After a long rezoning process that began in April, the city of Gainesville is finalizing terms to sell a downtown lot to an entertainment company for $800,000.
The city plans to sell 1.7 acres of land to Colorado-based B-Entertainment, which plans to build a restaurant and event center after receiving approval from Gainesville City Council last month.
A 15,000-square foot concert venue and event center would give the city a place to hold large events that it doesn’t have today.
Though plans have not been finalized yet, City Manager Bryan Lackey and Chief Operations Officer of B-Entertainment, Robert Mudd, confirmed these details. Mudd wrote in an email Thursday, Sept. 2, they are in the due diligence phase of the agreement leading up to closing.
The city bought the parcels that make up the property for about $2 million over a 14-year period, Lackey and Mudd confirmed. The current assessed value of the five parcels that make up the lot is $654,062, according to Steve Watson, Hall County’s tax assessor.
“The city made it clear that $800,000 alone was not going to be sufficient to complete the sale,” Lackey said. “With that, we began to explore other methods of compensation to the city.”
As part of the agreement, the city will be able to use the event center facility 12 times per year for 15 years. This agreement would be worth a minimum value of $900,000 over that time, Mudd wrote, because the rental price for a similar venue that B-Entertainment has in Colorado Springs is well above the $5,000 per event.
“We are excited to be able to partner with the city in a way that will expand Gainesville’s capacity to meet the needs of community based events such as the collegiate rowing championships and televised fishing tournaments, among other opportunities,” he wrote. “The facility will have world class simulcast, multimedia and catering capacity providing a great deal of opportunity in the years ahead.”
Currently, the city has a $5,000 incentive it can use twice per year as part of its Convention and Visitors Bureau budget to offer organizations who wish to rent a facility in Gainesville for an event or conference, Lackey said. With the B-Entertainment agreement, the city will be able to entice big events much more often.
“I know people might laugh a little bit when we talk about fishing tournaments being a big deal for Gainesville, but that brings a lot of money into our community,” Lackey said. Currently, some tournaments must hold closing tournaments in Gwinnett County, he said, because there isn’t a space big enough and with the technology necessary in Gainesville.
The site off of Jesse Jewell Parkway, West Academy Street, Broad Street and Maple Street used to hold Engine 209 Park until the city moved the historic train to the Midland Greenway on Aug. 14. The city applied to rezone the property from general business to central business to make way for B-Entertainment’s development, which includes a 9,000-square-foot restaurant, and a patio area in addition to the concert venue and event center.
The indoor concert venue will face Jesse Jewell Parkway and abut Maple Street on the south and east sides of the property respectively, and the restaurant, including its rooftop bar area, will sit at the corner of Broad and Maple streets. Forty parking spaces will be built on the west side of the property near West Academy Street.
In addition to the cash and rent agreement, the city plans to use $250,000 of the project’s TAD increment to build 40 parking spaces at Poultry Park next door, Lackey said. The project is eligible to apply for up to $1.4 million over 15 years in TAD funding, Lackey said.
The tax allocation district, or TAD, program allows developers and property owners to use property tax payments it pays toward improvements at the property over an agreed upon period of time. As the property is developed, it increases in value, and thus its property tax payments increase.
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