A growing number of malls and big-box retailers around Southwestern Pennsylvania and the nation say they will remain closed on Thanksgiving Day. Thus, they’ll be nipping in the early bloom (if not the bud) what had been a growing trend to get a head start on Black Friday, the traditional start to the Christmas shopping season.
The giant Mall of America was among the first to reverse course. And as the Tribune-Review reports, Monroeville and Westmoreland malls are among those to follow suit. Those malls are owned and operated by CBL & Associates Properties.
A spokesman said the company not only wants everyone to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving Day, it wants “to bring back the excitement of Black Friday,” which, because of increasing online sales, has been losing its luster for a number of years.
However, it will be up to mall stores with their own exterior entrances to make their own decision — and a number of them say they’ll be open on Turkey Day.
Many other malls in Greater Pittsburgh still will be fully open at some point on Thanksgiving. But a growing number of big boxers say they, too, will honor the holiday and wait for Black Friday.
Retailers have argued for years that consumers wanted Thanksgiving Day shopping; the crowds drawn were proof-positive, they said. And considering Christmas sales account for nearly 20 percent of all holiday sales, and that Internet sales were hurting bricks-and-mortar sales, Thanksgiving operations were seen as something of an insurance policy.
But given that so much of the American economy these days is a service economy, a growing number of workers had been losing at least a part of their traditional holiday. And while work and leisure always is a balancing act, perhaps — just perhaps — more retailers are discovering that a happy workforce is a far more productive workforce that better serves the bottom line.
Pittsburgh City Council could consider by year’s end legislation that would create a fund for “affordable housing.” But the Post-Gazette’s Kate Giammarise says the proposal doesn’t say how the fund would be funded. Which isn’t a very good way to “legislate.”
That said, housing advocates point to the Philadelphia Housing Trust Fund as their model. They detail what appears to be an impressive track record there over the last decade — the building or rehabilitation of more than 1,400 houses, more than 2,200 major home repairs and preventing 2,700 households from becoming homeless, the newspaper reports.
Philadelphia’s housing fund is paid for by a surcharge for each new deed and mortgage recorded. And a similar system likely would be employed for the Pittsburgh fund. That’s how a smaller Allegheny County program is funded.
But all has not gone swimmingly in Philadelphia. A few years ago, a combination of lower deed and mortgage transfers (because of the recession) and budget cuts pinched the fund. That said, as the economy rebounded, the Philadelphia fund did, too. For fiscal 2015, the fund (counting interest earned) was valued at just under $12 million.
Housing trust funds have been around for many years nationwide. And they can be used as matching money to garner state and federal tax dollars.
Still, it would be wise for Pittsburgh to succinctly spell out a funding source for its proposed housing trust fund in pending legislation. Unfunded mandates have a nasty habit of being full of surprises.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto says he wants to end a climate of awarding government contracts and tax incentives that’s based more on political clout than on merit.
That’s laudable, of course. But whether the mayor’s blueprint to replace it is merely another form of government improperly attempting to command the economy is a most serious question.
As the Tribune-Review’s Natasha Lindstrom reports, Mr. Peduto says that, beginning early next year, a 12-point set of criteria — created with input from hundreds of regional stakeholders — will guide decision-making on city contracts and investments.
Uh-oh.
“We’re simply not looking for what projects will make money,” Peduto said, “but what projects will enhance our environment, give everyone an opportunity to benefit from it, and to create a Pittsburgh that’s true to its roots.”
Uh-oh.
That certainly doesn’t sound much like the kind of “open market” with which the mayor promises to replace the closed market rife with crony capitalism. The always economy-depressing concept of “social justice and equity” looms large here. As does the always dubious idea of “central planning.”
Indeed, let’s rid Pittsburgh’s economic development system of political back-scratching. And, at the same time, let’s stop turning taxpayers into venture capitalists to cover capital costs that developers alone should bear.
But replacing it with a system in which government and “stakeholders” make decisions that should be left — and are better left — to the marketplace likely will result in an even worse failure.
Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority will divert $3.2 million in parking taxes “to help fund public space improvements and preservation efforts” at the iconic Union Trust Building, the Post-Gazette’s Mark Belko reports.
The Davis Companies of Boston have spent $100 million rehabilitating the historic structure built by industrialist Henry Clay Frick and completed nearly 100 years ago.
The idea is to divert 75 percent of taxes generated by the building’s new 190-space basement parking garage over the next 18 years, the newspaper reports. That money would pay for new sidewalks, curbs and exterior lighting, among other things.
As long as the money is used for true “public infrastructure,” this likely is an acceptable use of taxpayer dollars. After all, the public — and public tax dollars — would have to be employed for these very things anyway.
Such dollars, however, never should be used for capital costs that should be borne by the developer or, in this case, the redeveloper.
Colin McNickle, is a senior fellow and media specialist for the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org
