Development board officials OK tax break for $8.5 million Lowe’s

Ledger Staff Writer

At its peak, Peachtree Marketplace employed hundreds of workers at its many stores. That all changed in 2000 when Wal-Mart and several other tenants moved several hundred yards down Floyd Baker Boulevard to the new Piedmont Plaza.

Now, local development officials are trying to bring those jobs back - at least 100 of them.

In a special called meeting Tuesday, the Cherokee County Development Board unanimously approved a tax reduction for Lowe’s, which has expressed a strong interest in locating in the former Wal-Mart building at Peachtree Marketplace.

To get the 6 percent fee-in-lieu tax break, Lowe’s must create at least 100 jobs, Cherokee County Development Board Director Jim Inman said.

Cherokee County Council will likely consider the tax break as part of an inducement resolution at its meeting Monday. County Council is the only entity that can grant the fee-in-lieu, Inman said.

Under the county’s tax break guidelines, Lowe’s should have received a more modest tax break for its proposed $8.5 million investment. That’s the reason the job creation stipulation was included in the recommendation, according to Inman.

“This recommendation is based on jobs,” he said. “And we are also trying to help the city.”

Development Board President James Moss said locating a Lowe’s in the Peachtree Marketplace would benefit the local economy.

“I feel like it will help the builders of Cherokee County,” he said. “Now they have to go out of the county to get most of their materials and we also want to promote business inside the city.”

An official who was representing Lowe’s at the meeting told Development Board members that Lowe’s will likely decide in March whether to locate in Gaffney.

It would take about five months to build the store, which would open in early 2006, he said.

City Administrator James Taylor, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, said Lowe’s hasn’t submitted site plans but said he’s talked with shopping center owner Marty Waters about subdividing the property.

Gaffney Board of Public Works General Manager Donnie Hardin also said he’s been in recent contact with shopping center officials and Lowe’s consultants concerning utility needs.

Waters didn’t return a telephone message left for him Tuesday.

Negotiations with Lowe’s came to light a year ago when Gerri Fewster, director of commercial properties for Waters Incorporated, asked the city to scuttle plans to convert the vacant Wal-Mart into a city administration building because her company was involved in a project which would create new jobs and add to the city’s tax base.