(The Center Square) — Taxpayers in Harrison County will help pay to build a new Buc-ee’s travel center, the first in Mississippi.
The 46-store, Texas-based chain will build a 74,000-square-foot store on the site off Interstate 10 between Long Beach and Delisle and offer 120 gas pumps and 24 charging stations for electric vehicles. The company says the store is expected to open next spring and it will be similar to a new store in Sevierville, Tennessee.
Buc-ee’s is supposed to be the centerpiece of a new development that includes a larger interstate overpass and a new industrial park that is to be built north of the travel center site.
Company CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin III said his company needs help from state and local governments to construct the travel centers.
“Normally, it takes help because they are so expensive to build,” Aplin said. “If you see what we’re doing here on the interstate, it is a complete redoing of the interchange. It’s just too expensive without help from the community, the city, the county and the state. The state stepped up here and really made this project happen, as did the county. This is a big project and it is public infrastructure and it improves the entire interchange.”
John C. Mozena, president of The Center for Economic Accountability, says that while policymakers often tell constituents that a business like Buc-ee’s wouldn’t relocate to a particular site without subsidies, he says they are inherently limited in where they can build a profitable store. He also says since Buc-ee’s is a one-stop shopping destination – which includes clothing, snacks, barbecue and other items – it removes the likelihood that travelers will patronize nearby businesses.
“Politicians justify these deals because they claim the subsidies are necessary to create jobs and will encourage further development,” Mozena said. “But these kinds of subsidies are a perfect example of how those claims only look at the benefits and not at the costs.
“Building a new Buc-ee’s doesn’t increase the number of cars on the freeway, or make anyone in those cars hungrier or thirstier. So, anyone who stops at a subsidized gas station to fill up and grab a meal or a snack would have been doing that at some other, existing gas station beforehand.”
Buc-ee’s is estimated to be worth more than $500 million, and Alphin’s net worth is estimated at more than $300 million.
On Aug. 17, 2022, the Harrison County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a tax increment financing package for the project that could add up to $25 million for the Buc-ee’s facility and an associated mixed-use development. Tax increment financing diverts the increase in assessed property value to finance a development.
The new Harrison County location isn’t the only Buc-ee’s that is receiving money from taxpayers. According to AL.com, the Loxley, Alabama, location received a deal in 2019 that included a 20 years to allow Buc-ee’s to keep 37.5% of the sales tax revenue generated there, along with 25% of the gas tax proceeds.
Also in Alabama, the Athens location in the northern part of the state received a $750,000 grant in 2021 from the Appalachian Regional Commission for infrastructure related to the travel center located off Interstate 65.
