The Columbus City Council has approved a resolution to take the next step in extending the central tax increment financing (TIF) district so it includes the site of a local company’s future 260,000 square-foot manufacturing facility.
The vote was 8-0. Council member Chris Bartels, R-District 1, was absent.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission is in the process of extending the Central Economic Development Area TIF District to include the recently annexed and rezoned Toyota Material Handling expansion site on the north side of Deaver Road at I-65, next to their current facility.
A TIF district is a mechanism that allows the redevelopment commission to siphon off increasing property taxes in a selected area to fund projects intended to benefit the community.
Extending a TIF district is a four-step process, according to Columbus Director of Redevelopment Heather Pope.
The redevelopment commission first had to pass a declaratory resolution on the matter, which they did on May 20, followed by a review by the plan commission. State law requires the plan commission review the redevelopment commission’s plans to ensure they’re consistent with the city’s comprehensive plan — the commission did that on June 12.
The third step is city council approval, then it returns back to the redevelopment commission for the consideration of a confirmatory resolution, the final step that’ll be considered during their next meeting on July 15.
If and when that confirmatory resolution is approved, all overlapping taxing units will be notified of the changes, along with the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF), according to Pope.
City, state, and Toyota officials broke ground at the manufacturing site on May 29. The new facility would create 85 jobs at an at an average wage of $28.88 and retain the current 1,883 workers, Toyota representatives have said. The factory will focus on making electric forklifts, with the hope being that production will start in June 2026.
Council member Josh Burnett, R-at-large, asked when the TIF will start accruing in the area.
“I would expect that it’ll take a few years before the first assessment actually happens,” Andrew Lanam of Stifel Public Finance said. “And so between now and the next few years, it’s not really going to do a whole lot as far as assessed value. Then, once the assessment does come on, it will be subject to a 10-year tax abatement for real and personal (property taxes), and so then you’ll have basically another 10 years of phase in, and so as that abatement rolls off, then the TIF will gradually come up to it.”
“I figured it’d take about 13 or 14 years, between now and the full abatement to roll off and everything to be fully assessed,” according to Lanam.
