Posted on 07/28/2004 3:38:50 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
West Virginia businesses hoping for spillover effect from new Cabela's
By VICKI SMITH
The Associated Press
7/28/2004, 1:01 p.m. ET
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — Landing a Cabela's is like striking economic-development gold, but people familiar with stores in other states say West Virginia merchants will have to work for any spillover business from the retail fantasy land for hunters and anglers.
"One huge problem is people think that because there are going to be 6 million people coming to the community, they can flip the `Open' sign and sit back and wait for the cash registers to start ringing," says John Patterson, president and chief executive officer of the Monroe County Convention & Tourism Bureau in Michigan.
"That ain't happening," says Patterson, whose county hosts the nearly four-year-old store in Dundee, Mich. "You've got to find ways to be creative and advertise and promote."
Nebraska-based Cabela's will open its 175,000-square-foot West Virginia store in the Fort Henry Business and Industrial Centre along Interstate 70 on Aug. 12.
Cabela's is like an amusement park, with sculptures, dioramas, mounted animals and aquariums. The Wheeling store is no exception, with a TV studio, archery range, trophy deer museum, laser arcade, gun library and restaurant.
It also has 1,500 parking spaces for cars, 35 for tractor-trailers and 30 for buses.
And for a while, it may be the only part of Ohio County that many visitors see.
"They're a retail business. They're there to make money. They're not there to promote your business," Patterson says. "But they're certainly willing to allow you to attach yourself to their coattails. If you're creative and energetic and willing to find ways to benefit from what they're doing, they're absolutely willing to let you do that."
In Michigan, businesses have pooled money to put three messages on one billboard in a cost-efficient cross-promotion.
Tom McKeon, director of community and economic development for Berks County, Pa., says merchants around Hamburg also are learning to reach out to Cabela's customers. Soon, the store will have a kiosk to promote local businesses.
"Cabela's can't possibly carry all of the very, very specialized hunting and fishing equipment that people want ... so retailers enter into partnerships," McKeon says. Cabela's makes referrals to companies it's confident will give customers a positive experience.
McKeon says the arrival of Cabela's last year has triggered a flurry of development that could last years. Berks County already has applications for hotels, restaurants, car dealerships and more.
Development has been slow to take off because of problems with water and sewer capacity, and some access issues. But small businesses already have moved in, and McKeon says Pennsylvania's $31 million tax-incentive package is paying off.
State officials knew significant public investment would be required to make the site attractive, McKeon says, because every developer who had looked at it walked away. Cabela's has already drawn more than 4 million visitors and could generate as much as $4 million in sales tax its first year.
"We struck gold," Patterson says.
You might add that Cabela's has engineered one of the biggest tax abatement rip off ever.
The state sales tax generated by Cabela's will be given back to the company to pay off their bonds used to finance the construction.
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