by ANDY SEVILLA
An entertainment center featuring a movie theater complex, bowling lanes, video arcade, meeting rooms and a restaurant may open in Kyle as soon as next summer.
The cost of the project to Kyle residents is estimated at $1.1 million in property tax and sales tax rebates, as well as in waiving city development fees.
In a special city council meeting June 20, Kyle council members unanimously approved entering into a development agreement with Schulman Partners, LTD, for the construction of the entertainment facility, offering up the financial incentives over a 15-year period.
“We are so excited to be able to bring this amenity to our residents,” Mayor Lucy Johnson said. “Our community is vastly underserved in the entertainment sector and this new business will go a long way to fill that gap.”
City officials have painted the proposed entertainment center as a “tremendous attraction” that will bring visitors into Kyle and Hays County, though the million-dollar financial incentives gift comes on the heels of the passage of a $36 million road bond.
In May, Kyle voters approved a road bond package set to reconstruct Bunton Creek, Burleson, Goforth and Lehman Roads, as well as extend Marketplace Avenue. That project is expected to cost $36 million and conservative city estimates projected a potential property tax increase of 21 cents.
City officials, however, put out several potential future growth scenarios that illustrated how incoming businesses and homes would help reduce the tax cost of the road bond through increased sales tax and property tax revenues.
With the Request for Proposals for engineering the five roads already advertised, the city is setting wheels in motion to improve the road bond streets. It is slated to be about a six-year project, but the bonds will be paid over a 20-year period. The financial incentives council members approved for the large-scale entertainment facility would rebate sales and property taxes over a 15-year timeline.
Specifics to the agreement, such as how many jobs the development would have to create to qualify for receipt of financial incentives or what the total investment cost would need to be, were not released.
“The details of the development agreement will be made available once the document has completed legal review,” expected sometime this week, said Kyle Economic Development Director Diana Blank in an email.
She said no time frame was available for when that review would be finalized.
The property where the proposed entertainment facility will break ground already takes advantage of financial incentives from the city.
According to a Sept. 2008 economic development agreement between Kyle and DDR DB Kyle, LP (the developers of the Villages of Kyle Shopping Center), the developer of that property is entitled to 50 percent of the city’s portion of the sales and use taxes that result from sales over a 10-year period.
That sales tax abatement was approved to help recover costs associated with infrastructure improvements; and the developer must meet certain criteria.
In the 2008 economic development agreement with DDR DB Kyle, LP, a movie theater having a minimum of 34,000 square feet is called for in that development. The size of the proposed theater is not being released to the public at this time.
Blank said the size of the project has increased to include other amenities after six years of negotiations, but would not comment on the proposed square-footage of the facility or cost. She said the development will be similar to Schulman’s Bastrop location, which features high-backed stadium seating, digitally projected movies, mini golf, bowling, a sports bar and grill and an arcade.
“It’s been a long time coming, but it was worth it,” she said.
Johnson said the economic development committee and city council looked long and hard at the incentives being offered to the entertainment facility.
“We also believe that this facility will serve as a venue and destination for people throughout Central Texas and will be a tremendous attraction to bring visitors into Kyle and Hays County,” Johnson said.
“That being said, the city’s development agreement is only one component in what we hope to be a joint economic incentive package with the county,” she said. “We hope that the commissioners court will support our economic development goals and participate in bringing in the largest indoor entertainment facility in Hays County’s history.”
Johnson did not say how much of an additional incentive she would like to see from the commissioners.
Construction on the new entertainment venue is expected later this year and the facility will be located in the Villages of Kyle Shopping Center, adjacent to the Target store.
