Citizens, weigh in on proposed tech URD
POST FALLS — Just as one Post Falls urban renewal district closes, another is proposed to be opened.
The City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed 831-acre Post Falls Technology Urban Renewal District in the Highway 41 corridor on Oct. 16 at 6 p.m.
Diane Fountain, Post Falls Urban Renewal Agency executive director, said 750 of the acres are undeveloped.
"This site is the perfect mixture for an urban renewal district because it will create jobs and the majority of it is on bare land," said Fountain, adding that development of blighted areas to create infrastructure that leads to jobs is the basis for urban renewal. "The site is coming on at the perfect time with the Highway 41 improvements (that include widening in 2020 and 2021)."
The district would include land west of Highway 41 between Prairie and Hayden avenues and on the east side of 41 from just south of Poleline Avenue to north of Prairie.
Brad Marshall of JUB Engineers, who represents developers and the district's proponents Jerry Dicker and Philip Wirth of Beyond Green, Inc., estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs will be created inside the district as it is built out over five to 15 years.
"That is just an estimated preliminary range," Marshall said about the jobs, adding that the site includes the 335-acre technology park on the west side of Highway 41 from Prairie to Hayden and a future shopping center at the northeast corner of Highway 41 and Prairie.
Marshall said there is a lot of interest in the site from both the technology sector and service-oriented businesses that could include restaurants, day cares and a convenience store. However, he declined to specify which companies those are.
Urban renewal districts created by the city and administered by the urban renewal agency have a base tax rate when the district is created. That base tax rate continues to be collected by the county and remitted to taxing entities over the life of the district.
As a district is improved, has new construction and increases in value due to improvements, the incremental tax created by those improvements in excess of the base tax is allocated to the URA to pay for the public improvements that have been made within the district.
In most cases, the tax increment received by the agency is used to reimburse proponents who have completed and paid for the improvements and dedicated them to the city prior to reimbursement.
The technology park district plan is for 20 years, but it's possible the district could be closed early.
"Urban renewal is the most common economic development tool in the country," Marshall said. "If you look at the major businesses in Kootenai County — Orgill (formerly occupied by Kimball Office, Flexcel and Harpers), Cabela's, the U.S. Bank call center — all of them have landed in an urban renewal district.
"The districts allow developers to reduce the price of their land to be competitive in the state and national real estate markets."
The district proposal comes after the 231-acre City Center district closed last month. It was Post Falls' third district to close.
Post Falls’ four open districts — West Seltice II (248 acres), Center Point (335), Expo (237) and East Post Falls (972) — are all slated to close in the next two to four years.
The tech URD would be Post Falls' first district created since East Post Falls and West Seltice II were formed in 2005.
The hearing on the tech park URD will be the final stop in the approval process, which included earlier sign-offs by the Urban Renewal Agency and the Planning and Zoning Commission. A mixed technology zone for urban renewal districts was also approved earlier, along with an annexation of part of the site.
Wirth is also proposing a 60-acre annexation and comprehensive plan amendment for property west of the northwest corner of Highway 41 and Prairie with a technology mixed zoning that would be in the URD. The Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on the requests on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m.