By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - Developers are dreaming of turning a desolate piece of reclaimed strip-mined ground in northern Warrick County into a bustling tourist destination that offers a mix of educational and entertainment possibilities.
For such a project to take root, though, they need to convince a skeptical Indiana General Assembly to help.
A development team wants to build a nonprofit, combination indoor/outdoor educational facility that would include a museum and an aquarium called Village Earth and surround that facility with hotels, retail shops, movie theaters and other attractions.
To pay for the educational portion, they propose siphoning off about $150 million in sales tax revenue over the next 25 years from its for-profit surroundings. But before that can happen, the developers must win approval of a Tax Increment Finance district.
The project's key supporter in the Legislature is Rep. Russ Stilwell, a Boonville Democrat who is House majority leader.
Stilwell's argument is that advancing Village Earth's financing plan is the best way to make something out of nothing in a 272-acre piece of land near the Blue Grass Fish and Wildlife Area and within the new Interstate 69 corridor.
"There will never be sales tax captured from that area" without the project, he said. "There's no infrastructure. It's in the middle of nowhere."
The House Ways and Means Committee endorsed the proposal on a 21-3 vote Wednesday afternoon.
"It creates commerce and tourism and education, all wrapped up in one," said Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville. "We have an opportunity to create jobs without costing the state any money, and in fact creating revenue for this state. In these tough economic times, we need to look at things a little differently, a little more creatively."
Stilwell said he's almost certain the proposal will pass through the Democratic-ledHouse. Its fate in the Republican-led Senate is less clear.
Developers estimate the overall project cost at $152 million. To pay off the bonds they'd need, they would receive 80 percent of the sales tax revenue from surrounding venues for a 25-year period. The remaining 20 percent would go to the state.
The legislator who supporters must win over is Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, who said Wednesday evening that he generally considers TIF districts unsavory. He wasn't swayed over by claims that such an attraction creates new sales tax revenue where none currently exists.
"What you get into is, if people are spending consumption dollars there, then how many consumption dollars does that take out of places like Evansville?" he said. One hundred percent of the money spent there, he noted, would go to the state.
"This year, when we've had so many budget difficulties, it's hard to give up your sales tax revenue," Kenley said.
He said there have been more than 50 requests for sales tax increment finance districts over the last decade or so, and "we've always turned them down because what it does is, it captures sales tax dollars that would normally flow through the state."
Advocates have pushed the Warrick County development project for years. Initially, lawmakers balked, finding the idea too unlikely to ever come to fruition. But this year, the team brought a more complete pitch, with a 41-page booklet detailing what they hope to build and how they plan to pay for it.
One of the project's leaders, Jonathan Reinsdorf of Chicago-based Stonegate Development Partners, LLC, is the son of Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
The younger Reinsdorf predicted the facility would draw tourists from several states, since there are no aquariums within a three-hour radius of the proposed location.
"It's innovative. There's never been anything like this," he said.
Ways and Means Vice Chairman Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said with Reinsdorf on board, he is now more confident in the proposal.
"From the very beginning, I wouldn't have given it a snowball's chance," he said. "But as time has gone on, I see how this has really grown in credibility."
If lawmakers approve the TIF, the project will need to gain local-level approval on several stages.
Warrick County Commissioner Art Noffsinger said he thinks it will have no trouble. Noffsinger said the proposed location is perfect, since it would be visible from the new I-69 and is also near Interstate 64.
"The communities around this area would benefit greatly by having this development," he said.