Casper staff ask council to study re-establishing urban renewal authority to spur redevelopment
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Summary
City staff asked the Casper City Council to direct a consultant-led study to evaluate re-establishing an urban renewal authority (URA) to unlock grant, bond and tax-increment financing tools for five candidate areas, citing prior Yellowstone District results under HUD/CDBG funding.
Casper city staff asked the City Council on Thursday to direct a study of whether to re-establish an urban renewal authority that could be used to finance infrastructure, cleanup and redevelopment in targeted neighborhoods.
Interim City Manager Liz told the council staff had prepared white papers and in 2002 created a Yellowstone District URA that later opened access to federal grants. "What we are bringing forward is a request for direction from you to see if in fact we'd like to again look in to establishing an urban renewal area," Liz said, describing five candidate study areas including the downtown core, East Ridge Mall corridor, land around the Ford Wyoming Center, the Platte River Commons (the old refinery site) and parts of North Casper.
Why it matters: URAs can provide tools — such as tax-increment financing, bond issuance and public‑private partnerships — that municipalities use to pay for infrastructure or environmental remediation where private investment is lagging. Staff cited prior federal grants, including HUD CDBG and EPA Brownfields funding, as examples of what designation helped unlock in earlier work on the Yellowstone District.
Staff recommended issuing a request for proposals to retain a consultant with URA experience and GIS capability to conduct a blight study, inventory property conditions and develop baseline tax/sales‑tax analyses. Councilors asked several technical questions about whether prior work relied on CDBG rather than TIF; staff said the earlier effort used HUD/CDBG as an entitlement community through 2019 and that TIF had been considered but was not deployed at that time.
Council reaction: Several members identified downtown corridors and the parking garage as priority areas for revitalization. After discussion the council indicated consensus for staff to continue and return with RFP and consultant recommendations for formal consideration; no formal roll-call vote was recorded during the discussion.
Next steps: Staff will prepare procurement documents and return to the council with consultant proposals and a recommended scope for a blight/baseline study.