ried to make improvements on their own, but to no avail. Things started looking up in1982 when the city council implemented a tax increment financing plan. Over the first nine years, more than $1.4 million was produced for improvements. The plan now generates roughly $250,000 annually. The money is being used to fix streets and sidewalks, and add brick trim to buildings. It improved small parks. It added parks, benches, lighting and trash cans. It expanded the streetscape, bought parking lots and made other improvements as well. Revitalization brought an unexpected benefit to property owners, who noticed their property values stopped declining and started to appreciate. Soon thereafter Debartolo induced another shift in the retail district on Babcock Street by building a mall west of his previous site. Soon the Babcock Street redevelopment committee was established. “As property values go down, so do our tax base,” explains Cindy Kay Dittmer, a member of the committee. Goals of the committee include streetscaping, landscaping medians, putting in sidewalks, burying utility line and marketing the area to complementary service, retail, restaurant and entertainment businesses. Since the mall already offers many businesses the council feels it will be an easier task than the downtown area. In fact they are relying on the 16,000 some daytime workers located within 1 mile of the mall.(Krueger 1999)Melbourne, Florida is not the only place in the Southeast where TIFs are being used. In Georgia, State Representative Doug Teper said that “public officials only began using the tools after realizing they needed new ways to fund investments that could stop businesses from fleeing to the suburbs (DeSue 2000).” In other attempts by cities to attract economy Philadelphia plans to borrow $62 million in their largest TIF deal ever. Philadelphia is planning to use the money in a waterfront development project. Their...
