The bank evidently has supplanted Charlotte city government. Be sure to reflect that in your property tax payments for 2006.
With the details coming in, the arts plan stands as a classic corporate giveaway, a sweetheart deal no average taxpayer could dream of receiving. Wachovia will pay no property taxes while the bank builds its new office building Uptown, nor will it pay the city the various fees any builder using large amounts of public right-of-way often does. Plus, do not forget that Wachovia gets to “earmark” the property tax revenue it will pay the city on the finished building for the construction of the arts buildings co-located on the site. That’s a nice $40 or $50 million goodie right there.
Try that with your property taxes. Try to “earmark” them for tickets to shows at city-owned venues, you stuff you like and you will enjoy. Your butt will be in jail faster than you can say Bob Walton.
And the truly amazing thing is that city officials seem to think this is a great deal for the city, that cratering your tax base for non-essential goodies for a multi-billion dollar corporation is slick, the very height of public service. Yet lost in this dream is the reality that Wachovia would have built something Uptown that the city could have then taxed like any other property. Millions in tax dollars for things like roads and police officers. That is the way city government works. Not in Charlotte.
Remember, it is W-A-C-H-O-V-I-A. Thanks.
Addendum: One reader notes that the bank will pay property taxes during construction on the office-building portion, but not the arts stuff. Fair enough. The corporate tax break is not quite so large.
