Curtis Jared of the Jared family that co-owns the 60-year-old Country Club Center at the corner of Glenstone Avenue and Bennett Street, has withdrawn a request to establish a community improvement district that would collect a 1-cent sales tax for facade and infrastructure improvements.
The measure was scheduled for a vote at last night’s Springfield City Council meeting, but Jared said this morning he felt unsure about how the vote would go and wanted to arrange a meeting where he could explain the intentions of the property owners of the aging strip center.
“We didn’t really have a good vibe from City Council,” Jared said, adding he was worried the measure might be voted down without council members having a clear understanding of why the request was made. He said four of the six property owners at the Country Club Center support the call for improvements and the establishment of the special taxing district.
“We thought it was a prudent decision to go ahead and pull it for now, and take the time to sit down with City Council and go over everything in more detail. I also didn’t want them to just hear it from me, the developer, but to hear from some of the owner-occupiers," said Jared, president and chief operating officer of Jared Enterprises.
He said an outdated parking lot presents hazards for shoppers and those working at the center, and with six property owners within the center, not everyone can agree on how to fund renovations for the facade and back alleyway. Jared, whose family owns more than 50 percent of the 52,800-square-foot center, including the vacant former Smillie’s Market, said he has been working for 10 years with the other owners to create an improvement plan. He said a couple of the owners are resistant and don’t want to pay for improvements.
Jared had sought a blighted designation on 4.1 acres that included the strip center and the adjacent Consumer Credit Counseling Services property because improvements also would comprise a cross-access road between Bennett and Portland streets. The community improvement district would raise $1.16 million in sales taxes for renovations, according to Jared's proposal. He said owners would fund the cost of improvements up front, and the CID sales tax within the district – 1 cent on the dollar for up to 25 years – would reimburse their investment.
When the bill was introduced at the
March 11 council meeting, Springfield Economic Development Director Mary Lilly Smith said CIDs are usually created to fund public improvements, not to improve the properties of private ownership groups. However, she said CIDs could be established to remove blight because remediation of blight serves a public purpose. Smith said there were a dozen such districts throughout the city.
At the March 11 meeting, Mayor Bob Stephens pointed to recent examples of private commercial remodeling projects where the city was not asked to establish a special taxing district. He also questioned whether approving such a proposal would encourage other owners of aging properties to seek city assistance.
“I think (council members) are worried that this would open up the floodgates, but this really is a unique property. It is not owned by an individual owner,” Jared said. “It is not as cut-and-dried as one thinks it is.”
Jared said he hopes to be invited to a future council luncheon and then reintroduce the proposal within a few months.
