After getting the green light from the state, Grand Forks city officials are looking at adding a large new Renaissance Zone centered on the Grand Cities Mall.
The zone would give developers investing new money in that area certain property and state income tax breaks, a move that officials hope would revitalize the area.
State law says the city can add three blocks to the Renaissance Zone outside the main zone, which is downtown.
Officials had hoped that because the Grand Cities Mall isn't subdivided internally by streets that it would qualify as a single block, which means the nearby Town & Country Mall and the area containing the public library would also qualify as single blocks.
Altogether, that's about 45 acres.
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On Monday night, Katie Brockpahler with the city's Urban Development office told the City Council's Finance Committee that the state agrees that the three areas constitute three blocks.
She added that she's spoken with Grand Cities mall management and received a favorable initial response.
"This is really generous; this is great," Council President Hal Gershman said. "This is the best we can hope for." He'd previously suggested staff look at the Grand Cities Mall areas as the place for the new Renaissance Zone, noting the vacancies in the area and the library's intention to move to a new location.
The finance committee agreed to ask the full council to support the new Renaissance Zone and directed staff to contact area property owners for feedback.
In other news, city finance staff ran into some tough questions from the Finance Committee about a proposed $222,000 upgrade to the city's financial management software. The committee agreed the upgrade to the 20-year-old system is necessary, but wanted to negotiate with the vendor, New World Systems, for a better deal.
