On January 30, 2018, the Gwinnett Place CID, in coordination with Gwinnett County and Partnership Gwinnett, hosted a Developer Incentive Workshop to familiarize local property owners, developers and other real estate professionals with the incentives that Gwinnett County and the State of Georgia have put in place to foster redevelopment in the Gwinnett Place area. The purpose of the event was to give attendees a practical understanding how the incentives can be used to enhance the value of property and help the Gwinnett community activate its shared vision for the Gwinnett Place area.
The CID updated the more than 60 participants with information on the numerous infrastructure, safety/security and walkability initiatives underway. Gwinnett County District 1 Commissioner Jace Brooks emphasized the County’s commitment to the area and interest in seeing it become a model for an internationally diverse, livable urban community.
Then, Nick Masino, chief economic development officer/Partnership Gwinnett, reinforced Gwinnett’s booming by sharing the following statistics – the County will have 11,634 new jobs (8,000 direct, remainder indirect or induced) and $1 billion in new income/payroll per year, resulting in $1.5 billion in new commerce for Gwinnett by 2021. He noted recent wins for the Gwinnett Place area including Hollis Cobb HQ; Iconex Global HQ; M&I Materials US HQ; Boehringer Ingelheim US HQ, Hendricks Automotive Regional HQ, Kaiser Permanente US Mission Critical Call Center and DuraMax (Mirae VC, Inc.) US HQ.
Overall, Gwinnett has many opportunities, but what the audience came to hear about were incentives at Gwinnett Place, which are listed below.
Gwinnett Place offers the following incentives:
- The Gwinnett Place Tax Allocation District (TAD)
- TADs are Georgia’s form of tax increment financing.
- TADs are reserved for projects that do not qualify for alternative methods of financing or where TAD assistance is deemed by the County to be the preferred method of economic development incentive.
- Prototype redevelopment scenarios were shared with the audience explaining how a TAD could work
- Click to view more (link to Presentation)
- Opportunity Zone
- Available for new or existing businesses that create two or more jobs. The tax credits can be sued for five years for each employee.
- The lowest job creation threshold of any job tax credit program–2 jobs
- Use of Job Tax Credits against 100 percent of income tax liability and withholding
- Expansion of the definition of “business enterprise” to include all businesses of any nature
- The Venture Drive Overlay District
- Promotes a mix of high, end, dense, residential, commercial and office buildings in an urban setting
- Encourages the revitalization of underutilized commercial areas into pedestrian-oriented developments
- The Overlay is aimed at bigger projects, provides simplified approval, and allows more density with no height limits. With fewer restricts, Gwinnett County wants to spur the development community to be creative and bring something new to the table.
- Gwinnett County is seeking creating ideas for redevelopment of the Gwinnett Place area.
- Save’s developers time and money:
- No public hearings are required
- Submit a request for Special Administrative Permit (SAP)
- P&D comments are provided within 3 weeks after SAP request
- SAP is issued within 10 days of resubmittal after comments are addressed
The County also offers a new stormwater management system to aid in redevelopment. This new and improved system provides guidance on the latest and best post-construction stormwater management practices and minimizes the negative impacts of increasing stormwater runoff.
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If the incentives, and other benefits of redeveloping in Gwinnett Place weren’t enough, we presented our audience with some economic impact statistics. The stats include… Gwinnett Place has a $9.5 billion annual economic impact on the Metro-Atlanta; the area is home to 49 percent of workers who have a four-year college degree; the total employment impact equals 57,302 and the area has over 13.3 million SF of commercial development in 399 parcels.
The greatest redevelopment opportunities can be found in Gwinnett’s central business district at Gwinnett Place!
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