By NICK BUDD
Hays Post
At Thursday’s regular meeting, the Hays City Commission voted 3-2 to schedule an Oct. 23 public hearing for a proposed community improvement district on the the Mall at Hays property. The commission will not take action on the proposal until after the public hearing.
Mall management company DP Management of Omaha, Neb., is proposing the CID and has already submitted an application and fees to the city. If commissioners approve the district, an additional 1 percent cent tax would be applied to all sales generated on the property, bringing the total sales tax at the mall to 9.4 percent. The revenue from the additional improvements would be used to fund more than $3 million in improvements.
Proposed improvements include renovations to the interior, landscaping, entrances and parking lots. DP also plans to demolish the former Montana Mike’s building and a bank drive-through in order to add two more outlying properties on to the space. The CID would have a limit of approximately $3.14 million and would be used on a pay-as-you-go basis. According to mall representative Matthew Gough, without the CID, it would take around 100 years to generate the revenue required for the proposed renovations.
Commissioners Shaun Musil and Kent Steward both voted against moving the proposal forward. Musil noted several other businesses have paid for their own improvements.
“I’ve driven around and noticed 26 or more businesses that have reinvested in themselves and expanded in the time that the mall has been under its current ownership,” Musil said. “I’m not against a CID, but I feel like these guys are taking advantage of the citizens of Hays. … For somebody that hasn’t done any improvements in 10 years, I can’t support that.”
Commissioner Eber Phelps suggested the group point out some of the repairs they have made to the mall over the past 10 years at the scheduled public meeting.
Related: Hays Post POLL on proposed mall sales tax increase.