The Industrial Development Board (IDB) of Chattanooga convened on April 20, 2026, at approximately 9:00 AM. The meeting included approval of previous minutes, public comments, financial reports, and three major resolutions: engagement of an underwriter for the North River Access Road Tax Increment Financing (TIF), approval of an intergovernmental sales tax agreement for the Northgate Mall TIF, and a small business incentive grant. All resolutions passed unanimously.
For the month of April, I will go ahead and call this meeting to order. We do have quorum present, and the meeting was advertised at this time. We will move into the approval of the minutes of the March 2nd IDB meeting. And so I'll entertain a motion for approval of those minutes. I'll make a motion to approve. It's moved and seconded. All those in favor? Any opposed. Thank you. The meetings are approved. At this time, we'll recognize any person wishing to address the board this morning. Anyone here wishing to address the board? Ms. Sharp. Good morning, board. My name is Helen Byrne Sharp, representing accountability for taxpayer money. You're the first to see my my new look. It's not gonna last, I don't think. I went to four bridges yesterday thinking it was gonna get artwork and ended up with a poncho. And then I got home and had to Google ponchos like what are they? What do you do with them? But anyway, I'm hoping today I won't be invisible, right? Okay. I don't have anything terribly profound to say, just a couple of requests of staff or the applicant when it gets to these on the agenda. Uh the North River Access Road TIFF, I've always thought it was probably the most normal of all our TIFFs, but I've noticed that a couple of times it's come back to you. And rarely do TIFFs once you've approved them come back to you. And I'm sure there are good reasons, but I uh would like for staff or the applicant to kind of to address, and I I think in the agenda it kind of explains it, but to those of us who are kind of generalists that don't understand all the intricacies of financing, just a plain English explanation of what this is about, and also maybe a reminder, they've come back before for things that I'm sure were legitimate, but maybe they could could mention those too. Uh the Northgate Mall TIF. Uh I noticed in the um the boundary for the sales tax collection that it it could have been the entire boundary of the TIFF, but instead it's basically uh BJs and those restaurants along 153, the places where today sales taxes are being collected, and I understand that. I just wondered what was the thinking. Some of I would hope over this 20-year period this is in effect that some of the vacant properties there this redevelops into a town center might become uh businesses that would generate sales taxes. And I mean, I'm not you know, I think we need sales tax revenue as well as property tax revenue, so I'm not trying to necessarily make it bigger, but I just wondered if somebody could address why the decision to restrict it to that particular portion of the TIFF boundary. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Is there anyone else wishing to address the board this morning? Okay, we um Miss Lou up next with uh BW finance reports. Good morning, members of the board. I'm Ellen Leo with C of Chattanooga. Uh the first report I'm gonna present is the BW Progress Report. Uh since the last presentation, there's no change on it. Uh if we take a look at the report, the first page, the percentage spent in Cumber and the contingency was still at 99.0%. Overall, there are still two MOU that will have residual amount not spent yet. The second MOU is uh we'll left over 215,000, not yet spent. And then third MOU, uh, there's five million dollars. Actually, I have not spent any of that yet. Okay, uh the next report. Let's look take a look at the economic development program summary page. For that one, um the cash amount that we can spend on this board right now is about four point four point zero seven million dollars. Uh there's those are the seven programs that uh economic development have running right now.