After adopting a Corridors Master Plan in October identifying a vision for five key Traverse City streets, city commissioners are now exploring options to use brownfield incentives to help fund some of those corridor improvements.

The Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority (BRA) requested feedback from commissioners this week on potential courses of action it could pursue to help implement the city's corridors plan. The BRA reviews redevelopment proposals for local brownfield sites – former commercial or industrial sites requiring environmental rehabilitation – and captures taxes on redeveloped properties to reimburse developers and fund future projects.

At Monday night's commission meeting, Grand Traverse County Deputy Director of Planning and Development Jean Derenzy outlined two scenarios by which the BRA could help improve TC's corridors. Option one would be to incentivize brownfield reimbursements in certain corridors – Garfield Avenue, for example – so that a percentage of the revenues generated from redevelopment would go back to improving the corridor itself.

“Should a brownfield project be identified on the corridor, the project would have a percentage added...to pay for the public infrastructure improvements on the corridor,” Derenzy explained. As an example, she cited the $4 million in infrastructure improvements to Eighth Street called for in the corridors plan; “if a development occurs on Eighth Street, depending on the size, 10 percent (or $400,000) would be captured to put towards the infrastructure project.”

The success of such an approach would be largely contingent on the rate of private development in the corridor. Derenzy's second recommended option – which generated stronger enthusiasm among commissioners – would not. It calls for the creation of a “targeted redevelopment area” that allows tax capture from all parcels in a given corridor (including existing developments), rather than just from individual brownfield redevelopments.

The approach is made possible by legislative changes that went into effect in Michigan at the end of December that allow for the creation of up to five targeted redevelopment areas in the state per calendar year, with a limit of two per community. In the past, every parcel in a targeted redevelopment area had to be brownfield-eligible; now, if even a handful are, the rest of the corridor can qualify for public infrastructure improvements.

With Detroit already approved for two targeted redevelopment areas in 2014, Derenzy acknowledged Traverse City would likely need to act soon.

“There are three left for the rest of Michigan,” she told the commission. “It'll probably be pretty competitive with Grand Rapids and other downstate cities.”

Commissioners, who will need to determine the exact boundaries of the area they'd like to pursue for the designation (a targeted redevelopment area must contain between 40-500 parcels), zeroed in on Eighth Street, Fourteenth Street and Garfield Avenue as top priorities. Commissioner Gary Howe asked for data on those corridors – including the number of adjacent residents and development density – to help guide the commission in its review.

“We need some comparables and to dig in a little bit...so we have a direction in terms of how we're going to make a decision,” Howe said.

City Manager Jered Ottenwess said staff would prepare 3-5 scenarios supplying some of the requested data and outlining possible boundaries of a targeted redevelopment area, which could actually be drawn to cover more than one corridor (for example, encompassing the intersection at Garfield Avenue and Eighth Street). Staff will present the scenarios at an upcoming commission meeting.

“If there is an interest (in this approach), I'd suggest moving forward as soon as possible,” Ottenwess told commissioners.