Seeking to bring Fortune 500 companies -- and jobs -- to Utah Valley, a joint proposal between Lehi and Thanksgiving Point to construct environmentally friendly buildings overcame a major hurdle on Tuesday.
After more than an hour of heartburn and debate, Alpine School District board members voted unanimously to support a draft agreement giving the project a $1.6 million property tax break over 15 years. Final approval will be made in a future public meeting.
The project is estimated to bring $6 million of new property tax revenue to the school district alone over 15 years. This, said board members, was key to their decision.
"I would recommend you approve it on its merit, because it will improve the economic viability of the county and the school district," said Rob Smith, assistant superintendent of business services for the district.
Thanksgiving Park is proposing to build up to six environmentally certified buildings over 15 years. The buildings would lease for top dollar, and would be specifically created to woo large companies which have large demands when it comes to work space, said Andrew Bybee of Thanksgiving Park. The buildings would be located west of the freeway on Thanksgiving Point land.
As part of the agreement, Thanksgiving Park agreed to speed construction, putting up one building every three years instead of every four years. Financing for each building depends on the successful lease of the building before it, ensuring that construction happens only as the market for lease space demands. And if the developer fails to build a building every three years, the property tax break goes away.
District board members had tremendous heartburn about the issue, which could not happen without the school board's participation. The district grants very few of many such requests for property tax breaks, board members said, and must be convinced that to participate would eventually bring the district more tax revenue than would otherwise be created.
Bybee worked hard to plead his case, saying that without the tax break, which everyone involved agreed was the smallest such request ever presented to the board, the environmentally certified buildings would be dead in the water. The developer would build other office space eventually, but not of a kind that would rent for such high amounts -- and pay such high property taxes.
The developer was not the only one convinced of the value of the project. County Commissioner Larry Ellertson made an appearance to ask the board to support the project, as did a representative of Lehi.
Because there was little initial support for reducing property taxes for the project, Thanksgiving Park put its own money at risk and actually built the first building, which is now 76 percent leased, a figure Bybee called astounding given the economic climate. Environmentally certified buildings, which are designed to use less power over the long-term and are referred to as LEED-certified, lease faster than non LEED-certified buildings, Bybee said. Large companies are much less inclined to even consider non-certified buildings, for a variety of reasons.
Now that the first building has proven itself a success, Thanksgiving Park would like to build more, but must have a property tax break in order to afford the large up-front investment such buildings require when compared to non-certified buildings. In addition to using less power, the buildings must also have redundant fiber-optic access, and back-up power generators, Bybee said.
Posted in Lehi, Precollegiate on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:10 am Updated: 11:31 am. | Tags: Lehi
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