The Salina City Commission Monday will consider a request from Lakhani Grocers for $250,000 of sales tax reimbursement funds to provide financial assistance for lease rates to place a Save-A-Lot grocery store in the former Dillons store at 511 E. Iron.

Lakhani Grocers LLC is a Save-A-Lot franchisee that has worked with the property ownership group, a real estate broker, the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, and the City of Salina to pursue the location for a Save-A-Lot grocery store in the vacant building. Those efforts have included design and cost estimating of capital improvements to the facility necessary for the operation of a Save-A-Lot as well as lease negotiation accounting for those capital cost.

Save-A-Lot has identified a $250,000 financial gap, and has requested assistance. City of Salina Staff has reviewed various financial assistance approaches/tools in light of the Save-A-Lot model/projections based upon performance projections provided by Lakhani Grocers LLC. Sales tax reimbursement was identified as a pay-as-you approach that returns sales tax specifically generated by the project as reimbursement.

In this format, the incentive is a pay-as-you-go distribution of actual city local option sales tax proceeds collected from the project and distributed to the City of Salina. While it represents a reallocation of sales tax funds, it does not represent a financial risk and/or unfunded commitment on the part of the city.

The City Commission meeting begins at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon in room 107 of the City-County building.