DENVER — This summer, Steve On Your Side went on a scavenger hunt – buying Coca-Cola at stores across the metro area to see if we’d get charged a fee a lot of consumers don’t understand.
The Public Improvement Fee, or PIF, is not a tax or a government-imposed fee. It is a private fee charged by developers at some shopping complexes across the state. The fee is intended to help pay for upkeep of the property – like landscaping, paving the parking lot or keeping up internal roads inside the designated areas. Some developers use the PIF to finance debt from building a project.
PIFs are charged before sales tax and often don’t exempt food products like sales taxes do.
There is no list of where PIFs are charged across the state since they are private fees often only disclosed in a covenant agreement recorded with the county. So Steve On Your Side asked viewers to be on the lookout for PIFs and send photos of receipts to SteveOnYourSide@9news.com.
You’ve delivered a lot so far.
Theresa emailed us a receipt from the King Soopers at 4850 E. 62nd Ave. in Commerce City. The 0.5% PIF added 13 cents to her $25 bill for tortillas, ice cream, pens, breakfast sausage and other items.
When we got the receipt, we searched for the covenant for the shopping center in that corner – Commerce City Plaza. We learned a lot about the development in that document from 2004. One of the oddest and most specific details was that the former Long John Silver’s restaurant on the property had a restrictive covenant banning other seafood restaurants from the property, and very specifically banning Sonic restaurants.
The covenant allows for the 0.5% PIF at Commerce City Plaza. But when we read through the document, we found the PIF is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2024. We’ll now keep our eyes on whether that PIF ends for the plaza.
A tip from Robert recently sent us to the Shops at Tallgrass at East Quincy Avenue and South Piccadilly Street in unincorporated Arapahoe County. The PIF at that shopping center is the highest we’ve found yet – 3.75%, which added 5 additional cents to Steve’s $1.30 Coke at the McDonald’s.
We’ve received about 100 e-mails with receipts and tips about PIFs. But we don’t believe the map above is anywhere near complete. So if you discover a PIF, please snap a photo of your receipt and send an email to SteveOnYourSide@9news.com.
And if you have a consumer problem you want Steve On Your Side to look into, click this link to send us a tip.