Progress was made Tuesday night for the redevelopment of the Metro Center downtown.
Lima City School Board called a special meeting and voted to move forward with the Community Reinvestment Area Tax Abatement. Pursuit 3 LLC wants to redevelop the Metro Center on North Elizabeth Street, to put up loft-style apartments with a small business mall on the first floor. Board members said the school board is already collecting property tax on it and will continue to collect the same amount. They said its 100% for 5 years, after the 5 years, if there's 80% occupancy it will stay at 100% and if not, it will drop to 50%. The school board officials said they won't get anything additional until after the 5 or 10 year point.
"We do support building the downtown up, we do support it and everything but we also want to protect our taxpayers base also. This is why we've set up the resolution and the abatement this way. We really do support what's going on in the downtown area, the growth and what they're planning on doing in the downtown areas," said Alicia Anderson, President of the Lima City School Board.
This resolution goes before Lima council members for approval at the next city council meeting.
