COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: Gambling on success of Bass Pro
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This thing is even more of a crapshoot than I thought. The latest version of the $294 million, downtown waterfront retail/entertainment Canal Side project was unveiled Tuesday at a public hearing.
Make no mistake. With $154 million of public money in hand—much of it from a recent front-loading of Power Authority relicensing dollars—and the backing of a who’s-who of community power brokers, I expect that Bass Pro is soon coming to the old Aud site.
Why wouldn’t it?We will build the hunting-and-fishing conglomerate a $35 million store, and spend another $41.5 million on the close-proximity parking the retailer needs: A $17 million, three-level parking garage beneath the building, and a $24.5 million, six-story ramp next to it. That is a lot of infrastructure to front-load—all of it dependent on the long-term success of a destination retailer that scaled back since the economic downturn.
“It sounds like lot of money,” said Jordan Levy, chairman of the Erie Canal Harbor Development board, “but it is what’s required to get an anchor tenant for the project.”
Bass Pro’s perks include a proposed 20-year lease that collects $1 annual rent, with no property taxes and just a $600,000 annual maintenance fee.
“The problem I have is Bass Pro has very little financial investment,” said Eric Lander, a real estate consultant who has worked nationally on entertainment districts. “I hope there is a contingency clause [for breaking] the lease. Otherwise, if the store underperforms, they could just walk away.”
I am as eager as anybody to see something good on the downtown waterfront. The folks driving this train want to create a retail/entertainment/public space district on what now is mostly barren land. They arguably see Bass Pro not as a one-stop destination, but as a lure that jump-starts surrounding development.
The operative premise: Build it, and they—shoppers, visitors, tourists—will come.
That is the problem I and a lot of other people have with heavily subsidized mega-projects. The build-and-hope model depends largely on the success of the central attraction. If it does not perform as advertised, you’re stuck.
Although it takes longer, the alternative is step-by-step development, starting typically with a waterfront restaurant and shops. Each piece builds on what came before, drawing investors with successes instead of subsidies.
Canal Side skeptics were out in force at Tuesday’s public hearing. Key points: It misuses tax dollars. It places a suburban- mall model on an urban landscape. It is cut off from downtown by parking ramps, loading docks and Bass Pro’s back wall. Incoming jobs pay an average of just $22,500, while displacing some existing ones. Some doubt that Benderson Development—which built its empire largely on strip malls—is up to a historically sensitive construction of canal- era buildings near the historic Commercial Slip.
Despite our sorry record with heavily subsidized mega-projects—the regrettable Main Place Mall is nearly within fly-casting distance of the site—it looks like another big-splash plan is about to hit.
The driving forces are Rep. Brian Higgins; Sabres minority partner and ECHDC board member Larry Quinn, who—apart from community service— obviously has a vested interest in development near HSBC Arena; and Bob and Mindy Rich, who as Florida neighbors of Bass Pro founder Johnny Morris brought the mega-store onto the local landscape.
They are pushing a roll-the-dice project that places a heavy tax-dollar bet on a retail anchor that requires a sea of parking. Despite our communal losing streak with these sort of mega-projects, we can’t seem to push away from the table.
desmonde@buffnews.com
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