BROWNSTOWN

As plans move forward for a new business and apartments in downtown Brownstown, the developer is looking to the town council to consider ways to incentivize building owners.

Bill Hiday with 128 Properties LLC said a national brand has intentions of using the first floor of his building at 128 S. Main St. “at square footage prices that I assure you this town has never seen before.” There are plans for apartments on the second floor.

 

“To get those, we have to make the building nice,” he recently told the Brownstown Town Council. “If we do the building nice, we have to do it right.”

While serving on the Fortville Town Council, Hiday said that community set up a tax increment finance district, which is a tool designed to redirect property tax funds coming from new and future developments to finance redevelopment and community improvement projects. It’s a way to get revenue without increasing property taxes.

He said his building in Brownstown has a base assessment of $88,200, and he estimates the cost to make improvements will be around $462,000.

“If we set up a TIF district, especially in this downtown area, basically, it’s got your base assessment of $88,200 and any improvement we make up to $462,000,” he said. “Anything up to that, almost $300,000 increment, the town basically eats the lion’s share of that increment and keeps it in-house.”

That would allow the town to spend money on making improvements to sidewalks, infrastructure, landscaping, streetlights or other needs.

“It allows you to free up more of your money for stuff like that,” Hiday said.

Hiday makes a living by rehabilitating old buildings in communities around the state.

“A lot of the towns we’re doing this in right now, there’s grant money,” he said. “Wabash found $50,000 for us and gave us a building to rehab. … It looks awesome, and we’ve got the best tenants paying rent. We’ve got two signed up paying rents that they’ve never seen before in Wabash. It’s luring businesses in, and they are saying, ‘Hey, this is great. Yeah, we’re going to buy in.’”

To have viable, long-term growth in Brownstown, Hiday said the town needs to have buildings of which it can be proud.

Who knows when the next industry may come to town, he said.

“Once they set up shop and they look for places, they drive down Main Street in front of the courthouse, ‘Hey, there’s a courthouse. That looks nice, and here are buildings,’” Hiday said. “If we can put on our best game face, I think that would really help things out, bring more into the town.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean an explosion of growth by any means, he said.

“It means redevelopment of what we’ve got,” he said. “That’s its turning point.”

Any sort of incentive he can receive for redevelopment is always a help, Hiday said. That could include a tax abatement.

“We’re on the right path with the historic district getting put in and applied for, so we’re making steps, and it’s exciting,” he said of downtown revitalization efforts.

Conner Barnette, president of the Brownstown Chamber of Commerce and vice president of Brownstown/Ewing Main Street, said it’s important to incentivize property owners who want to come in and refurbish or redevelop the downtown buildings.

The only tax abatement Brownstown issues now is for E&H Tubing Inc.

“From my side of things, what I look at is on an economic redevelopment abatement, the incentive for the town on that is we’re going to get a brand-new building basically,” Barnette said. “We’re not losing any money by giving an abatement, but it is an incentive to put the money into that building to where now, it’s going to be brand-new. Hopefully, it’s an incentive for more property owners to come in and do the same.”

With other businesses coming to town, Barnette said it would be good for the town to design a TIF district so it could capture some of the tax dollars.

Hiday said Fortville set up a TIF district in the 1990s, and several businesses opened in the industrial park.

When he was on the council there a year ago, the redevelopment commission was bringing in $400,000 worth of TIF money on a yearly basis to be redistributed as incentives to new businesses coming in. The town was able to put its share toward infrastructure.

“All of a sudden, you’re playing in the same leagues as the towns that you read about in the paper,” Hiday said.