GAINESVILLE – The City of Gainesville plans to extend successful efforts at redeveloping sections of the city by creating a new Tax Allocation District to be known as the “Westside TAD Urban Redevelopment Plan”.
City Manager Bryan Lackey told the city council at their Thursday morning work session, “It seems like over the past two or three work sessions we’ve had some pretty big items to bring before you that have a big impact on our community’s future and today is no different.”
Assistant City Manager Angels Sheppard made the presentation. “We’ve seen some success in our Midtown TAD and the thought was to take that success and duplicate it elsewhere in the city.”
Sheppard continued, “We kind of landed on some of our blighted retail areas that are under-performing.”
She added, “One of the great things is to think about bringing retail back into town where we have existing infrastructure, reduce some of the sprawl, spread out some of the traffic.”
The process of creating the city’s third TAD will include the dissolution of the TAD currently covering Lakeshore Mall and rolling it into the new TAD. If approved the Westside TAD will include 170 parcels of land, be 344-acres in size and control nearly 3-percent of the Gainesville Taxable Digest.
Among notable parcels included in the measure:
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the 40-acres comprising Lakeshore Mall
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the Washington Square and Gainesville West shopping centers along John Morrow Parkway
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the strip shopping centers between Pearl Nix Parkway and Towering Heights Road
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the shopping areas along Shallowford Road from Walmart south to the Blue Ridge Shopping Center and on to Towne Center on Browns Bridge Road
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the areas fronting Browns Bridge Road including the former Walmart site
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the old Lyman Hall school site on West Carter Street
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areas along Atlanta Highway from Jesse Jewell Parkway to McConnell Drive
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the area along Jesse Jewell Parkway from J&J Foods to Queen City Parkway
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the area between Dorsey Drive and Queen City Parkway south of Jesse Jewell and north of the railroad tracks, in the vicinity of Good News at Noon and the Melrose Apartments
(To see a map of the proposed TAD area click on the image above and scroll to the second page.)
Community Development Director Rusty Ligon said that the city hopes to have the TAD in place shortly. “It’s very critical that we get this done by the end of the year. We have one opportunity to do TADs. If we don’t get that done then you have to wait an additional year.”
Ligon referred to the Midtown TAD that has spurred all the construction activity near the Square. “That TAD is a huge reason why all of that stuff is happening. Developers know that it’s there, and those projects probably wouldn’t have happened but for that TAD. We think this will be a significant tool.”
The measure requires a public hearing which will take place November 20th, beginning at 5:30 in the Gainesville Public Safety Complex.
