Manitowoc County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer is planning to be at the City Council meeting this evening, to encourage them to strike down the creation of TIF District #22. Zigelbauer claims that Mayor Nickels, and County Board Chairman Jim Brey have broken a promise that was made to not create the Tax Incremental Financing District in the area that the Meijer Department Store is planned to be built on. According to Mayor Nickels, “There is no, and never was an agreement between the city and any other entity that there would never be a TIF District over the Meijer development… Our comments only state that the land Meijer is buying (back in 2016) was not currently in a TIF District.” He did give the County Executive the benefit of the doubt, saying “The sale back in 2016 was controversial and there were many moving parts.” In defending the creation of the district, Nickels concluded, “The city believes there are several legitimate reasons for doing this and that there have been several changes since the time Meijer first purchased the property.” One of the biggest changes the Mayor alluded to was the size of the store, which began at 190,000 sq ft, and has since shrunk to under 160,000 sq ft.
