Greenwood City Council members have lingering questions about how the city is spending tax dollars that are supposed to go to economic development and about how much is being spent.
The council voted 6-3 Monday to spend tax-increment financing, or TIF, district money on renovations to turn the Presnell Cos. building into a new city hall. But council members debated whether the city was spending too much on city hall office renovations and other projects, if it could afford to keep up its current level of TIF spending and whether spending on the project should be capped.
Greenwood expects to spend $3.5 million to $4.2 million to renovate the building at Main Street and Madison Avenue to make it suitable for most city government offices and to move the city offices and furniture in. The estimated cost of renovations has doubled since the city bought the mostly vacant office tower out of foreclosure last year, and the overall cost of the project is close to the $6.4 million that former Mayor Charles Henderson estimated a new city building would cost a few years ago.
