Quote Originally Posted by Junjie View Post
Well, there are a couple differences. This is TIF, meaning the developer is taking some of the new tax returns generated by the project. In other words, and I'm open to being corrected, it's not possible for the project to reduce public tax receipts relative to today.

Further, I personally would much rather see us subsidizing urban buildings with people living in them than stadiums. Every person renting here will generate trips to CVS, lunches and dinners, purchases at retailers, rides on transit, and just add to the general presence of people downtown that makes the entire area more attractive to other new businesses and residents. You also add a building to a currently empty block, rather than blowing up existing building to build something that is empty the vast majority of the year and with massive parking requirements that results in further dead garages, lots, etc. Every dollar spent on this project is getting a much bigger return than the dollars spent on the stadiums.

Overall, yeah, I wish Gilbert could just build this without any incentives and allow the entire increase in tax revenue to go the city and state. My estimation of him isn't quite as high as previously. But if the city/state gives him half of the marginal increase in tax receipts for 20 years [[while still keeping the other half)... I can live with it for a project like this.

This response makes economic sense.