The Times and Democrat - Lawmakers act to help fill empty big retail buildings

The former Winn-Dixie on Chestnut has been empty since August, when the company closed 46 of its South Carolina stores. Lawmakers are considering special tax incentives for companies that move into vacant "big box" stores. LARRY HARDY/T&D

MORE News

Lawmakers act to help fill empty big retail buildings
Why county wants to be ’distressed’
Be EGGS-tremely careful this Easter holiday
Winners
Hoppin’ around

Lawmakers act to help fill empty big retail buildings

By GENE CRIDER
T&D City Editor
Friday, April 14, 2006

When Winn-Dixie decided to close 46 stores in South Carolina last year, the company left a hole on Chestnut Street where its supermarket used to be.

Stores can be closed for any number of reasons -- a need for a bigger store, a desire to move to a better location, corporate restructuring. And that can leave a large, empty store with a large, empty parking lot in a community.

"To have a community with an empty building in it, it hurts," said Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce President David Coleman. "It can be harmful in terms of opinions and the impressions of others to have hollow, empty buildings."

"Wal-Marts move and create bigger superstores and when they leave, their buildings need to be occupied," he said.

To help fill such holes, state lawmakers are considering a bill to provide state and local tax incentives for businesses that fill the large, big boxes left empty by the larger retailers. The state and local incentives would be available for retail buildings at least 40,000 square feet in size, although communities could provide local incentives for buildings 25,000 square feet in size and larger.

The "big box" bill has already passed both the House and Senate, but the two bodies still need to work out the differences between their versions. The major difference between the two bills is legislation attached in the Senate to help Orangeburg County's economic development efforts.

Orangeburg has several buildings that have been left behind by retailers, including the old Winn-Dixie that was emptied last August.

There's also the old Winn-Dixie on Russell Street and the former Tractor Supply building on Old St. Matthews Road. In addition, there's the old Lowe's building on Joe Jeffords Boulevard, although that's currently being used for storage, according to Cal Bruner, a Realtor/broker with Century 21 The Moore Group specializing in commercial real estate.

Bruner said it's "a little harder" to fill vacant big-box stores.

"There are only so many big-box users," he said.

"A lot of the big boxes out there are still in a good location; it's just a matter of going out there and finding the user," he said. "A lot of times we have to go out of town and out of state to find that user."

The desire to fill empty buildings is in part about jobs and in part about community aesthetics.

"Empty buildings are just corrosive," Coleman said. "Everybody does better when buildings are filled."

The incentive, if it becomes law, would give a business a tax credit on its property taxes worth 25 percent of the cost of rehabilitating a building that has been vacant for at least a year, although the building can be used for warehouse space during that year. The business could also get a 10 percent state income tax credit. The credit would have to be spread out over eight years.

The city or county in which the building is located would have to approve the tax credit.

Coleman says the incentive could make a difference in filing empty stores.

"I've found that retailers really do study a community and all the circumstances before they commit to a new business, including taxes," Coleman said.

When businesses call the chamber for information, often anonymously, they ask about things like growth patterns, population and per-capita income of the area, Coleman said. "All of these issues are important -- more important, even, than competition being in town."

Bruner said, "The good part about the incentive is the owner will not have to go in and basically subdivide a building into two 20,000-square-foot buildings." Such a change could be costly and change the "cosmetic integrity" of the building.

T&D City Editor Gene Crider can be reached at gcrider@timesanddemocrat.com and 803-533-5570.

E-mail this page

Print version

Comments:

Add Your Own Comments »