Review committee clears TIF application to replace Northgate Mall utilities, sets Nov. 3 public hearing

A City of Chattanooga application review committee voted to advise City Council that a developer-backed tax increment financing (TIF) application for utility upgrades at Northgate Mall in Hixson meets the city’s TIF policy and qualified for submission, and it set an Industrial Development Board public hearing for Nov. 3. The application would reimburse the developer for new water, sewer and storm infrastructure that is now privately owned and serves multiple public-facing businesses on the mall campus.

Winston Brooks, Director of Economic Development for the City of Chattanooga, told the committee that TIF is “a financing agreement” in which a baseline property tax is retained by the city while taxes generated by later increases in assessed value (the increment) can be used to finance infrastructure. “That is why it is so important,” Brooks said, explaining that the developer can use the guaranteed future increment “to get bonded against or take to the bank.”

The project team, led on behalf of CBL Properties by developer John Michelle, said the Northgate property consists of 14 parcels and that a private owner (identified in the application as parcel 13) currently owns the on-site water, sewer and storm lines. Michelle…