Moline council dissolves special tax allocation for SouthPark Mall Redevelopment Project Area

Moline, Ill. (KWQC) - City council decided to terminate the special tax allocation for the mall redevelopment project area.

A TIF is used to rejuvenate and revitalize areas that need work, it sets a base of property taxes, which allows the assessed value of new investment in those areas to go up.

Moline Director of Community and Economic Development Chris Mathis says this was a very important decision for the city to make.

”Our Mayor, our council, our administration have made promises to the taxing bodies that we will close underperforming TIFs,” Mathis said. “And so, this is a promise we’ve made to the taxing bodies and we’re following through with that.”

Mathis says one of those underperforming TIFs is the one that covers the SouthPark Mall redevelopment area.

“It’s been an underperforming TIF where the mall property owners have been disputing their value, their property values for many years,” Mathis said. “And so they have effectively taken the value of that property below the base of the TIF so, the TIF is not generating any increment, and there’s no reason to keep it there anymore, because those property values have dropped beyond the base.”

It’s a process city staff want business owners in the area involved with as well.

“Some communication from them,” Mathis said. “But we haven’t received back like any kind of potential project or anything like that from, so we’ll continue to keep kind of, you know, we’ll continue to keep that conversation going, obviously, they own their large property owner in our town, and we want to see great things happen there.”

Mathis said that there is potential for a new TIF in the future for possible redevelopment.

“If the mall was to redevelop and we got new investment there, it’d be a great impact on our community from a tax base standpoint,” Mathis said. “We need a lot of housing so, there’s a housing crisis right now we need more units so, anytime you’re bringing in new development, whether that be for the tax base jobs or more available housing, that’s gonna be a good thing for the community.”

Mathis said that their next steps are to continue to keep in touch with the property owner and try and come up with a plan for the property.

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