Dilapidated, empty buildings along DeKalb’s 4th Street focus of redevelopment plan

DeKALB – DeKalb city leaders will hold a public hearing this week for a proposed Fourth Street tax increment financing redevelopment plan, and the city is encouraging residents to stay informed on new developments, notices and communications.

A TIF district is an economic development tool used to spur new activity in a defined area. Collected property taxes in the outlined geographic area are pooled over time, and often used to repair blighted buildings or fund new development.

City staff have said a new TIF would help improve dilapidated and empty buildings in the area, encouraging new development. The DeKalb City Council will be briefed on key findings from a feasibility study officials said was undertaken for a proposed new Fourth Street TIF during a public meeting, set for 6 p.m. Monday at the DeKalb Public Library, 309 Oak St.

Residents looking to keep updated on the plan’s progress are encouraged to sign up with the city for an information registry. Those within the proposed TIF-outlined area should have already received a mailer from the city, City Manager Bill Nicklas said.

“Anybody who’s a resident of DeKalb can go online and they can pull down the application to be on the registry,” Nicklas said.

The proposed redevelopment area includes 205 acres and 213 parcels along Fourth Street, from Taylor Street south to the Interstate 88 tollway, city documents show. Originally, the city wanted to focus on 342 acres and 626 lots before that proposal was revised down.

Nicklas said it has been about 10 years since the city’s previous feasibility study of the Fourth Street corridor.

He said the city enlisted St. Louis-based firm PGAV Planners to conduct the feasibility study, the same firm hired about 10 years ago. The then City Council gave it an initial OK but then voted it down.

“At that time, the proposed plan area, if you will, was more narrowly drawn,” Nicklas said. “It was determined that the overall impacts that could be created with the incremental tax money were not sufficient to justify taking any increases in the property tax off the roll, if you will. Actually, it was supported. Then, at the second reading, it was not.”

The findings for the new feasibility study note that the proposed TIF area qualifies as a conservation area but not a blighted zone, based on having significant outdated and deteriorating infrastructure, with many buildings demanding rehabilitation, city staff wrote in a study summary.

City staff said the Fourth Street corridor contains properties with values that have lagged behind compared to other places in the city for the past five years, documents show. According to the most recent city calculations, properties in the Fourth Street corridor are estimated to be worth about $12,411,930. With TIF reinvestment, city staff said those values could grow to about $22,463,811, city documents show.

The creation of a new TIF still requires City Council approval before it can move forward.