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July marks the one-year point since Butler County Commissioners, Liberty Twp. Trustees and a private developer signed an agreement for the game-changing mega Liberty Center retail project committing up to $43 million in public funding.
The Master Development Agreement, as it’s called, for the total approximately $350 million retail center was signed July 2013 at a special meeting held at the Butler County fairgrounds.
Included in the contract is a list of requirements for the developer Steiner + Associates of Columbus to meet before receiving public funding. Private dollars have to be spent before taxpayer dollars. The contract also spelled out safeguards in the worst case scenario that the project doesn’t live up to projections, such as scheduled payment obligations, government rights to the property and construction targets.
A year later, construction has started on the mixed residential, retail and office complex at the intersection of Ohio 129, Interstate 75 and Liberty Way. The center’s three anchor tenants and a hotel have been announced.
Liberty Center is described as one of the biggest developments in Butler County history.
However, developers have not received any public funding yet. County Commissioners and Township Trustees have yet to issue bonds and borrow money to help pay for the center’s infrastructure such as streets, parking, utilities and sewer and water systems.
“The project is still marching forward,” said Butler County Administrator Charlie Young.
“We’re like everyone else. We would like to see this move quicker, sooner, but we do understand the private developer is bearing the burden, the risk of the project, and it needs to move at the pace they’re comfortable with,” Young said.
“When the developer is ready to go, Butler County is ready to go,” Young said.
It’s more important that a project of this size is done right than done too fast, said Liberty Twp. Trustee Tom Farrell.
“A project of this size, that’s going to change Liberty’s landscape forever, has to be done right and doing it right means crossing every ‘T’ and dotting every ‘I,” Farrell said. “These things, unfortunately, take a lot more time than anyone can imagine.”
Construction continues on Liberty Center and progress is unaffected by the timing of the bond issue, said Beau Arnason, executive vice president of asset management for Steiner, in a statement. Liberty Center is slated to open in fall 2015.
“The development schedule does not require issuance of the bonds at this juncture, but we continue to work closely with Butler County and Liberty Township officials on the bonds and many other aspects of Liberty Center,” Arnason said.
Among the conditions local government officials asked for from Steiner + Associates before $31 million worth of public bonds are issued are: for the project’s private financing to be place; for so many anchor tenants to have signed leases; and for a quality mix of in-line retail tenants to be approved by the local governments, according to the development agreement.
The rest of the $43 million in public funding committed to the project includes a $12 million loan approved by Ohio Water Development Authority.
The public money is a portion of the project’s total cost, with most of the project being paid for privately.
The full list of contingencies for the bond issue has yet to be met, Young said.
Meanwhile, concerns have also been raised by the May announcement of Dick’s Sporting Goods as the third anchor tenant for Liberty Center, joining previously announced anchors Dillard’s department store and dinner-and-movie theater CineBistro. Questions are whether Dick’s Sporting Goods meets promises for an exclusive lineup of tenants, and how the opening of the sporting goods store in Liberty Twp. will affect the Dick’s Sporting Goods already open at Fairfield Twp. shopping center Bridgewater Falls.
“We were concerned from the very beginning that this project not compete with or detract in any way from Bridgewater,” Young said. “That has been something the county commissioners have been clear (on) from the beginning of the project.”
A clause in the contract prevents the developer from recruiting any current tenants of local shopping centers, Young said.
“We’ve been assured two things. One is that Dick’s approached the developer, not the other way around and that this concept that is being proposed is a much different store with a much different product line than Bridgewater,” Young said.
“We’ve been told there’s no plans to minimize the Dick’s at Bridgewater. That’s what we’ve been told and I guess that’s what we have to go on,” he said.
“As far as quality, that is one of the things also of great concern, not only to the county, but to the developer as well,” he said.
County Commissioners Don Dixon and T.C. Rogers say they’ve been assured that the Dick’s store at Liberty Center will be a different model than the one at Bridgewater.
“It’s not the same store, it’s not the same production, it’s not the same concept,” Dixon said during a June interview.
“That being said, I have always been since day one, made it very clear what we expected from that project and our counsel knows it too,” Dixon said.
Butler County government hired an attorney to negotiate with the developer on their behalf and share private information.
“I talked to Steiner last week and was shown what the progress is. After last Thursday, I’m positive about it,” Rogers said.
Phillips Edison & Co., the owner of Bridgewater Falls, declined to comment about its lease with Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“What we can tell you is that Bridgewater Falls continues to be a successful, thriving shopping center and is a great community gathering place in Fairfield Township. We look forward to the development of Liberty Center which will offer more shopping options for local residents,” David Birdsall, division president of Total Retail Solutions for Phillips Edison, said in an email statement.
Representatives of Dick’s declined comment.
About a month after the Dick’s Sporting Goods announcement was made for Liberty Center, a different developer, Great Traditions Land and Development Co. of Sharonville, submitted plans to West Chester Twp. for a new, although smaller retail development off Liberty Way. Cabela’s, an outdoor sporting goods retailer, would anchor the project, based on Great Traditions’ plans.
“People sometimes think our anchor Dick’s is similar. It’s not,” Arnason, of Steiner + Associates, said at a June meeting of Liberty Community Association. Cabela’s is “a huge regional draw.”
“What’s good for the (Interstate) 75 corridor is good for us,” Arnason said.
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