Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

In all of the Dispatch articles about the closing of Big Bear, the Pickerington store is not mentioned.

What are the plans for this store? How many employees will be out of work?

Employees

There are 95 employees working at the Pickerington Big Bear. They have sold their pharmacy lists to Kroger at this point. This Big Bear may just become another empty store front here in Pickerington. So bringing in a Kohls only replaces some of the lost wages and real estate taxes. I have heard that the Kohl's store will bring in 200 employees.

Kohl's

I have yet to hear an announcement from Kohls about them opening in Pickerington. Until I hear it from them I won't believe a word of it.

Also, I don't know about Big Bear and TIF's but Kohl's is going to be starting off brand new with a 75% TIF so the impact of lost real estate taxes is quite real.

TIF

Kohl's will pay all of their taxes and the TIF does not benefit them at all, TIFs are developer boondoggles. Developers get free infrastucture, buy the original land for cheap and sell it at the top of the market without putting any money in it except marketing it to a client, who comes to the area because the size and wealth of the market will meet their business model. Do you think the developer sells Kohl's the land or store at a discount because the city provided all the infrastructure....Don't bet on it, I bet the developers suck up all the ''freebees'' in profit margins not passing them on at all.


Remember two years ago Kohl's told Reynoldsburg they were going to locate across the street from Taylor Square....in the PLSD non TIF area behind Logan's roadhouse.