Cabela’s doesn’t need a Community Improvement District (CID) from the City of Wichita to justify building a store in this market. I can’t imagine that this company hasn’t done its’ due diligence prior to announcing plans to build a store in northeast Wichita.
Companies like Cabela’s invest thousands upon thousands of dollars researching market demographics and spending habits. They see enough Wichita zip codes at the cash registers in their closest store in Kansas City, Kansas to know that if they build it, we will come.
If they didn’t want, or NEED to build here, they wouldn’t. Cabela’s wants to expand, and Wichita is the only logical place in the Midwest/Southwest with the population to support it. And let’s not forget, Cabela’s is the consolation prize, and not the Bass Pro that everyone wanted in the first place. This isn’t a convenience store in a blighted neighborhood, or a hotel chain looking to reduce the cost of an antique rehab job in the downtown core area. Cabela’s will not be a destination location like the one next to the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, and it will not draw shoppers to Wichita that weren’t coming already. And you must realize that the jobs they create will be largely be part-time, paying minimum wage salaries.
Cabela’s can afford to build here without a CID. They know it. The City Council knows it. And now, you know it too. The Wichita City Council should treat them like we do any other developer, making them pay special assessments for services like access roads, sewer and water service. It’s time for Wichita to stop “giving away the farm”, instead of falling for this sportsman’s paradise excuses “hook, line and sinker”.
