The city of Manitowoc is looking at ‘facilitating growth’ in the I-Tech Industrial Park west of I-43. Community Development Director Nick Sparacio tells Seehafer News that the city is trying to ‘get out ahead of several new construction projects in the pipeline’ by improving their ability to use tax incremental financing to help make sure those happen in Manitowoc. TIF enables municipalities to simply borrow against future tax base. Sparacio explains There are ‘5’ new construction projects they are aware of that are behind this need to make adjustments to the district.
The community development director said they’re still working out what the job growth looks like with those projects.
The TIF changes will enlarge the I-Tech district to 240 acres, with half of the vacant land already served by infrastructure & ready for development. Sparacio said he expects 2-to-3 projects to break-ground this year. He explained it’s a two-step process they’re going through with the first step completed this month and the next done in July, enabling projects to start construction in 2018.