TIF 97 will be one of the big issues on the minds of Traverse City voters when they head to the polls next week, with two different proposals on the ballot that could affect future use of tax increment financing in the city. It’s not the first time a TIF-related matter has gone to a public vote, though. This week, for the final installment of our series on local election histories, The Ticker takes a look back at how support for a key element of TIF 97 – parking deck construction – has oscillated over time.

First, a quick refresher on the origins of the TIF 97 plan, detailed in an oral history The Ticker published earlier this year. According to Richard Lewis, who served as city manager for the City of Traverse City when TIF 97 first came to fruition, the financing plan was born because the city lacked sufficient downtown parking and needed a way to bring more capacity online.

“We undertook a study asking, ‘OK, if we're going to do something differently [with parking], what's it going to look like?’” Lewis told The Ticker earlier this year. “[The study] came back and basically said, ‘Look, if we’re going to do anything [in terms of growing downtown], we’re going to need three parking decks.’ The report recommended one deck on the east side of downtown, where the current Hardy deck is; a second one down on the west end of town; and a third where the Old Town deck is now. And we said, ‘Well, there’s only one way this is going to happen: We’re going to have to have a TIF plan to pay for the construction.’ Because the city couldn’t do that by itself.”

That issue – and the question of whether the city should issue millions of dollars in bonds to pay for the project – sparked a referendum vote in 2002. City voters gave the city the green light to proceed with the project, and the Larry C. Hardy Parking Garage was built, opening the following year. The DDA is still paying off those bonds today, using a mix of downtown parking revenues and TIF 97 dollars.

In 2005, Federated Properties, a downstate developer, brought a proposal to the city to build a mixed-use development on the west side of downtown. According to contemporaneous reporting from Ticker sister publication Northern Express, the development would have spanned two buildings on two sides of West Front Street. On the north side, in the lot between the Traverse City Record-Eagle building and J.S. Hamburg, Federated wanted to build a three-story building with retail space on the ground floor, offices on the second and third floors, and 75 parking spaces below grade. Right across the street, the plan called for an eight-story building with retail on the first floor and condos on the top four floors. Sandwiched in between would be a three-story parking deck with approximately 560 spaces.

While this project didn’t originate with the city and the DDA like the Hardy garage did, the city got involved for funding reasons. Per the Express, “almost half” of the parking deck’s cost would have been paid for “by brownfield money that was earmarked for the west end of town,” with the rest coming from “a special TIF” that would have captured property taxes from the condos and retail tenants.

Local leaders – including Lewis and DDA CEO Bryan Crough – were on board with the Federated plan. In late 2005, though, local developer Jerry Snowden and a few partners brought forth a concept for their own development. Snowden had acquired land at the corner of West Front and Pine streets and planned to build a mixed-use development there. According to the Express, the developer approached the city in January 2006 and offered to add a free-standing parking deck to his project, estimating that a standalone deck would be $3 million or $4 million less expensive than a deck that needed to support condos on upper floors.

Despite Snowden’s overtures, city commissioners never heard his plan. Pete Correia, then-owner of Traverse City State Bank and one of Snowden’s project partners, withdrew the proposal just a day after submitting it. A month later, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported that Senator Jason Allen had encouraged Crough to ask Snowden and his team if they would pull their proposal. The Record-Eagle also reported that Allen had received a $20,000 campaign donation from the CEO of Federated Properties.

That report, plus the potential loss of a cheaper parking deck, touched off a firestorm in Traverse City – even as the city moved forward with the Federated project. In February, city commissioners voted 6-1 in favor of the plan, and on Friday, March 3, the city posted a notice of its intent to issue $16 million in bonds to support the development.

Less than two weeks later, future TC mayor Jim Carruthers – still a year shy of his first city commission run, but already a well-known political voice in town – wrote an opinion column for the Northern Express, encouraging locals to push back against the Federated Properties project. He cited the “questionable economy” of the moment, asked why Snowden’s cheaper plan wasn’t being considered, and suggested that it would be a mistake to use taxpayer dollars “to support private development.”

“The citizens of Traverse City have the right to petition the question of whether taxpayers should support and back the issuance of said bonds at the next primary election on August 8, or general election on November 7,” Carruthers wrote. “The citizens have 45 days from March 3 to obtain signatures from 10% of registered Traverse City voters, or approximately 1,118 signatures, to secure the right of the people to vote on this issue.”

That petition effort was successful, and the matter ultimately went before voters in August. The outcome was decisive: 2,823 voters, or 71 percent of the turnout, opposed the bond issue, compared to the 1,142 ballots cast in favor of the project.

Without the city’s backing, the Federated Properties development never came to fruition, and to this day, Traverse City still does not have a west-side-of-downtown parking deck. Recently, DDA board members considered a mixed-use development on State Street, which would have included a 534-space parking deck. However, the DDA ultimately decided to exclude that project from the Moving Downtown Forward plan, its proposed extension of TIF 97.