At Cabela's 20th anniversary in Berks, tax revenue to jump

Oct. 9—When Cabela's chose Berks County as the spot for its first East Coast store 20 years ago, the project spurred very different opinions locally.

Some welcomed the megastore for the tax revenue it would bring, the visitors it would attract to other nearby businesses, and the shopping opportunities it would provide for outdoors enthusiasts.

Others lamented the loss of undeveloped land where the store was built in Tilden Township, worried about extra traffic, and criticized the tax deal that allowed the company to redirect about $20 million in taxes toward public infrastructure improvements the project would require.

That tax deal expired in October, and now that local officials have had time to assess Cabela's impact, they say the store has been beneficial for the area. It serves as a tourist attraction, has drawn numerous other businesses, and will now supply much more in tax payments to Berks County, Tilden and the Hamburg School District.

"It's been a game-changer," said Berks commissioner Christian Y. Leinbach. "It's been good for Berks County."

Tax incentive

When Cabela's was searching for an East Coast location in 2000 and 2001, the store was highly sought by numerous communities, including Berks.

Among those potential sites was a patch of farmland along Route 61 in Tilden close to the Interstate 78 interchange on Route 61, but local and state officials agreed the company would not choose that site without a tax incentive.

So they negotiated with Cabela's and approved the 20-year deal in which most of the taxes it would owe to the school district, township and county would instead go toward infrastructure improvements needed for the store to open.

The company therefore paid its full tax amount each year, but about two-thirds of it went toward a bond that funded those major infrastructure upgrades, said Jeremy Zabrowski, executive director of the Berks County Industrial Development Authority, which administered the arrangement.

Chief among those improvements was the highway reconfiguration that PennDOT approved near the store's entrance on Route 61 to accommodate the increase in traffic.

Spurred growth

Officials predicted Cabela's would draw more businesses to the site, and that commercial development has come to fruition.

The Tilden Ridge shopping center now includes about 20 other businesses, with Walmart, Lowe's, Aldi's and several restaurant chains, such as Red Robin, Five Guys and Logan's Roadhouse.

Before Cabela's and those businesses opened, property taxes generated from the area were $140,000 a year, with roughly $107,000 of that going to the school district, $30,600 going to the county and $2,600 to the township, Zabrowski said.

In 2022, the assessed value was over 14 times that, with Cabela's and the other businesses in the Tax Incremental Financing zone that was created generating nearly $2 million in property taxes, much of which went to pay off the infrastructure project.

Some businesses in Tilden Ridge are outside that zone and provide additional tax revenue, having paid their full share the entire time.

This year, with the deal ended, the taxing bodies will retain the full benefit of the Tilden Ridge development with more than $1.5 million going to the school district, $433,000 going to Berks, and $37,000 going to the township annually, Zabrowski said.

The school district's annual budget is about $54 million, so that money will be a big help this year and going forward, said business manager Heather Zimmerman.

"It's going to be very nice to keep the whole assessment," she said. "In my opinion it (Cabela's) and the surrounding development have been very beneficial."

Though Tilden is receiving a much smaller share than the school district and county, it also will benefit from the money, said Dorothy McLaughlin, township tax collector.

"For us it's been positive," she said of Cabela's opening in the township. "And now the people here don't have to drive to Reading to go to Walmart or those other stores. It's made it much more convenient for people."

Leinbach remembers the protests about the Cabela's tax deal, with people saying smaller companies didn't get similar tax breaks.

"They called it corporate welfare," he said.

Some surely still think the deal was a mistake, he acknowledged.

But he believes it was the only way to bring Cabela's here, and that it's been worth the tax concessions.

The highway upgrades have provided a great benefit to motorists, Leinbach said.

And even the partial revenue that the taxing bodies have been receiving for the last 20 years has been much more than they would have gotten with the land still undeveloped and Cabela's and the subsequent businesses in place, he said.

A store and more

Cabela's store is now actually owned by Bass Pro Shops, which bought the Cabela's chain in 2017, but that switch in ownership has not drastically changed it from a customer perspective, said Ed Bartolotta, who has managed the store for the last seven years.

At 250,000 square feet the Tilden store remains the biggest Cabela's has built, but it is no longer the lone East Coast store. Since it arrived, Cabela's have also opened in Christiana, Del.; East Hartford, Conn.; Scarborough, Maine; and Berlin, Mass.

The Tilden store employs 350, a mix of full- and part-timers. That is less than the 500 or more workers it had when the store opened, but Bartolotta said it took time for the company to figure out how many customers it would attract, he said.

Of those current employees, 27 have been there from the beginning. Bartolotta said that type of longevity is uncommon in retail, and speaks to the work environment Cabela's provides and also the staff's love of outdoor recreation.

"It's not just what they do. It's who they are," he said.

Tammy Frantz, 50, of Strausstown, a general sales manager, has been there from when she started 20 years ago as a cashier. She has worked her way up through about 10 positions since then, and said a big part of her job's appeal is sharing outdoor recreation stories with customers.

"It's the culture here. I love talking to people about their passions," said Frantz, a pheasant hunter.

Lori Spotts, 61, of Schuylkill Haven has been a retail representative in the Cabela's Club booth near the store's entrance since the beginning, and said that focus on outdoor recreation is what drew her there.

"It's a great atmosphere," she said. "I love the people."

The retail industry has changed greatly in the two decades since Cabela's opened in Berks, Bartolotta said, with online shopping and particularly Amazon's influence continuing to grow.

But there continues to be many who enjoy coming to the store, he said, even viewing it as an attraction because of its large aquarium, mountain of taxidermied animals, trophy deer room and other unique features.

Leinbach agreed, saying he takes visiting family and guests there because they find it interesting.

Bartolotta said the store also works to be a good community partner.

For example, he said, its in-store pond serves as a state fish nursery. Several hundred golden rainbow trout are usually on display there, brought there by the state Fish and Boat Commission when they are young. After they have grown they are stocked in local waterways and replaced at the store.

Little benefit in Hamburg

Deena Kershner is director of the Our Town Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to revitalize, promote, and preserve downtown Hamburg, and has watched Cabela's impact closely.

She said that when the store opened, there was hope in Hamburg that many would visit the downtown, but for the most part businesses there have not benefitted.

While some do drive downtown from the store, the vast majority instead get right back on the highway and go home or continue to their next destination, she said. The foundation has a rack of brochures at Cabela's entrance to make customers aware of local attractions, but it hasn't drawn as many people downtown as was hoped, she said.

"They still don't realize the town is a mile away," she said. "I don't know what more we can do."

And for every person who does head downtown from Cabela's, many more are drawn to other Tilden Ridge businesses, which has been hurtful to numerous downtown stores, she said.

For example, the Doris Berry Shop, a women's store, has closed, and Dietrich's Men's Shop and Miller's 5 and 10 have also gone out of business in recent years.

Several downtown business owners said they don't see an influx of Cabela's customers, with those who do stop in often being the wives of men shopping at the outdoors store.

Amelia Rivera, who along with husband Ismael Rivera Jr. own Know;Body Botanicals and Apothecary, a natural healing store in Hamburg, said she recently spoke with other business owners who wished more Cabela's customers found the downtown.

"They don't realize what a nice small town we have and all the things we have to offer," she said.