We’ve all seen those signature blocks for attorneys at the end of contracts, under the caption “Approved as to Form.” But what does it mean? In Frayda Bluestein’s  2009 blog on this topic she wrote that the caption suggests “ a limited approval – approval as to form...

The State statutes and the tax-exempt bond rules generally provide that borrowed money can only be used to pay “capital costs” of a project. But what is a “capital cost,” or a “capital expenditure,” exactly? Let’s split the question into a few sections. For new...

We were among the 800+ folks at the North Carolina Main Street conference March 11-13 in Mooresville. So many interesting sessions and bits of advice, including the following:      If you don’t trust the private partner in your public-private...

Just about every community in North Carolina agrees that it has a housing problem. In most cases, it’s a need for housing across the board. There are several recognized ways for local governments to provide direct assistance to undertakings to develop housing for...

Retail leakage, for our purposes, is the gap between the money spent by local consumers and the revenue generated by local businesses, often due to residents shopping in neighboring areas. Significant retail leakage in an area points to opportunities for new and...

“Employers can no longer afford to overlook America’s escalating child care crisis,” according to a January article in Site Selection magazine. A report from the NC Chamber Foundation indicates that thousands of North Carolinians are leaving the workforce, forgoing...

We’ve updated the original blog post to reflect that Commerce and the EDP and published their program description and model documents. For years people have advocated for North Carolina to establish a program to give local governments another tool to help businesses...

The United States Senate Finance Committee has published a broad list of ideas for tax law changes. Many of the original “Trump Tax Cuts” from 2017 are set to expire this year. Under Congress’s own rules, if those cuts are to be extended, then Congress needs to impose...

Going into a New Year, everyone has an interest rate prediction. We thought we’d look at expectations for construction costs instead. Aided by the 0.5% Federal Reserve cut in the Federal funds rate in November, the second such cut of the year, Q3 of 2024 saw the...

As we get to the start of 2025, we offer this list of items to keep in mind as you plan for new capital projects and manage your existing projects. Here are a few things to think about at least once a year: Do something with unused financing proceeds. Why pay...