Iowa City’s SSMID up for renewal, district hopes for support

IOWA CITY - With the Self-Supporting Municipal Improvement District (SSMID) in Iowa City in its final year, Iowa City Downtown District officials hope enough business owners will do their part for its renewal.

'It'll be four years at the end of this year, and we're just getting started,” said Nancy Bird, executive director of the Iowa City Downtown District.

A renewal of the SSMID would allocate more money to events, marketing and special projects in the area.

The new proposal calls for an expansion of the area businesses involved, as well as the length of time it will be in effect. As opposed to lasting for four years, it would last for 10 - with the rate increasing after the first five years.

Beginning July 1, 2016, until June 30, 2021, the levy rate would not exceed $2 per $1,000 taxable value. On July 1, 2021, until June 30, 2026, the maximum rate would go up 50 cents per $1,000 taxable value.

To be completed, the petition must reach two thresholds - there needs to be signatures from 25 percent of downtown property owners, as well as signatures from 25 percent of property owners in the assessed value boundaries.

'Really it's about property owners talking to each other to see if they want to renew this,” Bird said.

Once the petition is completed, it will be sent to the city council to be denied or approved for implementation.

Council member Jim Throgmorton said he will need to spend some time looking closely at the proposed changes, but he said he thinks it is extremely likely the proposal would be renewed.

'I think the downtown district has done terrific work in these first few years,” he said. 'I think it seems to have pretty strong support among businesses in the downtown area and has proved successful in their view, rightly so.”

Bird said she is hopeful it will be renewed as she thinks the results from the first four years have been promising.

'We've seen a lot of progress,” Bird said. 'I think the most important of those is we have a collective now that can speak with a unified voice, and when you have that you can get a lot of stuff done.”

Of this progress, Bird said some of the highlights included adding lighting to the Northside district, providing power washing services on more buildings, and investing in a community police officer.

In addition, the funds made it possible to gather data and information about the district, such as walkability scores, how many people live in the area and the types of merchandise available there.

'There's a lot of things that we've quantified that we can now set metrics for to improve,” Bird said.