Pop Star: Sara Davis Buss

When Sara Davis Buss was a girl, after her family had moved from Donora to Squirrel Hill, she’d get on the bus and visit her relatives, in the old neighborhood, and in McKeesport. They were both steel mill towns back then, as was a lot of Pittsburgh, and when she’d complain about the smoke and the smell, her grandmother would cluck and say, that’s the smell of money.

Then Davis Buss saw the change, the departure of Big Steel, leaving what she calls “rusting, hulking, depressing sites all over the region.”

Then the mills were torn down, leaving scars in the earth the planners called brownfields.

Sara Davis Buss departed, too, to Wisconsin for college, then Chicago for law school. She loved Chicago – the famous broad-shouldered city – and wanted to stay. But a family member took sick, and it was important for her to be back home. So she came.

And was stricken by the changes, the gaping wounds left in the earth, the crushing economic defeat. Wouldn’t it be nice, she thought, if I could do something about this?

Fast forward to 1992. Ensconced at Houston Harbaugh, a Gateway Center law firm, Davis Buss noticed that the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority put out a Request for Proposal for a Tax Increment Financing – TIF -- bond counselor. Her interest piqued, she read the statute, then terra incognito. “This would be cool,” she thought. She applied. She got it.

Simply stated, TIFs are granted only when a developer makes a compelling case that without a particular set of tax breaks a project would not be completed. Typically used for undercapitalized developers and/or brownfields, the tax break is generally the value of the new development’s taxes minus the old taxes – so that the three taxing bodies (county, municipality, school district) get at least what they would have gotten without the new development. “It’s a way to find resources to pay for improvements that might not otherwise get done,” she says.

While such development inducements sound obvious, they are often controversial, always requiring much negotiation. Not only do the future tax formulas become highly complex, but also at least one taxing body is likely to say, “we’re not in economic development business. Why should we give anyone a tax break?”

Having assisted on roughly 75 percent of the region’s TIF developments, among Davis Buss’ signal victories are the Pittsburgh Technology Center, the former J&L steel mill site along Second Avenue; Homestead’s Waterfront, the former US Steel plant now a regional magnet for living, shopping, and entertainment; North Shore’s Alcoa headquarters; Mellon Bank Client Services Building, Three PNC and many others. Regionally, she’s worked on TIFs from Johnstown to Mercer, Washington to Greensburg – Memphis and Lynchburg and beyond.

Fifteen years and some $100 million in development later, Davis Buss likes to look back – and look around. “For me to be able to revitalize a piece of my heritage is particularly satisfying,” she says. “I like the fact that what I do is very constructive.”

Captions:

Sara Davis Buss in Gateway Center

Funding bond

Sara Davis Buss with images of TIF projects

All photographs copyright © Ed Rieker