A proposed extension of Grand Forks' downtown Renaissance Zone is going back to city staff for a second draft after the City Council's Finance Committee asked Monday for more options.
The city can add 11 more blocks to the zone, offering state income tax and local property tax breaks for developers, but the committee wanted to see if it makes sense to include a little-used urban renewal designation as part of the plan.
That designation would give the city access to federal funds to purchase and redevelop properties that are in poor physical condition.
Committee Chairman Doug Christensen said they aren't necessarily going to follow through with that, but just want to staff to offer a report of advantages and disadvantages. If it makes more sense to do urban renewal in some blocks, they figured, that would free up other blocks for Renaissance Zone expansion.
State law allows the city to have up to 32 blocks in the Renaissance Zone. It has 23 now. Three of the new blocks are already going to the area around the Grand Cities Mall. Another five blocks downtown, most of which have been successfully redeveloped, would be elimi-nated to make room for new blocks.
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Options
City staff suggested three potential areas, northwest in the Near North Neighborhood, southeast toward Minnesota Avenue and west toward North Washington Street.
Urban Development staff member Meredith Richards said expansion to the northwest could attract new homeowners who would renovate many of the old homes there while going southeast would help develop vacant lots. Going west, she said, would help develop the cor-ridor connecting downtown to UND.
Council President Hal Gershman said he'd favor some blocks along just University Avenue and some blocks in the southeast.
Council Vice President Eliot Glassheim said he worried the incentives would encourage investors to buy homes for conversion to rental units, something city leaders generally frown on because they believe renters have fewer incentives to take care of a neighborhood.
Funding group
In related news, the committee is also mulling the creation of a Renaissance fund organi-zation, which would, in the city's formulation, be run by private investors. The investors would get state income tax credits and must invest at least half the fund's total in the Renaissance Zone. The rest could be invested anywhere in town.
The Center for Innovation Foundation, affiliated with the institution of the same name at UND, has asked the city to let it create a fund, mostly with the goal of developing a tech park just north of the Alerus Center.
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But, according to Urban Development Director Greg Hoover, this would also commit the foundation to investing downtown as well.
Finance Committee members wanted to see if any other investors in town wanted a fund.
They have three weeks to hear from those investors as, according to staff, state officials are thinking about letting Fargo have the right to create the fund. Fargo has three such funds already.
Reach Tran at (701) 780-1248; (800) 477-6572, ext. 248; or send e-mail to ttran@gfherald.com .
