By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

The name Sidney, Neb., is synonymous with the name Cabela’s, much to the delight of Sidney’s city manager, Gary Pearson.

“I call their store the big green stop sign,” said Pearson, who works for Sidney’s population of about 6,400 residents. “We even painted our water tower to say, “Cabela’s World Headquarters.”

Cabela’s – known for years primarily through its catalog sales operation – opened its first retail store in 1981 in Sidney, and became the top tourist attraction in Nebraska by 1991, said Pearson.

“It’s been an economic jewel,” he said. “Everything we do for the company comes back tenfold or greater.”

That kind of public pride in a private company may be rare, but it’s something that seems to follow Cabela’s, which has 14 retail locations nationwide, and at least as many in the works.

Over the years, Sidney and Cabela’s have partnered through tax increment financing, or TIF, and the city has allowed other tax incentives for the retailer.

It’s the kind of public/private partnership on which the publicly traded company – which boasts of “destination retail” – seems to have thrived over the last two decades.

And while the partnership seems also to be a recipe for economic rejuvenation in many communities nationwide, Cabela’s Hooksett plan calls more aggressively for public funding than have other Cabela’s projects.

On May 9, voting day, residents will decide whether to approve spending $18 million for a host of infrastructure improvements to Interstate 93’s Exit 11 area to support a Cabela’s store and commercial developments anticipated to follow.

Of that $18 million, $4.5 would go toward infrastructure, like water precinct and sewer upgrades, for the town.

The remainder – which includes $2 million for access through state-owned property, and $4 million for Cabela’s museum elements – would be devoted to roadwork and infrastructure around Hackett Hill and the Cabela’s site.

Cabela’s representatives have said the company plans to guarantee any payments on the bond, to prevent any risks to Hooksett’s taxpayers. It’s a strategy regularly used by Cabela’s, representatives of which have said the company won’t move forward with the Hooksett project if voters reject the bond.

Off the interstate between Austin and San Antonio, Texas, the city of Buda approved a $36 million tax zone with Cabela’s as the anchor tenant.

The city floated bonds to cover improvements to roads, water systems, and a water tower that all connect to a 126- acre Cabela’s property that was mostly undeveloped ranch land.

“There were 25 attorneys that worked on this project,” said Warren Ketteman, executive director of the Buda Economic Development Corporation. “This thing was scrubbed 14 ways to Sunday.”

The Buda store opened just last year, but Ketteman said several restaurants and a Wal-Mart Supercenter are already joining the economic development party in, or next to, the city’s special tax zone.

“We’re already seeing a lot of that spin-off,” said Ketteman.

Ketteman said, however, that Cabela’s – and the retailers that tend to come in its wake – don’t necessarily reflect idyllic economic growth.

“Do they pay $100,000 a year? No,” said Ketteman. “But retail’s going to follow the rooftops.”

In 2000, the city of Mitchell, Neb., issued a $5 million bond to support its Cabela’s, which has “spurred a whole new retail district,” said Mitchell finance officer Marilyn Wilson.

Wilson said the city’s assessed valuation has jumped from $343 million to $512 million since the Cabela’s store opened in 2000.

Little more than 200 miles down the interstate east of Sidney is Kearney, Neb., where Cabela’s opened a retail venue in 1987.

Ron Tillery, from the Economic Development Council of Buffalo County, Neb., said that store opened in the days before Cabela’s made a practice of securing public financing. The company did purchase the discounted building from a nonprofit economic development corporation, after the previous owner, a pump manufacturer, went under, said Tillery.

The Kearney store – despite being only 40,000 square feet, about one-third the size of the proposed Hooksett store – still draws about 800,000 visitors annually.

Tillery said the store is in an industrial area of Kearney, but that it has created some new opportunities for other Kearney business owners.

“We’ve had some enterprising business owners do very well when they find a way to use Cabela’s as a marketing tool,” said Tillery.

In 1998, the city of East Grand Forks, Minn., used a $7 million chunk of mostly federal restoration money following a devastating flood, to recruit Cabela’s.

“(The store’s) been a main focus point for the rebuilding of our downtown,” said Ryan Brooks, head of the East Grand Forks planning department. “It takes up a whole city block.”

East Grand Forks shares circumstance with Hooksett in that it borders a much larger city, Grand Forks, N.D.

The spin-off businesses from Cabela’s, said Brooks has mostly benefited the larger town, which sits just across the Red River from East Grand Forks.

“I don’t know if it’s been that economic boon for us,” said Brooks.

But, said Brooks, “It definitely gives us a little more of an identity.”

Hooksett residents, many of whom still have unanswered questions about Hooksett’s $18 million plan, will determine its fate on Tuesday, May 9, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Cawley Middle School.

Representatives of Cabela’s are hosting informational sessions at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 20, and Wednesday, May 3, at Memorial School, and on Tuesday, May 2, at Robie’s Country Store.