Costco Developer Not Considering Other Funding Structures

Although the Costco project wasn't actually on the agenda for Thursday night's meeting of the Lower Macungie Township Board of Commissioners, it apparently was talked about quite a bit. 

Township officials discussed the possibility that the controversial tax increment financing (TIF) plan needed to fund the $144 million Hamilton Crossings development could move forward without Lehigh County's approval, according to a report by WFMZ.com. Instead, they said, East Penn School District could become the sole government body to fund the TIF, giving the developers less than the $7 million they would have gotten from the school district and Lehigh County together.

Hamilton Crossings developer Jeremy Fogel, executive vice president of The Goldenberg Group told Patch via email yesterday that while he did not attend the commissioners meeting, he had read about their conversation.

"I really don’t have an update," Fogel writes. "We are still working to see if we can get (Lehigh) County to opt into the TIF and have not really considered a TIF under a different structure."

In June, the Lehigh County Commissioners rejected the TIF in a 6-3 vote, dashing the Lehigh Valley's hopes of getting its first Costco in 2014, as well as noted retailers such as Whole Foods and Target. 

Under the Tax Increment Financing plan as originally written, the government bodies that would have ultimately benefited from the tax revenue generated by Hamilton Crossings –East Penn School District and Lehigh County – needed to agree to give up 50 percent of those tax dollars for a 20-year period to help the developer get the project off the ground. 

In the past Fogel and his partners have said that costly geologic remediation needed on the 63-acre property along Krocks Road being considered for the Hamilton Crossings project make developing the parcel without the TIF impossible. The developer also told Patch that the Krocks Road location is the only one in the Lehigh Valley that Costco will consider.