PRINT THIS STORY:

CHANGE TEXT SIZE:

BIGGER FISH

Indian tribe looks beyond salmon fishing to retail for prosperity

BY SASCHA BRODSKY

The Tulalip tribe has been gathering salmon for thousands of years along the pine-forested shores of Washington State’s Puget Sound. Every June, they dance to celebrate the silvery fish’s arrival on its migration route.

Salmon is a hard way to make a living these days, however. So the Tulalip, like an increasing number of tribes, are luring a new catch — shopping centers — to their land in an effort to bring in more money. Their haul: Chelsea Property Group will soon open an outlet mall on the reservation.

Most people think of casinos when it comes to big business on Native American reservations. But more developers faced with a land squeeze are looking at tribal land to build shopping centers. And tribes see shopping centers as a chance to diversify their economies beyond the spinning of roulette wheels.

The income from such projects is driving a minor economic boom on the 331 reservations spanning 55 million acres in the United States. In 2003, leases on tribal land generated about $42 million in 2003, up from almost $28 million in 2000, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A recent study by Harvard University confirmed the perception that casinos are bringing in a lot of money for tribes. More surprisingly, the study also found that even the incomes of tribes without casinos are growing at a rate three times faster than the rest of the U.S.

Despite the progress, tribes still have a long way to go, said one of the study’s authors, Harvard Professor Joseph Kalt. “Even if the tremendous growth we saw continues,” he told SCT, “it still will take nearly 50 years for American Indians to catch up in terms of their incomes and quality of life with other Americans.”

One advantage tribes have over state and local governments in attracting businesses is their ability to streamline the process of getting permits, Kalt said. And tribal governments don’t pay taxes on businesses they own. “That savings can be passed on to someone leasing property,” he added.

In years past, the private sector was put off by the fact that many tribal governments were known for their layers of bureaucracy.

“But tribes have systematically taken control of their own affairs,” Kalt said. “They have been weaned off grant programs and they are getting more sophisticated in the way they attract businesses. It’s gotten to the point where private businesses can now deal more effectively with tribes than with state and local governments.”

A case in point is the Tulalip tribe. Tribal Chairman Stanley G. Jones Sr. told SCT that the tribe actively recruited Chelsea in a multiyear campaign to get the developer to build on reservation land. Chelsea’s mall on Tulalip land will have 100 to 120 designer and name-brand stores on 47 acres north of the new tribal casino. The lease agreement, which extends for 75 years, should bring the tribal government $1.2 million annually. The retail development, to be called Seattle Premium Outlets, is expected to provide about 300 jobs when construction begins this spring, including work for tribal members.

Chelsea was close-lipped about its plans, but a company representative told a local newspaper that he anticipates about 6 million people a year to visit the outlet mall. He said the Tulalip site is a winner because its proximity to a major interstate highway gives it “tremendous visibility in an area with high traffic counts.”

The new mall is an example of how tribes are seeking to diversify their economies, wary of basing them entirely on gambling. The tribe had reaped the benefits of a casino for years. When the idea of gaming was first proposed, some tribal members protested, saying that it would dilute the culture, Jones said.

Culture is an emotional word on the reservation. Like many tribes, the Tulalip culture suffered from government policies that forbade speaking the Tulalip language in schools. Like many Native Americans, Jones’ own sisters and brothers were taken from home at an early age and sent to boarding school to instill the mores and trappings of white culture.

“I remember very well the days when our culture was something that had to be destroyed as a dangerous thing,” he said. “We have had to fight long and hard to retain the scraps of our culture.”

Despite lingering concerns about the influence of white culture, Jones said that the economic boost from businesses such as the shopping center is a good thing.

“Keeping our culture and making money can be compatible,” he said. “We need to have work and feed our families.”

And the money from the casino is helping to reinvigorate the tribal culture. It funds Tulalip language teachers and courses in traditional crafts. Casino money also pays for Montessori school attendance for all 3,500 members of the tribe and the tribe’s scholarship fund that pays 100 percent of the cost of a college education for any tribal member.

With social benefits like those of the Tulalip in mind, other tribes are cutting deals with developers around the U.S. and in Canada.

The Alter Group is developing Riverwalk Arizona, a 2 million-square-foot retail and residential project in Scottsdale that will be one of the largest private retail developments on American Indian land. The first phase of the project, on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian reservation, will open this summer. At a later date another 700,000 square feet of retail will be added.

“This is one of America’s tightest markets,” said company President Michael J. Alter. “With Scottsdale absorbing 600,000 square feet of office space annually and users unable to find large blocks of contiguous space, we think the timing is right.”

Further north, the Millbrook Mi’kmaq band near Truro, Nova Scotia, has prepared an 80-acre site on its reserve lands for Truro Power Centre, a mixed-use development that will combine retail and business uses with an interpretative center about American Indians.

“This is an example of the progress that can happen throughout the country,” said Canada’s Federal Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault. “It is a good precedent for other First Nations to pursue economic opportunities for their members.”

Another recent development is the 255,000-square-foot Viejas Outlet Center in Alpine, Calif., which is owned by the Kumeyaay Indians. British Columbia’s Campbell River Indian band has developed a 385,000-square-foot power center called Discovery Harbour Centre, in Campbell River on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The southern mall portion of Vancouver’s upscale Park Royal Shopping Centre is located on land leased from the Squamish Nation tribe.

The Squamish are going further, teaming up with local developers to build Seymour Creek Village, a 430,000-square-foot, mixed-format shopping center on tribe-owned land in North Vancouver, British Columbia. When the project breaks ground next year, the developers said it would include large, medium and small stores in a design suggestive of a traditional Squamish village.

Tribal leaders hope the 30-acre project will bring jobs to an area that suffers high unemployment. Progressive Properties, Richmond, British Columbia, and Kingswood Capital Corp., Vancouver, said they chose the Squamish site because of a growing land squeeze in the area.

Land owned by tribes is becoming increasingly important to shopping center developers in British Columbia as other sites are exhausted, said Bob Mason, president of Vancouver-based Longbow Properties. “Today in B.C., if you’re developing in a city that’s growing or that has a restricted land base, there’s a big chance that you’re going to be looking at First Nations reserve land as a possible site,” he said.

Numerous Canadian cities and regions fit this scenario, Mason said, among them Lower Mainland, North and West Vancouver and Port Coquitlam, together with much of Vancouver Island and parts of the Okanagan Valley.

The examination of Indian tribal sites has become a priority for Vaughan, Ontario-based First Pro Shopping Centers, said David Schiffer, executive vice president of that company’s operations in British Columbia. “First Nations land is in the crosshairs of suburban and urban development,” said Schiffer, whose company develops Wal-Mart-anchored power centers. “We can’t ignore these possibilities.”

Using profits from development on their land, tribes are going into business for themselves. In a neat reversal of the usual trend of developers buying Indian land, the Tulalip built a business park with a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot using profits from their casino.

“Salmon has brought us a long way but money will take us further,” Tribal Chairman Jones said. “Business is the modern way to be independent.”