Home»Community Home»Community Sparks»Redevelopment in Sparks contrasts bleak economy

Redevelopment in Sparks contrasts bleak economy

Page Last Updated: Wednesday December 16, 2009 1:42pm PST

With the city of Sparks demolishing a building on Victorian Square in preparation for redevelopment and the installation of two new streets in the area, it begs the question: With the city cutting budgets, laying off workers and announcing early retirements, is now the right time to spend over $2 million on a project that could be put off until the economy rebounds?

The city of Sparks was the first city in Nevada to create a redevelopment district.

The Victorian Square area has had a number of redevelopment plans in the last three decades, but not much has come to fruition.

"We've gotta do something down there," said Mayor Geno Martini. "It's nice down there, it's beautiful, it's clean, it's open. People like to go down there, we have good events, but we need to create some kind of tax increment."

Tax increment is created in a redevelopment district like this one through property taxes and the more development Sparks can get here, the more tax revenue can be invested in this area.

But there is a catch.

Property taxes generated in Victorian Square are separate from the city's general budget because it's a redevelopment district.

So they cannot be used to plow your roads or put more cops on the street, even though those services are desperately needed in Sparks in these tough economic times.

But, why make a $2.2 million investment in infrastructure now when the city is struggling?

"In this economic environment, we've found that the bids coming in for construction jobs are 30 to 40 percent less than they have been in the past, so we want to take advantage of that," Martini said. "Plus, the sooner we get the streets in and spruce it up a little bit, the sooner we're going to get someone interested in putting something down there."

But several developers have backed out of Victorian Square including the latest--the Trammel Crow Company.

And it's not only private investment that's hit a road block on Victorian Square. A sign announcing the future home of Sparks City Hall was installed several years ago, but the project has been put on hold indefinitely.

That, of course, is due to dwindling tax revenues, but the city could ultimately run out of time to finish the Victorian Square project.

Redevelopment districts do not last forever--property taxes can only be funneled to redevelopment projects for a certain number of years, and this redevelopment district will run its course in 2023.

At that point the taxes generated here will be distributed as other property taxes in the city, and Sparks will no longer have an opportunity to inject public funds into its downtown.

View News Archive »