In December of 2013, the City of Oak Ridge was given a Christmas present: a strong, viable prospective property owner that would help reclaim the center of our precious city. Crosland Southeast, well-respected developers from North Carolina, came to our city and said they could help us redevelop the crumbling mall within our city. This mall, newly named Main Street Oak Ridge, had come to symbolize the ultimate development challenge for our city.

Now, 10 months later, the time has come for the details of our work to begin to come out in the open. This project has taken several courses. First, the City of Oak Ridge and Anderson County said that they would support the development of this project with what is known as a tax increment district, or TIF. The governments would continue to receive their marginal values in property taxes, but the “new” value created by the private investment in Main Street Oak Ridge would be used to pay for public improvements on the project such as new traffic configurations, road improvements, and building demolition. In return, the private developer would borrow money at his own risk and develop major new retail shopping, with a potential hotel and residential development on the 65-acre site.

This effort has been successful, and major retail tenants have been lined up for filling a targeted 260,000 square feet of new facilities. Our Belk store will receive a facelift, and JCPenney will continue to perform. At present, stores are in the initial inquiry stages of building and will be moving to make announcements by the first of the year or shortly thereafter. I would love to tell you the names of the stores (which I have seen), but we need to honor the wishes of the companies as they make their expansion announcements. I believe the Oak Ridge community will be pleased! [Read more…]