White Castle plan gets tax break
The Columbus City Council agreed Monday night to create a taxincrementfinancing district around a planned $65 million development that will include a new corporate headquarters for White Castle and other offices and residential space.
Instead of property taxes, White Castle will make service payments into a fund to pay for infrastructure in the area. Columbus City Schools will receive a portion of those payments equal to the property taxes the district otherwise would have received.
Steve Schoeny, the city’s economic-development director, said of White Castle: “Their offices are obsolete. They need new offices. They need to either move or rebuild their space.”
Also Monday, a proposal
to expand the council and divide seats into districts, yet continue to elect members citywide, was placed on hold for at least another week. The council voted to table legislation that it must pass this month if it is to place the proposed charter amendment on the council’s make-up on the November ballot.
Councilman Shannon G. Hardin said small changes to the proposal still are likely before the council votes on it.
Voters probably will get the final say on whether Columbus should change from a seven-member, at- large council to a ninemember, by-district body elected at large. The current proposal was born out of recommendations from a charter review commission appointed by Hardin and Mayor Andrew J. Ginther last summer.
Opponents of the legislation have said the proposed system would dilute black votes because majority- black districts could vote for one representative, only to see that candidate lose the citywide race among a majority- white electorate.
“We’re being sold out left, right and center,” said Jonathan Beard, chairman of the group Everyday People for Positive Change. He was one of the architects of an attempt through a special election last summer to expand the council and divide the seats into districts. That initiative failed, but Beard said he intends to gather signatures for a ballot initiative for the 2018 primary election that would include district representation.
White Castle Management’s plan calls for 150,000 square feet of office space and 300 multifamily- housing units on the company’s 15 acres at 555 W. Goodale St. near Downtown. It would cost about $ 65 million to build, according to the legislation that the council approved Monday for the tax- increment- financing district. The TIF district would be bounded by Goodale Street, Interstate 670, railroad tracks and the Olentangy River.
Columbus plans to spend about $2 million on infrastructure around the development, including a new public road to access the site. That is to be voted on at a future meeting.
The council also approved property- tax breaks for two companies on Monday.
Meritex Columbus will receive a 10- year, 75 percent break worth about $ 2.8 million as it builds a 250,000-square-foot warehouse at Spiegel Drive and Adelaide Court near Rickenbacker Airport, just south of Groveport. Meritex would spend about $10.4 million on the project and create about 22 warehouse and office jobs with payroll totaling about $ 1.1 million. Construction is expected to start this summer and be completed by February.
The city also is offering Franklin International and subsidiary F. I. Industries a 10- year, 75 percent break worth $508,730 on a project that is to add a 12,300- square- foot, research-and-development center on a 25- acre industrial- adhesives site at 145 Hosack St. on the South Side.
Much of the center’s planned $ 3.4 million cost is for a new laboratory. The project would create five jobs with payroll totaling about $ 290,000. Construction is expected to start this summer and finish in December 2018.