After struggling for more than 10 years, the Linwood Shopping Center, now being renovated, is creating jobs, removing blight and eliminating an East Side food desert. Established in 2016, the center’s Tax Increment Financing Plan enabled a $14.9 million renovation that will deliver in summer 2018 a 38,000-square-foot Sun Fresh Market with additional projects rehabbing existing retail spaces. A sneak preview of the project and job fair were hosted in February 2018.
Located at the intersection of Linwood Boulevard and Prospect Avenue, the project demolished a previous grocery building, vacant for 10 years, and anticipates the redevelopment of retail on either side of the Sun Fresh, representing 12,000 square feet of space on one side and 14,000 square feet on the other, as well as surface parking and landscaping improvements.
This TIF redevelopment area had an assessed property valuation of $555,583 and generated $44,376 in property tax revenues in 2015. It is projected to have a $1.75 million assessed valuation and produce approximately $122,000 in tax revenues when the projects are completed.
The Linwood Shopping Center project joins more than $2 billion in other private and public investment in the City’s East Side for projects that are completed, underway or approved since 2011.
Missouri adopted its TIF statute in 1982. The District of Columbia and 49 states have enacted TIF laws with Arizona being the outlier. TIF came to the forefront as a redevelopment tool following the demise of other such resources, particularly at the federal level. Programs such as Urban Development Action Grants (UDAG), the Area Development Act (ARA), Empowerment Zones, Revenue Sharing and the like either have been drastically cut back, or eliminated.