EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville City Council held its bi-monthly meeting on Tuesday and key topics discussed in the short meeting were tourism and TIF funds.
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The council approved a tourism fund request for the Edwardsville YMCA Tumbling and Trampoline meet.
“This is a request from our special events from our tourism fund. It’s a two-day event in February and it brings approximately 800 athletes to the city. Which spend those few days here shopping, eating and staying in our hotels, it's a great event,” said Alderman Morrison.
The council also approved a resolution that authorizes an agreement to encourage development within T.I.F. (Tax increment financing) District #2 of the City of Edwardsville for a proposed 119 S. Main redevelopment. The decision was met with some concerns from the public who spoke before the council began the meeting. After taking the time to discuss, the council did decide to approve and move forward.
“It is the Art Deco building at the corner of South Main and Park. The developer is making significant improvements to the structure inside and out. It includes expansion, an elevator, all new plumbing and electrical, renovation, rooftop deck and so on,” said Morrison.
During the discussion, it was confirmed that this type of reimbursement was, in fact, an eligible T.I.F. expense. The decision also does not interfere with any T.I.F. 2 expansions as they haven’t gone into effect yet. The building, which had been empty for almost a decade, will now be completely revived. TIF funds are meant to be used for redevelopment and community improvements.
Mayor Hal Patton said: "The reason this is getting front-loaded is because the TIF is getting ready to expire and we are not going to be extending any agreement in the expansion of TIF 2 for this type of project. These are not surplus funds these are funds in the TIF. The TIF has not been terminated. We have not declared any surplus funds. So these are funds that have gone for development projects in the past and this is a development project that has a very short amount of time left remaining in the TIF and in order to get this project done that hasn’t been done in the last 10 years.
"A different type of incentive had to be produced. But I wanted to make sure that the agreement that Jeff put together that should the developer not follow through on putting the two million dollars in and the sales tax goals that this business would benefit not only the city, the county, the state, but if those numbers aren’t there then there is a clawback provision so that we could get the funds back,” explained Mayor Patton.
Mayor Patton closed the meeting by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as the meeting would be the final one of 2019.
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