Allegheny County's nine tax-increment financing districts have created 13,817 jobs and netted $4.7 million in taxes that otherwise would not have been generated, although fewer jobs were produced than originally projected.
The Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County released the figures as part of the first of what officials say will be annual reviews of the districts, known as TIFs. The largest TIF outlay -- a $50 million bond issued for infrastructure at the Pittsburgh Mills mall in Frazer -- created more than twice the number of jobs projected. Two of the four other completed projects fell about 30 percent short.
"Is the (number of jobs) lower than projected⢠Yes, but it's still very successful," said Michael Pehur, a senior project manager for the authority who initiated the review. "We expect some of our bigger projects that are just getting under way now and that are less retail focused ... will be closer to projections."
The TIFs, which have helped leverage $900 million in private investment since their inception in 1998, allow local governments to borrow money for 20-year terms for improvements to roads, sewers and power lines. That work, in turn, is used to spur private development on property considered blighted.
Once that is completed, the property is reassessed at a higher value. A portion of the additional property tax -- the "increment" -- is used to pay down the debt, while the rest goes to local taxing bodies. Development experts like TIFs because the loans are repaid with tax money they say otherwise would not exist.
The county manages only non-city TIFs; the 14 inside Pittsburgh's city limits are managed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.
Communities around the country, however, are increasingly examining whether TIFs live up to their hype. In the Pittsburgh area, concerns center on their use for retail projects and in areas not traditionally blighted.
"We know there are jobs at these malls. The question is, 'How many of these jobs are now not at other retail locations?' " said Jake Haulk, president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy in Castle Shannon, which advocates a free-market approach to government. "They're just moving retail jobs around, and these are typically not real high-paying jobs."
In addition, the land that is home to Pittsburgh Mills and the Mall at Robinson simply was unused woodlands -- not territory blighted by industrial or urban decline, Haulk said. Only the county's first TIF, the site of the former U.S. Steel Homestead Works that sprawled across 266 acres and three Mon Valley municipalities, was pre-developed space in need of remediation.
Pehur said the county is leaning away from retail-heavy projects to those with a mix of uses, including commercial and industrial. Three of the more recent projects -- Clinton Commerce Park, Potato Garden Run and the Northfield Site -- were designed to produce "shovel-ready" land that is being developed around Pittsburgh International Airport in Findlay.
Pehur said two more projects have been proposed: a $3 million TIF in Castle Shannon for a mixed-use residential/retail/transit project involving the Federal Transit Agency and the Port Authority of Allegheny County; and a $19 million TIF for Collier Crossing, a proposed mixed-use retail, hotel and office complex in Collier.
Each would require state funding. Given the recession, Pehur said, there's no telling when that money might be forthcoming.
Electronic copies of the 2008 TIF evaluations will be available on the Redevelopment Authority's Web site in January, he added.
