Much of the infrastructure that has been developed at Winrock Town Center is financed by taxes generated there.
Winrock’s Tax Increment Development Districts, known as TIDDs, were formed by the city in 2008.
“The purpose of the districts is to allow certain gross receipts and property tax revenues generated within the districts to be used to finance public infrastructure projects,” Johnny Chancler, a spokesman for the city’s Municipal Development Department, said in an email.
To date, one of Winrock’s two TIDDs has issued $43,325,000 in gross receipts tax revenue bonds, primarily to finance a public parking garage, he said.
The resolution forming the Winrock TIDDs estimates the districts could finance as much as $136,588,692 in infrastructure.
Darin Sand, vice president for development at Goodman Reality, said part of the first $43 million also went to building roads and the infrastructure that is underneath those roads.
“We are able to issue bonds based on the amount of money the TIDD receives,” Sand said. “The bonds are then paid back by the gross receipt tax generated by Winrock’s tenants.”
Sand said there is no financial liability on the city, county or state with a TIDD. That responsibility, instead, falls on the bondholders.
“So those who buy bonds such as this take the complete risk if Winrock’s tenants don’t generate enough GRT,” he said. “However, we’ve never been in that situation since the TIDDs’ inception. We’ve been making all the payments on the bonds.”
Sand added that its to the benefit of the bondholders for Goodman Reality to continue to build infrastructure so the development will attract more tenants.
City Councilor Diane Gibson, who chairs the board that oversees Winrock’s TIDD, said she joined the board in 2013 when Winrock was still feeling the effects of the ’08 recession.
“What we did to help out with the GRT post-recession is something called rebasing the tax year, and you only get to do that once,” Gibson said. “We did this so that we could have the developer put some infrastructure in Winrock, which would make them more attractive to retailers, and it worked. It’s not as fast as anybody would like to see it, but I think we will see some real changes soon.”
