Photo provided An artist’s rendition of a proposed mixed use apartments development on land near Cummins’ parking garage in downtown Columbus.
A proposal for a mixed-use development in front of the Cummins Inc. parking garage may have stalled.
Earlier this year, Flaherty & Collins, the developer on The Taylor, presented a proposal to create a mixed-use development in front of the parking garage with a subsidy from the Columbus Redevelopment Commission.
However, redevelopment director Heather Pope indicated during Tuesday’s Columbus City Council meeting that the project might not be moving forward.
The subject arose during a discussion about redevelopment’s proposed changes to its Central Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, which were approved by city council.
The Columbus Plan Commission previously voted in August to approve the redevelopment commission’s declaratory resolutions and economic development plan supplements regarding changes to the Central TIF, as well as plans to create a new TIF at Sixth Street and Washington Street to fund the proposed project.
However, the creation of the new TIF was not included in the approved city council resolution, Pope said.
“There was a kind of a partner piece, again, when we were looking at this holistically, was creating a separate TIF district for a project that was going to take place at the corner of Sixth and Washington Street,” she said. “And since that project has been stalled or taken off the table at this point, we chose to not move forward with that.”
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.
Flaherty & Collins had proposed to build an apartment building with some first-floor commercial or retail space on a parcel of land in front of the Cummins parking garage at Sixth and Washington.
In its economic development plan supplement for the proposed new TIF, the redevelopment department described the potential project as a “four-to-five story mixed-use, multi-family development, including apartments and commercial retail space, with an estimated cost to the (Redevelopment) Commission of $5,800,000.”
Pope said at a previous meeting that the total project cost is estimated at $15.5 million, with a funding gap of about $5.4 to $5.8 million.
Creating a new TIF in the project area would allow the commission to capture the property’s increment and recoup its investment, she said.
However, some city officials, as well as members of the public, have expressed concerns about the project, such as the possible price point of the apartments, the proposed level of subsidy, and whether or not the project is the best use of the space.
The redevelopment commission tabled a resolution to pursue negotiations with Flaherty & Collins in June, and the plan commission’s vote on the Sixth and Washington TIF was 6-2, with Dennis Baute and Laura Garrett in opposition.
The commission’s vote on the Central TIF, on the other hand, was unanimous.
According to Pope, the changes approved by city council include reabsorbing the Cummins and Cole TIFs back into the Central TIF, as the redevelopment commission recently finished paying off bonds from projects that were tied to these areas.
The Central TIF will also expand to include additional land that is zoned for commercial or industrial use, including certain properties along the State Street corridor, in the old Bartholomew County industrial park, near the AMC Theater, near Woodside and Walesboro and in northeast Columbus.
The changes also include removing certain parcels near Tipton Lakes Boulevard from the Central TIF.
Pope explained that this land was zoned industrial when the TIF districts were first created in 2005. However, the area has changed since that time and now features uses that do not contribute to the TIF, such as a church and a parcel owned by the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., which is considering building a new elementary school at the site.
Moving forward, the Central TIF changes will return to the redevelopment commission for a confirmatory resolution, Pope said.
