Kansas City Streetcar Economic Development Claims Don’t Add Up . . . Literally

Perhaps in reaction to the Show-Me Institute’s assertion that there are no studies supporting the claim that streetcars alone cause economic development, NextRailKC hurriedly compiled a list claiming to prove the opposite. (NextRailKC removed the original list, but we’ve saved it here.) We say hurriedly because not only does the information provide no detail on how it was collected, but the table attached isn’t even properly tabulated. Simple arithmetic (we used a calculator) indicates that their table yields $791 million in development and 1,984 housing units. (The summary they provide is $879 million and 1,997, respectively. They even mis-tabulate the numbers provided in their legend. What did Kansas City pay for this?)

One of the development projects that indicated the streetcar was a “key reason” for their development was the Centric Projects Headquarters, and the project is listed at $2 million. According to Centric’s website, it is a general contracting firm. Kansas City Mayor Sly James appointed the founder, Richard Wetzel, to the streetcar advisory group to consider the Country Club Right of Way. In a blog post on the Centric website, Wetzel wrote, “For years, I have been an advocate of fixed-rail transit in Kansas City.” Wetzel is not a disinterested party; he is a self-described advocate for the streetcar.

As for the so-called economic development that Centric and Wetzel provided Kansas City, for which the streetcar was a “key reason,” it’s not so impressive. The Kansas City Business Journal reported on May 22, 2013, that:

Centric Projects LLC is moving its offices two blocks up Main Street to accommodate rapid growth at the Kansas City commercial general contractor.

The 3-year-old firm is moving from its current 3,000 square feet of space at 2024 Main St. to a new 5,500-square-foot space at 1814 Main St. by the end of July.

The building was previously occupied by Western Blue, which left Kansas City for Kansas City, Kan., in 2010, and is undergoing $1.5 million worth of renovations ahead of the relocation.

So there you have it. Centric’s $2 million economic impact supposedly due to the streetcar is a $1.5 million remodel to a space that likely would have required remodeling regardless who, or why, it was occupied. The company moved two blocks up Main, meaning that they didn’t even move to the streetcar line from somewhere outside the Transportation Development District (TDD). They simply moved to a different point on it. Kansas City officials want you to think this is all due solely to the uncompleted downtown streetcar.

It gets better. That same Business Journal piece goes on to state that Centric is receiving tax incentives for staying in Kansas City, Mo.:

Centric also is receiving tax credits from Missouri for keeping jobs in the state. Kounkel did not say how the tax credits are oriented but said the credits are tied to the number of employees the firm hires and will help “offset expenses.”

Representatives of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, which typically handles the state’s tax credit programs, were not immediately available for comment.

Whatever the amount, the money was wasted, as Centric’s founder said they never considered a move out of state:

“We never considered a move to another state or municipality,” Richard Wetzel, partner at the firm, said in a release. “While we do work all over the metropolitan area, Kansas City, Missouri — and specifically the Crossroads (Arts District) — is where we want to continue to hang our shingle.”

Centric’s example only serves to confirm the Show-Me Institute’s claim that there is no evidence that streetcars alone lead to economic development. Centric did not move from outside the streetcar taxing district so there is no net new development. The $2 million (actually $1.5 million) economic impact it claims would likely have been required of anyone who occupied the space, and Centric received other economic incentives to relocate within the TDD.

We learned all of this in the course of a few hours searching online. Is Kansas City really this inept at calculating economic development, or is this a concerted effort to mislead voters?