Wal-Mart Wants At Least $250K Of Florida's Money Because Of St. Pete Site's Water Pollution

[hatrack]

ST. PETERSBURG — It seemed as if the developers of a Sam's Club on 34th Street had hit upon some misfortune when they discovered chlorinated pollutants in the groundwater last year. "Sam's Club has incurred and will continue to incur additional costs" because of the contamination, wrote Michael Goldstein, an attorney representing the project.

Goldstein requested that Florida kick in at least $240,000 in tax breaks to help the project "overcome the economic barriers" caused by the pollution from a nearby dry cleaner. For that to happen, St. Petersburg's City Council must designate the 14-acre site as a "brownfield" area — an official label that qualifies developers for up to a $2,500 tax refund for each job created to build in places beset with pollution and blight. Although Goldstein characterizes the pollutants as an accidental complication, it's not the first project where Sam's Club's corporate parent, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has built on foul ground.

Just four years ago, Goldstein represented Wal-Mart when it applied for the same tax credits to build a Supercenter at 34th Street and First Avenue N in St. Petersburg. The site was about a fifth of a mile from an existing brownfield area, and the council — at the urging of then-Mayor Rick Baker — expanded the boundary to include the store.

As with the current Sam's Club project, which is 16 blocks north, Wal-Mart said that the site had polluted groundwater. Without the tax breaks, the project, including the creation of "hundreds of new permanent jobs," would be unable to move forward, lawyers said at the time. Last year Wal-Mart was awarded $512,000 in brownfield tax credits for a project in Miami after coming across contaminated water from another nearby dry cleaner. It applied for the same credits to turn around a blighted area in Boynton Beach.

EDIT

http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/in-bid-to-build-sams-club-in-st-petersburg-wal-mart-returns-to-well-of-tax/1229848

[ejpoeta]

1. can't they just say no? i mean, it seems to be a tactic to get more

tax breaks. give a tax break to some small business or something if they are unwilling to go forward. trying to blackmail the town!