DENHAM SPRINGS, La. — Denham Springs is once again looking to tap into a Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) plan to help spur some development inside the city limits.
This time, the proposed development at the corner of Rushing Road and Pete’s Highway would provide a new Hilton Garden Inn hotel with 130 rooms as well as a 15,000 square foot conference center attached, although final designs for the conference center are not yet ready.
The TIF funding would total between $10 and $12 million for roads and infrastructure, while the developer is footing the roughly $20 million bill for the hotel and conference center.
Mayor Gerard Landry explained that the proposed TIF encompasses an area well beyond the scope of the hotel, roughly 60 total acres, with the initial development and infrastructure expansion opening the way for potential new commercial establishments in the area, which would also pay into the TIF.
The tax breakdown of who would pay potentially into the TIF is as follows:
Total estimated annual revenues to be paid into the TIF, should it pass, are currently $1,064,131. If more commercial development came to the area, that number would increase. The mayor said that he anticipates the city dissolving the two taxes labeled (New) above once the TIF is paid off.
Both the Bass Pro development inside the city limits of Denham Springs and the Juban Crossing development just outside of the city limits have utilized TIFs. In June of 2022, the City of Denham Springs officially transferred ownership of the Bass Pro building to the retailer, as the TIF was paid off 16 years early.
Since opening in 2008, Bass Pro has become a beacon for Livingston Parish retail, attracting millions of customers who also shop and eat at other businesses in the area. The success of the retailer has been parallel to the parish’s boom in population since 2000.
Bass Pro’s tax increment financing (TIF) plan has been called “a model project” since its inception in 2007, when the district sold $50 million in bonds to be paid in 30 years. Those bonds helped develop the district south of the Range Avenue-Interstate 12 interchange to build Bass Pro and the surrounding infrastructure.
To entice the store to build in Livingston Parish, the city, sheriff’s office, school board, parish council, and Drainage District 1 all agreed to allow a portion of sales taxes collected from all stores within the district to be used to retire the bonds that financed construction.
In 2021, City Councilman Robert Poole recalled some of the initial debate as to whether the district should give up most of its tax revenue — about 72 percent — “for the purpose of debt service to attract a private business.”
But the flip side, he noted, was “we could have not done the TIF and got 100 percent of zero.”
First, the TIF will have to be approved by the city council. Then the bonds would go to market based on anticipated revenues from the development, and construction could start.
According to the plans provided by the city, part of the infrastructure additions would be the establishment of DEMCO Drive. That project would have a divided, four-lane boulevard that connects Pete’s Highway to Range Avenue. The plans also lay out a roundabout on Pete’s Highway that connects the future, potential DEMCO Drive with the Cook Road Extension.
Therefore, the hotel and conference center project would be an anchor piece in a new east-west connection between Range Avenue and Juban Road. According to Mayor Landry, the DEMCO Road and roundabout monies are coming from the state capital outlay budget, but are not set in stone yet.
Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce director April Wehrs, in a Facebook post by the Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce, said the organization will be watching the development closely due to a need for the space as all the chamber’s events are ‘busting at the seams’ in current venues.
The public hearing for the proposed TIF will be at Denham Springs City Hall on Monday, Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. The board typically meets on the second Tuesday of the month, but the meeting was moved up a night due to Veterans’ Day.
