CENTERVILLE—The Davis School District Board of Education approved a CRA (Community Reinvestment Area) with Centerville City at last month’s board meeting for a new 80,000 square foot Young Powersports Mall to be built along the frontage road south of Kohl’s. The district is one of the taxing entities on the property as well as the county. 

The property has a $6 million value now but the assessed value at the end of the 15 year CRA is $17 million, said Centerville Assistant City Manager Jacob Smith. “We have interlocal agreements for a site specific CRA. The participation rate for all taxing entities is 50 percent.”

There’s a warehouse building and containers all stacked up along that road right now, said Smith. “There are weeds all over the place. It’s a blighted area. It’s in a flood zone, so Young Powersports will have to come in and do some clean up and remediation.”

Smith said they have been in talks since last summer. “They let us know that they’d like to develop the area into a Young Powersports Mall. They’ll sell ATVs, trailers, etc. and do repairs on ATVs.”

It will bring more traffic down the frontage road that will help businesses there, he said. “We’ve had a difficult time keeping tenants. This will create some synergy with the businesses in the area.”

“It’s a big investment they’re making,” said Centerville Mayor Clark Wilkinson. “It evolved into a larger project than when it first started. It should be the largest Powersports Mall west of the Mississippi.”

Young Powersports had been looking at a site in Ogden as well, said Wilkinson. “They could have gone to Ogden for cheaper but they liked this location and wanted a presence south.”

Centerville is in between the Salt Lake and Ogden markets, he said. “We wanted them here too. They’ve kind of been Davis County players here.”

It will be purely retail and bring in 60 good paying jobs, said Smith. “The CRA is a long term investment into the community. It will generate three times as much property tax over 15 years as opposed to not doing anything.”

If the property wasn’t developed the district and county would receive property taxes anyway, he said. “They can say no and they wouldn’t be included. They’d collect the full amount they would have normally received on that property. But the county and district could see the value of putting it back into the development. Everyone benefits from it.”

In 15 years it goes back to normal for each of the entities from that point forward, said Smith. “The 50 percent would go away.”

“This is nice for us,” said Wilkinson. “It will bring in sales and property tax dollars. The long term forecast over the next four to five years is a potential of $62 million in growth sales, $400,000 of that would come to the city each year.”

They’ve been good partners so far, he said. “They were big sponsors of our 4th of July celebration. It’s a really good team. They’ve done a good job reaching out to us. They asked for our help in naming it. It’s been a fun project.”

The Powersports Mall is expected to be completed by 2023, said Smith. “All I’ve heard is support and excitement for it to come in.” λ