MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The Mobile County Commission on Monday voted 2-1 to approve $1.25 million incentives for Topgolf, half of an overall $2.5 million package intended to lure the rapidly growing entertainment outlet.
The Texas-based company plans to construct a two-story building at the site of the former Hollywood Stadium 18 movie theater off of Interstate 65. It will have 60 driving bays where customers will compete in games involving targets in the outfield. The facility will also have mini golf and an outdoor patio area, along with a full-service restaurant and bar.
“We’re extremely excited to be here today,” said Todd Waldo, director of real estate development for Topgolf. “Your support today marks a significant first step in bringing Topgolf to Mobile.”
Walso said the region offers a good opportunity for Topgolf.
“We’ve been looking at the Mobile market for a number of years,” he said. “It’s very significant to our growth strategy.”
The Mobile City Council is set to discuss an equal $1.25 million package for Topgolf on Tuesday.
County Commissioners Connie Hudson and Randall Dueitt supported the incentives. Hudson, who represents District 2, told Waldo she visited the Topgolf facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over the weekend to get a first-hand look and came away impressed by the crowd size.
“It seemed to be operating very successfully when I saw it,” she said.
District 1 County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood voted against the measure, later explaining that she generally opposes using taxpayer funds for retail developments.
“These companies make decisions based on whether a market can support their endeavor and I don’t believe it necessary to use public funds in this manner,” she said in a prepared statement. “Secondarily, at the pre-meeting conference on Thursday, I’d asked that the Topgolf representative be prepared to answer questions related to numbers of jobs and wages, but the requested wage information was not provided.”
Waldo said during the meeting that the company plans to hire 150 employees for full- and part-time positions but would only say that they would earn “competitive wages.”
David Rodgers, the president of economic development for the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, told the commission that a chamber analysis projects a $20 million benefit for the county over 20 years. That includes new property and sales tax revenue from the facility, along with taxes generated by new workers.
“So truly, we look at this and look at the return on investment,” he told reporters after the vote. “Return on investment, we’re calculating is 2.3 years – 40 percent on your return on investment for this investment, based off a 20-year analysis. So we think it’s a great investment for us to have a quality-of-life asset, have something that’s gonna generate new revenue and new jobs with this economy.”
Rodgers said the chamber has been trying to attract Topgolf for several years. He said Mobile was competing against sites along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle. He told commissioners that Topgolf is a regional draw that will pull in customers from outside of Mobile County and compete against offers like the Mississippi casinos and the Pensacola Blue Wahoos minor league baseball team.
“Make no mistake, this is getting new revenue back into this economy,” he said. “We were competing on this project. We were competing, ultimately, with three different segments.”
Some independent experts question the math, however. Timothy Bartik, a senior economist at the Michigan-based WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, told FOX10 News that static analyzes of proposed economic development projects often presume that a particular site would forever sit vacant if not for the economic incentives offered to a specific company .
“You can’t assume that no economic activity would have occurred in your area unless you provided incentives,” he said. “That’s not a reasonable assumption.”
Hudson said the project is worth the taxpayer incentive.
“The benefits certainly outweigh the cost in a very short period of time,” she said, “So it’s an investment. And you know, that’s part of what the county does. We invest on long-term benefits to the count, to our citizens to quality of life.”
Developers hope to demolish the moving theater as soon as next month and start construction in December with a projected opening date late next year.
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