From the Northwest Indiana Times:
There are 9 acres left to develop out of city-owned property at West Point Plaza Industrial Park in Hammond.
The city worked to convert the once-contaminated site into an industrial park. Its newest tenant, Munster Steel, will start construction at the park as early as this fall.
The site became a redevelopment area and benefited from what Hammond's chief development officer describes as the No. 1 financial incentive local governments can offer prospective companies — tax increment financing.
Hammond now is set to dissolve the redevelopment area, along with two others, to help shore up this year's budget.
"It's really done what it was supposed to have done," said Phil Taillon, executive director of the city's Department of Planning and Development. "Maybe because it has 9 acres left you'd like to keep it in place a little longer, but because of some of the budgetary issues of the city, unfortunately that's not an option at this point."
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TIF districts for Unilever and Lear also will close, sending a one-time payment of about $7 million to the city's general fund. When the city closes a TIF district, the fund coinciding with that district, which was used to capture property tax revenue, also closes. Any balance in those funds then can be applied to the city's general fund.
"These TIF districts could save us a couple million dollars easily," Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said, "and get us closer to where we need to be."
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Hammond's decision to dissolve the three TIF districts doesn't mean the city is closed off to the possibility of returning the designation to those areas for future projects, McDermott said.
For example, if Lear plans an expansion, the city could weigh creating a TIF within the footprint of that facility, he said.
"We are getting rid of the huge geographical TIFs that literally swallow neighborhoods," McDermott said. "If we want to TIF the Lear project, we'll just TIF Lear so that expansion can get the same benefits."
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Read more: http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/hammond/hammond-closes-three-tifs-to-help-budget-looks-to-future/article_2a7b0703-6219-5432-9117-4de5cba502a9.html#ixzz1smSAYsmF
