Municipal bonds are part of an Illinois city's plan to help the local casino build a bigger venue at a new location.
In its current form, Aurora's Hollywood Casino occupies a barge tethered near downtown on the Fox River. The city wants to build a brand new casino resort about five miles away, near an outlet mall and an exit to Interstate 88, about 35 miles from Chicago.
The total cost of the project is estimated at $360 million. Aurora officials want to loan the casino operator, Penn Entertainment, $50 million up front.
The city's $50 million will come from a taxable bond issue, with the bonds paid back using revenues from the increment of one of
The debt will be issued as general obligation bonds, with the intent that revenue from the TIF district will support debt service, according to a
The city plans to price the bonds mid-February and hopes to close at the end of the month, according to Aurora Chief Financial Officer Christopher Minick.
Aurora's redevelopment agreement with Penn stipulates that a minimum of $5,250,000 in incremental tax revenue must be provided beginning in 2026. The casino operator has an obligation to pay for any shortage of incremental revenue below $5,250,000. That guarantee applies as long as the bonds are outstanding, Aurora's Minick said.
"The Farnsworth-Bilter TIF area was comprised of a combination of vacant properties and various businesses," he said. "The area was determined to meet several factors for establishment of the TIF district and had not drawn any new economic development prospects prior to the casino development. Several businesses had closed or become underutilized. Additionally, various parcels were generating high volumes of calls for police services."
TIF districts work on the assumption that the development activity they help finance will increase property values — and, in some cases, sales tax revenues — in the area in question. By freezing property values at current levels, taxing those gains and spending the difference (or increment) on public or private development, the reasoning goes, local governments can incentivize economic activity in the present.
The districts can tap that incremental growth on a pay-as-you-go TIF basis, in which the city reimburses a developer for eligible expenses as the proceeds from the local TIF district's real estate tax increment come in.
Alternately, cities can issue upfront loans to developers using general funds or bonds backed by TIF district increments. The latter is what Aurora is doing.
"You don't see a ton of general fund financing anymore; it's almost exclusively bond-backed, and that's only because places tend to not have a lot of cash that they can commit," said Toby Rittner, president and CEO of the Council of Development Finance Agencies. "The third option would be, the developer funds the project themselves, and then pay them back from the tax increment as you go along. There are thousands of that type of transaction every year."
Proponents of TIF districts argue that the development necessary to improve blighted areas wouldn't happen without those public investments from TIF funds. Detractors contend that TIF districts allow officials to redirect tax gains that would otherwise go to local government bodies, and they can sometimes result in higher budget volatility.
"TIF can significantly constrain an organization's ability to generate tax revenues, [and] once a TIF is crafted, it can be very difficult to change the terms or cancel the agreement, especially if bonds have already been issued and the various interests in the flow of funds have been established," the Government Finance Officers Association
In a
Merriman also wrote that studies of TIF's effects on school finance suggest it should be used "cautiously" so as not to starve local school districts or other local governments of revenue.
"[TIF districts] typically change the location of development rather than create new development," Merriman told The Bond Buyer. "Often they subsidize development more than is necessary since the municipality that decides on the level of the subsidy gets some of the revenue from overlying governments like school districts."
In Aurora's case, the Batavia Unit District 101 school board in October
Merriman said the school district "is taking a risk" with the agreement because it has given up some level of control.
Other area municipalities have created TIF districts to fund casino development, albeit not along the same lines as Aurora's deal. The village of Homewood in Chicago's south suburbs last June approved
Under that deal, the casino operator, Wind Creek Hospitality, can apply for reimbursement of relevant development costs, but neither Homewood nor neighboring East Hazel Crest are required to make up any shortfall in incremental casino and parking garage tax revenues that may occur.
The Aurora City Council modified the West Farnsworth TIF district in its Dec. 12 meeting and approved the new TIF district in a final vote on Jan. 23. Penn plans for the new casino development to include 1,200 gaming positions, a retail sportsbook, an outdoor entertainment area, a new hotel with 220 rooms, bars, restaurants and a 12,000-square-foot event center, according to
The council's finance
Local opposition to the new casino TIF district has coalesced into an
The petition charges city officials with giving "a handout to the already wealthy that we cannot afford." It argues that property taxes are being "handed over to millionaires" rather than going to, say, local public schools. Penn reported $6.401 billion in revenues and $2.8 billion in outstanding debts in its
"It's a valid concern," said Rittner. "You absolutely want to make sure your cities are doing their due diligence and their but-for tests… We're not Pollyanna. If you're going to use public finance tools, you've got to make sure that you're including everybody in the community and you're talking about the impact. You just have to trust that the city's doing their due diligence, and that should all be open for the public to examine."
A but-for test is a standard that public officials have to meet to justify creating a TIF district, so named because they must be able to defend the statement, "This development would not occur but for the proposed TIF district."
A representative of Ryan, LLC, a Dallas-based tax services firm,
On
UIC's Merriman said TIF districts today have evolved beyond their original purpose of helping blighted communities. But Rittner said the evolution he's seen has been "great" for municipalities.
"In the late '90s, around the country, [TIF] wasn't used in the most judicious manner," he said. "There wasn't a lot of analysis, there wasn't a lot of due diligence. Cities were pretty loose with their policies… But the evolution has significantly changed since the Great Recession. Because now cities have to look at these deals with more scrutiny. And the big thing that's changed is that pay-as-you-go approach. That's a total shift. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't have seen a single city do pay-as-you-go financing."
He added that Aurora may be taking more risk with its approach, but "they must feel good about it." Aurora's Minick said they do.
"Borrowing for the obligation made a lot of sense given the structure of the redevelopment agreement and the ability to cover debt service on the bonds from incremental revenues," he said.
When Illinois
S&P Global Ratings rates the city of Aurora
Construction on the new casino began in November. The inland location is slated to open its doors in late 2025 or early 2026.
