Cabela’s Fails to Live Up to Promise

Gee. 

A few years ago, Washington County officials thought a $4 million lure, in the form of a subsidy to outdoor gear retailer Cabela’s, would help snare jobs and tax revenue.

But so far, this fish story is more like the one that got away.

After Cabela’s Inc. opened a huge store in Owatonna, Minn., the city of 23,000 lured a lot of nearby developments: a Comfort Inn and a Holiday Inn with an indoor water park; sit-down restaurants, including Famous Dave’s BBQ and Timber Lodge Steakhouse; and outlet stores such as Slumberland and Russell Stover candy.

But the Milwaukee-area Cabela’s has drawn few retailers since that 165,000-square-foot store opened in September 2006.

There’s a large Ashley Furniture store and a convenience store, which both opened in 2008, north of Cabela’s in the Washington County community of Richfield. There’s also a small strip center that, to date, has landed just two tenants: a Hallman Lindsay paint store and Peaceful Pets, which provides pet funeral services. Both opened last year.

That’s it. No hotels. No restaurants. No outlet stores.

I fought hard against the handout at the time (as did Doug Ziegler who is running for school board).  Since then Cabela’s did not create the jobs in its own business that it promised and has not been an engine for development.  Can the taxpayers get a refund?