Small town, big vision
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Kurt Johnson
Momentum is building quickly in the small village of Phillips, where a new housing subdivision has sparked an economic development flame on the west edge of Hamilton County.
Local developers with a vested interest in the community are making a difference, having created a vision for a 56-lot housing subdivision that is now beginning to come into focus. Jeff Reed and Darren Bartunek launched the Barrcon Workforce Housing Redevelopment effort last year, speaking with confidence from the outset about the need for more single-family housing in the area, as well local support to get the project up and running.
Some skeptics may have wondered about the merits of such a large-scale project considering the population of Phillips, but Reed and Bartunek forged ahead, even in the midst of a global pandemic and all the uncertainties that came with it. That took a lot of courage.
Less than nine months after getting a green light to build houses on a newly platted 20-acre subdivision, Reed and Bartunek report astounding progress. As of last week, 10 of the 14 initial spec houses have been sold, priming the pump they say for plans to build as many as 30 additional houses in the next year. Those are staggering numbers addressing a core housing issue towns large and small across Nebraska are all trying to tackle.
Last week the developers announced more exciting plans, razing an abandoned building on Main Street to make way for a new bar and grill. “We’re going to be bringing back the old Winchesters,” Reed explained. “There’s a demand for that you know. Everybody in town needs a place to go eat and have coffee in the morning.”
This project may well serve as a model example of how Tax Increment Financing is designed to work. TIF has been badly abused as an economic development tool in larger communities, quite frankly, as developers seek to lower their costs by handing a tab to local taxpayers. The critical question for TIF use is the “but for” clause, meaning that if it weren’t for the availability of TIF this particular project would not happen.
The answer to that question in this case, Reed and Bartunek told village board members quite matter of factly, is that the numbers did not pencil out without the tax incentive. The village won’t see revenues from much of the increased valuation for many years, but it did gain infrastructure improvements and already is seeing potential for new houses, businesses and tax base not tied to the TIF contract.
That’s a win-win deal for Phillips, to be sure.
Kurt Johnson
