Belleville council approves new TIF district for area around ‘blighted’ shopping center
The 68-year-old Bellevue Park Plaza shopping center, which was Belleville’s first strip mall, and some surrounding areas are now part of a new tax increment financing, or TIF, district created by the Belleville City Council Monday night.
City leaders hope the funds raised in the district could be used to make improvements to buildings and parking lots to attract new tenants in the area of West Main Street and North Belt West.
The 15-acre site at the intersection of Main Street and North Belt West includes the CVS in Bellevue Park Plaza as well as the Sav A Lot grocery store across the street. Bellevue Park Plaza opened in 1956.
“It’s an important intersection for the city,” said Cliff Cross, director of economic development, zoning and planning for the city.
In a TIF district, property values are frozen at the level when the district is created. Any additional revenue generated by a rise in property values is channeled into a special fund earmarked for infrastructure improvements and economic incentives in the district. The tax “increment” is the “difference between the amount of property tax revenue generated before TIF district designation and the amount of property tax revenue generated after TIF designation,” according to the Illinois Municipal League.
Cross does not have an estimate for the amount of money that could be raised in the new TIF district but he said the $32,000 the city spent to have a study finding the area as a creditable TIF district will be recouped.
The district is scheduled to be in effect for 23 years. The consultant’s report commissioned by the city states the area in the TIF district is considered as “blighted” as defined by state law.
Most of the city is in TIF 3, which was established in 1986, but the Bellevue Park Plaza was excluded.
Cross said the area was “flourishing” before TIF 3 was created.
“It’s an older area that never had the benefit of a TIF,” he said in an interview after the council meeting Monday night.
The council voted unanimously to approve the Bellevue Park Plaza area TIF district.
“It’s a great tool to bring in economic development,” Mayor Patty Gregory said.
TIF supporters say the property tax revenue collected in a TIF district is used to improve infrastructure and public buildings, help raise commercial property values, and assist businesses that produce significant retail sales tax revenue needed to run the day-to-day operations of the city. TIF opponents say the sites getting TIF assistance would be developed anyway and that it allows a local government to pick “winners” that receive TIF grants while other companies don’t get any financial incentive.
The Bellevue Park Plaza is owned by a limited-liability company and the principal is Gabriel Jeidel, owner of G.J. Realty, a real-estate investment firm in New York.
Matt Barriger, a real estate agent with BarberMurphy in Shiloh, handles the leasing in Bellevue Park Plaza for Jeidel and he supports the new TIF.
Barriger noted the former Sears site in Bellevue Park Plaza has been vacant since 2006 and he believes the incentives in a TIF district could be used to get a new tenant into the empty space.
“These are aging properties,” he said. “It is going to need some help.”
