Meijer may get tax break to clean up its own contaminated land

Ed Cutlip at Media Mouse has an article about a battle over whether to give a state or local tax break to Meijer to develop a new store on land that it contaminated. He cites an article in the Grand Rapids Press a few days ago about the Michigan Economic Development Corporation rejecting the company’s request to get a Brownfield tax credit for developing a new store in Grand Rapids.
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A Brownfield tax credit is one given to a project that redevelops a contaminated piece of property and cleans up the pollution. But in this case, the property that Meijer wants to develop was polluted by Meijer themselves, by their own admission. So why, Cutlip asks, should they get a tax break to clean up their own pollution when that tax break will take money away from other city and state services?

Meijer is asking for “brownfield” status on a project to redevelop their 28th Street and Kalamazoo store. According to Meijer, a 1 acre parcel of land that will be used in the development is contaminated. Interestingly, Meijer admits that it was the source of the contamination–its leaky gasoline storage tanks contaminated the groundwater.

However, The Grand Rapids Press reports that if the tax break is granted, it will come directly from money that could be used to provide key services:

“If approved, the money will come from new property taxes generated by the store over the next 27 years. Those new taxes would otherwise fund city services, local public schools, Kent County operations, the Kent County jail, the local transit millage and Kent County’s senior millage.”

So, the choice is clear–we can either fund critical social services, or we can have a redone Meijer store.

Seems an obvious choice to me.