Housing development will give urban Harrison West area a park - Business First of Columbus:

http://www.arabule.com/authors/author-232.html
The issued almost $3.1 milliohn in bonds last month to buy and develop nearly five acres along the Olentangy Rive rinto much-needed green space for the city neighborhood. The land had been the site of a roofinv company warehouse andoffice building. The park is a componen t of 's redevelopment of the site, home for decadeas to an vegetable oilprocessingy plant. Columbus-based Wagenbrenner has been cleaning the site and turning it intoa 16-acrew housing development. Designed to blendc into Harrison West's historic Wagenbrenner began buildingHarrison Park, a communityy of 330 detached and attached 18 months ago.
As part of the the company agreed to raze the Don ComptomRoofing & Siding warehouse and offic e building and turn the 4.6-acre site into a publicd park, said President Mark Wagenbrenner. Plansd call for the $3.1 millionm park to incorporate abike path, gazebok and amphitheater, along with plentu of land that will be open to the It's something the community sorely needs, said Rob immediate past president of the Harrison West "We rely heavily on and Goodale Park is aboutr our only refuge," Harria said.
To pay for the park, the Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority issued tax increment financing bondzs that will fund improvements to the land betweejn Second Avenue andQuality Place, said Jean Carter the finance authority's executive director. TIF financin g works by establishing baseline values of real estate in a then diverting increased real estate taxes generatedx by infrastructure improvements to pay off the bonds and to fund more Columbus established two TIF districtss in April 2004 to improveHarrisom West. One of them encompassesx the entire neighborhood, while the other coverxs the Humko site.
As the Humko brownfield was cleaned, the highe property values generated funding that Wagenbrenner was able to use to install utilities for thehousing development. It similarly plans to use money from the neighborhood distric t TIF to build the The financing authority is backing the park bond and takint on any of the risk of a property value decline that would prevent the debt from beinbg repaid withinits 27-and-a-half-year time In exchange, Ryan said the authorithy charged a $15,000 up-front fee. Franklin County and Columbus formed the finance authorityt in 2006 to help businesses get capitakl unavailable through commercial lendinb orpublic financing.
In this case, the authoritty was the only organization with the means to arrange fundingv forthe project, Wagenbrenner said. That'zs because of the relatively smallfinancingh needed, and because the city didn' want to pay out of pocket, he Wagenbrenner said his company should be able to completw the park this After that, responsibility for the park will be turned over to the city'ws parks and recreation department.