Geneva City Council moves to make East State Street property more attractive to developers

GENEVA – The Geneva City Council on July 3 approved declaring a city-owned parcel at 617 E. State St. as surplus property in order to facilitate its sale.

The .52-acre property is in the East State Street Tax Increment Finance District as an interior lot, City Administrator Stephanie Dawkins said.

“The city purchased the property in February 2013 for $95,000 to stimulate the economic growth of the East State Street corridor by assembling properties and/or working with investors to best develop potential commercial parcels,” Dawkins said.

Shortly after the purchase, the city declared the house on the property as surplus and demolished it, she said.

“The land was consistently marketed for sale – for assembly or new development,” Dawkins said. “What we discovered in this process was we never declared the actual land surplus, we only declared the house surplus that was on the land. So the next step is to declare the property surplus.”

This will authorize the city to advertise the property for sale and invite buyers to make an offer, she said.

Declaring it surplus fulfills a statutory requirement, Dawkins said, so the city can advertise in a newspaper and start accepting bids.

“Your interest is probably going to come from adjoining property owners because it is a small parcel, which is why we purchased it,” Dawkins said. “All the parcels [on East State Street] are a bit smaller in size. So the idea was to be able to combine a couple parcels.”

The city already listed the parcel for sale at $150,000. In addition to it being in a TIF district, the listing states it is walking distance to Dairy Queen, Aldi and CVS Pharmacy in the East State Street corridor, has a high vehicle count per day and is in a mixed use development area of commercial and residential property.

A TIF or tax increment finance district is an economic development tool that dedicates sales tax revenue and additional property tax revenue generated within the district to pay for improvements.