LAWTON – A proposed $16 million, 20-acre commercial development in west Lawton anchored by Mathis Brothers Furniture, with ample room for future construction of retail businesses such as restaurants, a grocery store and a hotel, was reviewed Tuesday by the City Council.
The project at 4800 Cache Road will be a redevelopment of the former Eddie Cordes auto dealership and a movie theater. The site has been idle for several years.
Cache Properties LLC has purchased the site and demolished the Cordes building.
The anchor tenant of the new development will be Mathis Brothers. They plan to construct a 76,000 square-foot home furnishings building to house a 36,000 square-foot Ashley HomeStore, a 10,000 square-foot Mathis Sleep Center, and a 30,000 square-foot Mathis Furniture Outlet, with 127 parking spaces. Plans include room for future expansion of the Mathis Center, additional retail space, office space, construction of a multi-story hotel, development of a grocery store, and multiple full-service restaurants.
Phase 1 investment is calculated at $16,470,000, including $2,830,000 for the land, $10,640,000 in construction costs, and $3 million for new traffic signals, water and sewer infrastructure, and paved parking.
Brothers Don and Bud Mathis opened their first furniture store in 1960, and the business remains family owned/operated today. Mathis Brothers has locations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and in California, Texas and Arkansas, city staff noted.
CITY TO PROVIDE $750,000 REBATE
The City of Lawton will reimburse Cache Properties LLC a maximum of $750,000. City Hall has not been asked to provide any up-front money, city staff said.
The rebate will be paid from sales taxes generated entirely from the Mathis Center project. It will include sales taxes produced from the purchase of construction materials and from businesses established in the development.
The rebate will be based on 1% of taxable sales, an amount constituting half of the 2% sales tax apportioned to the city’s General Fund. The City of Lawton and Cache Properties LLC will split the sales tax proceeds 50/50 until the $750,000 is repaid.
“Once the cumulative rebates of sales taxes made by the City to the developer reach $750,000, or at the end of [the] Sales Tax Rebate Period, the developer shall not be entitled to any further tax rebates or other incentives,” the Mathis Center Economic Development Assistance Request stipulates.
The refund will be limited to sales taxes generated during the Sales Tax Rebate Period by the Mathis Center to be built during Phase 1. Sales taxes generated by any future development beyond those three stores will not be included.
Additionally, if 1% of the taxable sales does not reach $750,000 after seven years, the City will rebate only the amount of actual sales tax generated. Furthermore, the rebate “will not exceed $750,000,” the assistance request decrees.
The “sales tax rebate period” includes:
• the construction period from issuance of the building permit to issuance of a certificate of occupancy (up to a maximum 24 months) for the Ashley HomeStore, the Mathis Sleep Center, and/or the Mathis Furniture Outlet; and
• the retail period beginning on the first day of the month after the first reported sales from one or all of the three stores “and ending when the sales tax rebate is paid in full or at the end of seven years, whichever occurs first.”
Based on projections of sales taxes generated by more than $10 million in construction expenses and $11.4 million per year in sales during Phase 1, “this reimbursement plan could complete relatively quick,” city staff wrote.
CITY POLICY DESIGNED TO PROMOTE GROWTH
Lawton will grow and its residents will benefit from the Mathis Center, city staff asserted. “The growth and benefit … [are] not just the improved infrastructure,” but also “the new services provided.” New jobs will be created, and the new businesses will “attract people to Lawton from surrounding areas.”
Sales taxes generated from the development “could be huge” and ad valorem taxes collected on the property “could be dramatically increased,” city staff wrote. Lawton Public Schools “would benefit from these increases and consequently the families and school children would be helped.”
Cache Properties LLC is “ready to pull the trigger on this project,” Realtor/investor Max Sasseen told the council Tuesday.
The city attorney will prepare the formal agreement and bring it to the City Council at its next meeting.
A revised statement the City Council adopted in 2018 says that the purpose of the City of Lawton’s Economic Development Assistance Policy – Retail is to “provide retail development incentives.” The policy is administered by the Lawton Economic Development Authority (LEDA), “acting as an advisory committee to the Lawton City Council.”
The policy was established “in an effort to develop and expand the local economy by promoting and encouraging retail development and redevelopment projects that enhance the City’s economic base through expansion and diversification of job opportunities and new private investment.”
In furtherance of those goals, the city considers requests for economic development assistance to private retail business entities “in order to make possible projects that would not otherwise occur.”
Key principles of that policy are that the city’s credit and financial interest “shall never be placed at risk,” and the project must promote viable retail development in the city “by increasing sales tax, adding and/or retaining existing jobs and promoting collateral economic growth and development.”
“Any type of economic development within the City of Lawton is good,” city staff declared. “Growth should be a goal of every city. It is the underlying principle of this economic development policy.”