Economic Improvement District OKed in Evansville

(Image courtesy of Visit Evansville.)

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The Evansville City Council has approved a downtown Economic Improvement District. The Southwest Indiana Chamber’s Downtown Alliance says the EID is the fifth in the state. A campaign to gather support and enough signatures to launch one in downtown Indianapolis is underway.

The Downtown Alliance says the EID, funded mostly through additional property tax fees tied to property valuation, is expected to raise around $625,000 per year to cover programs including business recruitment, safety, beautification and marketing efforts. Alliance Director Joshua Armstrong says "the sustainability of a downtown organization has always been a challenge in Evansville, and this is the tool that creates the sustainability that unlocks continued, transformational urban growth. Over 1,000 such districts are at work across the U.S."

The district was a key piece of the 2016 Downtown Evansville Master Plan. The new fees are expected to hit property tax bills in the spring, with resulting programming set to begin in the summer. The Evansville EID includes some 450 parcels and 300 property owners.

Fort Wayne launched the state’s first EID in the mid-1980s.