- December 4, 2024
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Palm Coast’s officials would like to create a downtown — preferably in the Community Redevelopment Area they’ve already designated in Town Center, between Belle Terre Parkway in the west and Interstate 95 in the east; and Royal Palms Parkway in the north and State Road 100 in the south.
City staff is envisioning the area as an “innovation district,” with creative start-ups, sustainable employment and well-designed commercial environments, according to a staff presentation.
The city is now getting some help from the state: The Town Center area has been designated as an “opportunity zone,” providing tax incentives to investors.
“This is our first kick off for the innovation district and our new efforts to try to bring forth strategies to really see our downtown starting to grow and get the momentum started,” City Manager Jim Landon told the Palm Coast City Council at a council workshop April 24. “When someone looks at this area, they go, ‘Why would I want to invest my money in it? Because there’s more deer and rabbits than anything else.’ So we’ve got to figure out how to change that image and kick it off so that everybody wants to start investing here, and that’s really kind of what the goal is.”
Palm Coast Holdings built the backbone infrastructure more than a decade ago, Landon said. Then, he said, “We had a little recession, and it just died.”
The city created the community redevelopment area — or CRA — to help fund the area’s infrastructure and development, and the current City Council has pushed staff to make development of the area a top priority.
Things are developing: In 2004, the CRA had a taxable value of $40,091,077. By 2017, its taxable value was $187,907,965.
“It’s been a priority for some time,” Landon told the council. “Recently, you all have said that we need to step up our efforts and recognize this as one of our top priorities.”
The city is now applying for a $40,000 Department of Economic Opportunity grant, which city staff hopes to use to hire a consultant to recommend innovation district initiatives.
The city is also proposing an “Innovation Kick Start” program that would provide incentives to developers building in the target area if construction begins before Dec. 31, 2020.
City staff plans to develop guidelines for those incentives in the future.
