The Richardson City Council approved the first Tax Increment Financing Zone proposal for a transit-oriented development next to the Spring Valley DART station. Centennial Park, a 30-acre mixed-use development, by developer Richard Barge with Winston Capital, will have 500 upscale apartments, 150 townhomes, 300 condominiums (done in phases), and 44,000 square-feet of retail along Spring Valley Road. In May 2007, the city council approved an agreement that will over time reimburse the developer approximately $9.8M million. The project will go from a current value of $10.7 million to over $82 million. The TIF reimbursement comes from the increased tax revenues generated by this unprecedented new development in southeast Richardson.

The city approved the creation of a Tax Increment Financing Zone in November, 2006, in order to foster revitalization of the U.S. 75/Central Expressway Corridor area. The TIF encompasses nearly 900 acres along both sides of Highway 75 between Campbell Road and Spring Valley Road, including areas along Spring Valley west to Coit Road and east to Greenville Avenue.

TIFs have been used for many years throughout the DFW area for a variety of projects. The city of Dallas alone has over $1.7 billion worth of TIF projects currently being managed. Area projects such as Montgomery Farms in Allen, Deep Ellum, Uptown, and Victory in Dallas, Garland’s IH30 Corridor,
Stonebriar in Frisco, Southlake’s Town Center, Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Sundance Square in Ft. Worth, are just a few examples of projects where TIF’s were used to revitalize areas which needed public infrastructure and participation to “kick-start” the redevelopment process or to bring new developments to an area.

A TIF gives a city the ability to motivate a quicker redevelopment cycle and provides a separate funding mechanism for rebuilding required infrastructure to support redevelopment and supports some of the extraordinary costs facing redevelopment. Having a TIF enables the city to avoid using city debt and city capital funding for some redevelopment improvements, while affirming a positive stimulus for redevelopment.

For more information on the City TIF program, contact John Jacobs at 972-792-2802.