The effort to get more money for improvements to downtown Evansville took a step forward Thursday.
Josh Armstrong, the downtown alliance director for the Southwest Indiana Chamber, said they reached the threshold of downtown property owners who support the formation of a downtown economic improvement district. He said the petitions represent fifty one percent of the property owners and seventy percent of the property values in the district.
WNIN is a property owner in the downtown improvement district.
The measure will now go to the city council, which can form the district. In the district, property owners agree to pay higher property taxes with the money going to improvements in that specific area. Armstrong said, "It functions in a way between a homeowner's association and common area charges for a commercial development like a mall, for example. It provides those kinds of services."
Those services include things more landscaping downtown, signage and tools for recruiting new businesses. "Presently, if a property owner comes to me and says, 'I want to fill this space', I don't have the tools to compete against Ft. Wayne or Springfield, Missouri or Louisville."
The next step will be to present the petitions to the Evansville City Council, which votes on forming the economic improvement district. Armstrong said the district will raise about $625,000 a year. If all goes well, he said they hope to start seeing the money by late spring of next year.