Council skeptical of Target's benefits

<p>A report on a shopping center anchored by Target doesn’t adequately show how the proposal would impact Petaluma retailers, members of the City Council’s new majority said at a hearing Monday.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>Following more than three hours of testimony on the findings of a city-ordered report on the project, council members said its conclusions don’t address key concerns such as lower sales at existing stores and low wages for jobs created at the center.</p><p>The Fiscal and Economic Impact Assessment for developer Regency Centers’ East Washington Place project found that the center, anchored by a Target store, would have a “net positive impact” for Petaluma.</p><p>But the analysis doesn’t discuss what existing stores would be most impacted and how low-paying jobs without health insurance could create demand for social services, members of the council majority said.</p><p>“I can’t honestly say that these are going to be quality jobs that are going to be good for Petaluma,” Councilmember Tiffany Renée said. “I do hope that as we are demanding certain standards for this project, we continue to achieve things that are going to be beneficial to all Petalumans, not just those who feel entitled to shop at a Target.”</p><p>The FEIA, released last month, estimates that 720 permanent jobs and 388 temporary construction jobs would be created by the project. Slightly more than half of the permanent jobs would be full-time positions, the report said.</p><p>If opened in 2011, the project on the former Kenilworth Junior High site could generate $1 million in sales tax and about $500,000 in property tax each year for the city, the study found.</p><p>Critics of the report said its estimates of wage levels at the shopping center are overstated, noting that Target did not provide specific data on its employee earnings.</p><p>Others said the report did not give details on how the individual merchandise categories found at a Target — such as toys, books, clothing and gardening supplies — would impact local retailers of those same products.</p><p>Specific stores should be identified and their losses estimated in an FEIA study, some speakers suggested.</p><p>“If you don’t put a name on something, we really don’t know what we’re losing,” said Melissa Abercrombie, co-founder of the Petaluma Neighborhood Association, which helped the city craft its FEIA policy for large retail projects.</p><p>Some council members agreed that overall impacts on existing businesses should be broken down further, but the study’s consultant, Raymond Kennedy of Bay Area Econo-mics, said gauging impacts on individual stores can be difficult due to varying details.</p><p>Sales at a Target garden center, for example, might impact one existing garden business more because it is closer to the new project, he surmised. On the other hand, an existing garden business that is farther away might be impacted more because shoppers like the service at Target better, he said.</p><p>Sales could also come from garden centers at Target stores in other towns, he pointed out.</p><p>His firm’s report found that as Petaluma’s population grows, the project’s net impact on existing stores will be minimal, Kennedy said.</p><p>“The only way to never have any impact on existing retailers is to never allow any new retailers in the city,” he said.</p><p>Council members Mike Harris and David Rabbitt said the report, while not perfect, indicates the project will likely be a positive addition to Petaluma.</p><p>While the financial projections could change slightly, “the balance is so far to one side that you would still get a positive,” Rabbitt said.</p><p>Mayor Pamela Torliatt, however, said the lack of other identified tenants at the 377,000-square-foot center is “the big elephant in the room” and makes the report incomplete.</p><p>“We really have no idea how it’s going to impact us as a city and the other businesses we have in the community,” Torliatt said. “I’m not opposed to a Target — it’s what it looks like and how it impacts us.”</p><p>Regency Centers, which bought the 40-acre site in 2004, hopes the city’s review of the project will get under way in about a month and a half, vice president Bruce Qualls said.</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>