The city is moving forward with plans for another possible Tax Increment Finance District in hopes of revitalizing a major piece of its downtown through redevelopment.
The Kokomo Plan Commission unanimously agreed that the city’s plans for a redevelopment area conform to its comprehensive plan, with the area in question located downtown near North Main Street, extending south from Jefferson Street to Apperson Way.
The order will now go before the Kokomo Common Council for approval before going back to the Kokomo Redevelopment Commission for final approval.
With the number of businesses that have come and gone in that area, the possibility for redevelopment is exciting, said Tom Tolen of the city’s development department.
“That’s been an area that’s kind of gone downhill a little bit,” he said. “This is an opportunity to reinvest and capitalize on.”
The main target of the city’s proposed new Tax Increment Financing district is the Patriot Porcelain plant on North Main Street, where private investment and more than $6 million in loan guarantees from the federal government are combining to revive a plant shuttered for the better part of a decade.
If it could capture the plant’s new assessed value, the district, which follows a rail line as it runs northeast from Jefferson Street to become part of the Nickel Plate Trail corridor, could generate hundreds of thousands of tax dollars annually, which the city or the city Redevelopment Commission could then use for improvements.
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