City agrees with sales tax rebate for incoming furniture store

The City of Guthrie and Galleria Furniture, Inc. have agreed to a developer agreement, which will provide the incoming furniture a sales tax rebate.

In April, Galleria Furniture announced they purchased the building at 1611 S. Division (behind Walgreens) and will be selling top brand furniture for living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms as well as carpet. Related story: Furniture store announces new store coming to Guthrie

The developer agreement allows for the City of Guthrie to partner with Galleria in an effort to provide rebate funding for a portion of the rehabilitation of the building. The agreement provides a sales tax rebate of no more than $20,000 over a span of two years through sales tax deposited solely by Galleria.

The agreement indicates that no more than $10,000 will be rebated back to Galleria over a span of one year.

“This allows us to rebate approximately half of their sales tax for the first two years of their existence,” City Manager Bruce Johnson said.

According to a retail analysis report from the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, Guthrie has more than $5 million demand for furniture and home furnishing stores that has only $700 thousand, a gap of more than $4 million.

“This is a retail that is not available currently within the corporate limits of the City of Guthrie. This gives us some discretion to go out and incentivize additional retailers who provide a brand new product or service to the community,” Johnson said.