One of the largest projects to use tax increment financing district money in Monroe County benefited a group that pays no taxes into the county’s Westside TIF district.
Ivy Tech’s Bloomington campus is located in Monroe County’s Westside TIF district, but as a college, it is exempt from property taxes.
A $5 million bond was approved in 2007 to help build the Ivy Tech Community College Indiana Center for the Life Sciences, a building that serves as a training facility for local students and local life-sciences employees. Last week, the redevelopment commission approved a contract of about $48,000 for Americans with Disabilities Act improvements outside the center.
In June, Ivy Tech Bloomington Chancellor John Whikehart returned to the redevelopment commission to ask for $1.6 million, this time to purchase and renovate the Pain Real Estate
building at the intersection of Daniels Way and Ind. 48, just west of Ivy Tech’s main academic building. The total project will cost $3.6 million.
building at the intersection of Daniels Way and Ind. 48, just west of Ivy Tech’s main academic building. The total project will cost $3.6 million.
Ivy Tech owns the land the building sits on, and rents it to the redevelopment commission. The redevelopment commission rents both the land and the building, which it owns, to the college for $1 a year. Should the Pain Building be purchased, it likely would have a similar lease arrangement.
If this most recent request is passed, it will mean a little more than $6.6 million in tax dollars has been poured into Ivy Tech, though it does not contribute money to the TIF district. But that doesn’t mean there’s no public benefit to it, said Jeff Cockerill, county attorney.
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