Cash for prospective tenants in Frisco
Frisco, located north of Dallas, is paying companies to move there, offering them cash to sign leases in the few office buildings that have been built there, according to this New York Times story (registration required):
The city's inducement money comes from Stone-briar Centre, a 1.6 million-square-foot mall that General Growth of Chicago opened here in August 2000, and from the Centre at Preston Ridge, 1.1 million square feet of retail stores anchored by an outsize Target discount store.
Together they generate $5 million a year in sales taxes to support the Frisco Economic Development Corporation, which voters here elected to create rather than joining their neighbors to the south in contributing to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. Dallas and its more immediate suburbs, having spent their sales tax dollars on buses and trains, typically offer property tax abatements to potential employers....
"They've been able to steal some clients from Plano and Dallas and the Richardson area," said Gregory C. Biggs, a broker with the firm Julian J. Studley. "You run the economics, and the municipal incentives make the difference in the deal."
Frisco has signed deals with about eight companies this year, promising payments of as little as $25,000 and as much as $1.2 million in exchange for a signed lease within the city limits.