The Knoxville City Council held a workshop on June 12, 2026, to review the city’s process for corridor redevelopment, payment in lieu of taxes (PILOTs), tax increment financing (TIFs), and other public-private partnership tools. Presenters Rebecca Jane Justice and Ben Bentley from the City’s Urban Design and Development team (in coordination with KCDC) walked council through the key development priorities, the six-month process roadmap, financial vetting steps, and case studies. Council members asked questions about early engagement, the “but for” test, workforce housing requirements, and the duration of incentives.
Good evening. It is six o'clock, and I would like to call the this workshop to order. Um, and we will begin um with uh councilman Grant leading us in the pledge. Please stand as you are able. Text Bob Frost, council attorney. And I'm in the basics of America. We're just saying, uh individual justice for all. The individuals lower their hands and sit back down at the desk. You please call roll. Text Lynn Fugate, Vice Mayor, text Angela Hopper, Assistant City Recorder. Three look at items on tables. Councilwoman Adams. Councilman DeBard Laban. Here. Count Vice Mayor Fugo. Here. Councilman Grant. Here. Councilwoman Hillsley. Councilman Honeycub. Councilman Moyd. Councilwoman Parker. Councilman Thomas. Five of nine are in attendance. So, um, as as we all know, um, as council members, we've expressed a great interest in what goes on with corridor redevelopment, pilots, tiffs, the process that or that we use. Rob Frost touches his hair and face that happens before things get to us. So tonight I'm pleased that we have Rebecca Jane Justice and Ben Bentley who work on those things for the City of Knoxville here to talk to us and we will they have a presentation. Vice Mayor Fugate speaks. After the part about process, we'll take open it up for questions, then they'll move on to a next session section. So we'll kind of stop in the middle so we don't have to remember all our questions till the very end. And at the end of their presentation, then we will open it up for discussion and other questions we have about development along the corridors, barriers, things that we think might be interested to do, and just let this be a conversation as we all work to make things better in Knoxville. So I think we have the presentation up and so uh Miss Justice, are you starting us? Yes. All right. Are we ready? Start. Yes. I don't know if you wanted me to sing the national anthem next. No, ma'am, we don't do that. That sounds good. It's better for all concerned. Well, we appreciate you all inviting us tonight to talk about um redevelopment and public finance tools. Uh we talk a lot about this and specifically over the last few years where we've had so much growth and interests and investment in Knoxville, so how we can be strategic and collaborative in creative ways. It's great to talk about not only what is possible, but what the process is. Um over the course of the next few moments, uh we have organized our information into just talking about why economic development incentives are important, where they're appropriate and focused. We'll share with you an overview of the process and not only talk about the process but show you where we direct people to find out about the process and what resources are available on our city web pages, and then we'll dive into what tools are available as public-private partnerships, what's in our toolbox, and then we'll move on to show you some case studies and talk about a little more specifically how those tools have come to life in a few specific projects and just talk about the mechanics of a few projects for some case studies, and then we'll wrap up by sharing how these projects have delivered and what the benefits and the investment opportunity has brought to Knoxville with these partnerships. Rebecca Jessure's a man beside her looks at a laptop. So I'm gonna jump back and forth between the slides and the the web because I think that it's important to show you all how we direct people to these resources. So this is the urban design and development city web page, and I know we're about to change all of our web resources, but um that this information will still be there. So if you jump to a live web page, um you're right here, and you have you can easily get there by typing urban design in the search for anything box.