Rossville prioritizes economic development for 2020
Economic development is a top priority in Rossville in 2020.
“We currently have nearly 2 million square feet of vacant space available for purchase or redevelopment in a prime location with up to 10-gigabit fiber optic internet access,” said Elizabeth Wells, Rossville’s economic and community development consultant.
Recruiting businesses to fill that available space and developing additional acreage are top priorities, and the recent opening of the modernly-designed Amigos at Peerless Mill is a first step on that path to economic recovery.
Growing and supporting existing businesses in the city is another priority.
The city’s Rural Zone, or RZ, designation went into effect Jan. 1, enabling businesses and investors to obtain a threefold tax credit per newly-purchased parcel for acquisition of real estate, rehabilitation of property and job creation in the Rural Zone.
The Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the Georgia Department of Economic Development designated Rossville and six other Georgia cities as Rural Zones last fall.
The designated Rural Zone area includes a cluster of 83 contiguous parcels in a location ripe for redevelopment and is included within the area that has just undergone an extensive strategic planning processes with the North Georgia Regional Commission and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, culminating in an urban redevelopment plan and Economic Development Strategic Priorities Assessment.
“We believe this Rural Zone tax credit incentive layers advantageously over our federal Opportunity Zone (OZ) to help drive new private capital investment into Rossville,” Wells said. Rossville has the only federal Opportunity Zone designation in a five county radius.
The city has the county’s only federal OZ and state RZ designations; the city was also selected in 2019, in partnership with LaFayette, to participate as one of five communities statewide into the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, or GICH, program.
“For the first time in our city’s history, we now have multiple robust incentive programs to motivate private real estate investors and OZ fund managers to be a part of our large-scale revitalization effort,” Wells said. “We are committed to making these three programs work powerfully together for our community.”
The Opportunity Zone benefits are complex, but in short, taxpayers receive federal investment tax benefits for investing capital gains for economic development and job creation in low income census tracts in a designated OZ; the zones are identified by state governors and approved by the federal government.
Rossville’s 10-year federal OZ designation expires in 2028, and under current policy no new federal zones are proposed to be designated at this time. This could change as the decade of impact evolves. We must maximize the advantage while we have this competitive advantage.
The OZ program is “an advantageous investment incentive ... but it won’t make a subpar deal good,” Wells said.
She explained that the program is among a package of incentives that Rossville is using to attract new investment in the city, including building out a local investment toolkit to show investors opportunities for both brownfield redevelopment and new development, as well as available local and state incentives broken down by sectors of industry and small business.
Rossville is also looking at ways to leverage program funds and grants to implement priority projects in infrastructure, streetscape, transportation planning, housing, building rehabilitations and public investment to enhance quality of life in the city.
The newly formed Rossville Downtown Development Authority, or DDA, is in the final stages of a large scale public art project that will be deployed in April 2020, along with a second design phase of the John Ross Commons.
The city of Rossville will work in partnership with the new Corporate Innovation Space and Digital Media Lab, run by Bridge Innovate, at the top of the Western Electric Building to attract new industry.
Bridge Innovate, which will operate the space, is a design thinking consulting company that specializes in corporate leadership development, strategy and change management.
The new innovation space holds beautiful world class office and meeting space with a 360-degree view of Lookout Mountain, downtown Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge.
Rossville will host an economic development workshop on the new Georgia Rural Zone incentive and federal Opportunity Zone investment incentive in the new space within the coming months.
“We are excited about Rossville’s momentum and believe it is no longer a matter of if, but when, for major revitalization to scale throughout the City’s footprint and beyond,” Mayor Teddy Harris said.
Harris indicated that the city was firing on all cylinders with the local elected body, city employees and planning commission working in direct partnership with the new and dynamic DDA.