our family has two in fact, as is the case with most advocates of having more transportation options than just cars. As you probably know, registration fees and gas taxes do not cover the cost of maintaining and building our road networks. The rest is made up for through property and income taxes. And again most people that like bike networks and mass transit also own houses and have jobs, so we all pay our fair share.
The free streetcar rides will be for a limited time to reintroduce the city to rail. Hopefully the city is able to expand the network past this starter line to a real rail network where they certainly will be charging a fee to ride.
Troll, I would suggest you learn how TIF typically works before you bash it. The City does pony up money up front, but is paid back through the incremental (I in TIF) increase in property taxes. Additionally, I would guess the City got a pop on the parcel’s assessment the minute the parcel transferred from the tax free Transit Center to a private owner. Since the prior use likely meant zero in property taxes for a number of years, this is a large increase to the tax base. Depending on the developer agreement, the developer likely is getting less than $.90 on the dollar, and also has to pay interest on the amount the City provides. Plus, our skyline will look that much better.
Increase in the tax base will not be realized until the TIF is paid in full. For the Couture, the $49.5 million TIF (No.82) is projected to be paid off 17 years from now in 2035.
Likewise, the $73 million TIF (No. 78) for Northwestern Mutual is projected to be paid off more than 20 years from now in 2039. This was based upon NML’s promise of 3,000 employees (1,100 current plus 1,900 more) by 2030. Remember last year when NML fired hundreds of its downtown employees. Who is tracking the headcount, and what happens if NML is below 3,000 employees downtown?
http://city.milwaukee.gov/MilwaukeeTIDprojectsummaries.htm#.WkU_5YXtAWg
In 2004 newly elected Mayor Barrett was quoted as saying the TIF districts should be reserved for blighted areas, and the dependence of developers on TIF needs to be examined. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2004/06/21/story1.html
James, did you read the story you cited? In that story Barrett did not say that “TIF districts should be reserved for blighted areas”. He said the city had no obligation to use TIFs for non-blighted areas, but didn’t say the city shouldn’t or wouldn’t.
Even though property tax receipts stay almost static (affected only by rate increases) during the life of the TIF, the TIF-funded project provide other benefits:
• Increased sales, hotel, and income taxes
• Increased employment
• Reduced welfare spending (due to increased employment)
• “Halo effect” property tax revenue increase in surrounding areas
• Funding for projects that would otherwise come from the tax levy
TransitRider, this is what I read:
“It is obviously a popular financing approach,” said the mayor. “We need to ensure that we are setting up TIFs in areas of the city that meet the definition of blighted areas.”
Given the city’s tight budget, Barrett said it is important the city limit the number of properties that are taken off the tax rolls.”
Are they ever going to break ground on this building? I am all for it, it is gorgeous, and I hope the second tower is eventually built as well, and as result Milwaukee will finally start developing a great looking skyline deserving of a great city, and have more people living downtown as well, but it has been almost a year since the Transit Center came down, and now they continue to push out the groundbreaking. I am beginning to wonder if there are financial problems associated with this project.