2023. Sincerely, Tony Contreras
First, I'd like to congratulate the Town of Apple Valley again on acquiring the donation of what used to be the AMC movie theater property in Apple Valley off of Bear Valley Rd and Central Rd. That's a great accomplishment to be proud of and one that the City Council and its staff helped make possible. It's not very often that a Town gets put in a position where it can affect real change to a specific part of the Town or, in this case, District 4, given where the buildings located that got donated to the Town and the amount of influence its donation can have on the whole District if used in a manner that will benefit not only the Town but the Townspeople as well by using it to attract a new big name anchor Tenant.
On your last Council meeting on June 27th, Council Woman Kari Leon mentioned that the Town would be open to taking suggestions from the townspeople on what they'd like to see built there and in thinking about what would make the most sense in that part of Town and what I believe would most benefit the Town as well as the surrounding area and its residents in my humble opinion would be for the Town to try and attract a Big Name Chain Retailer to anchor that shopping center, leasing it out to another much-needed and much-asked-for Costco or perhaps a Sam's Club if Costco wants to avoid taking advantage of putting another muchneeded location in Apple Valley for its members. Since Costco only has one other store for the whole high desert area in Victorville, this would make a perfect additional location for them.
Sam's Club's nearest store location is in Ontario and nowhere in the high desert. They would make an excellent alternative to shoppers up here in direct competition with Costco, and whenever big-name retailers compete over customers, it's always the customer who wins.
Now, if those two big Chain retailers don't work out, a Super Target or Super Walmart would also fit perfectly in that location. No matter which of the four big retailers mentioned decides to take up on the Towns offer of leasing that building, either of those four retailers will more than attract much-needed sales tax dollars from this part of Town and for Apple Valley. Being that the Town was fortunate enough to receive this property as a donation to the Town, it leaves the Town in a one of a kind position of being able to afford to offer more than advantageous triple net lease terms to attract any of the four retailers that they can get being that they can afford to provide whatever lease terms that are needed in the first couple of years to help secure a 20 plus year tenant if not longer. Add to that renewal options for more years to come in the future along with yearly inflation cost rent increases built into each lease, along with factoring in that either retailer would be paying for all of their own reconstruction cost to convert the AMC Movie Theater into a more recognizable storefront location for themselves on top of paying whatever amount of rent the Town deems acceptable for a building of that size and that they would also be responsible for all of the yearly tax, insurance, and maintenance cost of maintaining the building and area making this an almost if not pure profit income lease for the Town. The Town could then funnel those profits from the lease back into the property to complete the rest of the storefronts on the east side to get those incomplete buildings leased out and ready to earn rental income and additional sales tax revenue for the Town.
Once construction is complete on those remaining buildings, the Town can then approach more big-chain retailers because the Town would have a Big-Name Anchor Tenant to help attract other big-name retailers to the area, such as Ross, Burlington Coat Factory, and Marshalls, along with perhaps a new Gym or Planet Fitness to the site. All of these retailers would also be triple net leases, essentially costing the Town $0 in additional tax, insurance, or maintenance cost fees with the added benefit of increasing sales tax numbers and therefore also increasing the Towns tax revenues as well as adding to the amount of money the Town would collect in additional rent revenue with these newly added tenants. Now while those two benefits alone to the Town are huge enough in that it would give the Town a monthly and yearly rental revenue to look forward to each month and year, essentially making the Town the landlord for a newly rebuilt shopping center along with sales tax revenues generated from the millions in additional sales that the Town would get a piece of in the percentage of sales tax dollars that would come back to the Town would be a huge benefit and income stream to the Town as well.
As good as those two benefits are alone, they would not be the end of the additional benefits the Town would receive from doing this. In addition, it would also receive these ten benefits to name a few;
1) New, good, high-paying jobs for all residents of the local area, Apple Valley, and the high desert area in general.
2) Many new minimum wage jobs will also need to be filled for every one of these newly built big-name chain retailer locations.
3) This new location will Reinvigorate and stimulate much-needed new business and population growth for the area now known as District 4 due to the very nature of what these kinds of companies bring with them regarding convenience and popularity when built. 4) This, in turn, will increase property tax values, which will increase property tax revenue for the Town and real estate appreciation and equity growth for all the local property-owning residents of the Town.
5) Whichever big-name chain retailer the Town attracts to this area to take over the previous AMC theater would help to attract other new businesses to the site as well, setting off a chain of events that will have started with just this one new significant anchor tenant coming to this part of Town and acting like a catalyst for new business growth to this whole District. 6) The extra sales tax revenue and rental income earned from the new retail store should be used first to improve the rentable space of the other incomplete buildings to attract other bigname tenants and increase rental income and extra sales tax revenue for the Town. 7) After the complete construction of all buildings on the property and the new buildings get leased for the newly rebuilt shopping center, then the extra revenues this shopping center produces should first be spent in District 4 to improve this area's infrastructure. First, by paving dirt roads into fully working, commutable streets and extending sewer, water, and electricity, gas, cable, and fiber networks before those streets get paved while sewer is getting put in to increase efficiency and decrease the cost by doing multiple things simultaneously. 8) Doing this will increase the livability of this area of Town, that's more rural in nature than most of the other parts of Apple Valley, which will, in turn, bring lots of small and medium-sized developers to the area that will develop even more new homes that all of the new employees who get jobs in the area will want to live in so that they can commute closer to work from home which will, in turn, increase the number of homes and residents to the area which will also, in turn, increase the amount of home property tax revenues the Town receives while also growing sales tax dollars that will be spent in District four by all of its new residents. 9) The Increased revenue that the Town will receive from the triple net leases, which will essentially be expense-free since the tenants will be paying the taxes, insurance, and maintenance cost making a new pure profit income stream to the Town in the rental fees charged from the new triple net leases.
10) The millions in additional Sales Tax revenue dollars generated from all of the extra sales these retailers will generate in Town, producing quite a large chunk of additional tax revenue dollars for the Town each year.
Now while the last two mentioned on the top 10 list of reasons why this makes sense were also the first two reasons mentioned at the beginning of this speech, their contribution to this part of Town cannot be understated. Therefore, they got added to the list for obvious reasons. I'd also like to point out that this area of Town, now known as District 4, needs as much help as it can get in attracting and retaining new business and residential growth judging by the failure of not only one but, I believe three movie theater chains in a row, with AMC being the last. All of these theaters were not able to survive because of the lack of residential growth in the area of District 4, along with District 4's overall reduction in residential development and loss of hundreds of residents leaving District 4 over the last ten years, evidenced by Apple Valley's demographic numbers shown to the public when Redistricting was up for debate last year in 2022.
Now if I knew for sure if this property got donated to the Town with any conditions, then I would know if my suggestion for this part of the Town was even possible if the Town agreed with my opinion. But I need to know everything about the donated property's conditions to suggest the best viable option for this area of Town, and I don't. But given what I know about this area needing new business and residential growth and the Town's need to increase its future income, I believe my suggestion kills many birds with one proverbial stone, as the adage goes.
Sincerely, Tony Contreras