Lazarus is Kaput, But Public Subsidies Live On

In the late 1990s the City of Pittsburgh gambled that building a new Downtown Lazarus department store would revitalize the crumbling Fifth and Forbes corridor. To make that happen, $48 million in incentives were used to build the store and a new underground parking garage. On top of that, favorable terms on some of the incentives—such as the store having to achieve very high per square foot sales in order to trigger loan repayments—were awarded to the store’s owners that shielded them from paying back portions of the public money. Continue