The city of Chattanooga took the first step Monday toward using some of the money to be generated from a new automotive paint factory in East Chattanooga to help foster other new development in the area.
The Chattanooga Industrial Development Board voted to approve an application for a tax increment district on 20 acres on and near the site of the former Harriett Tubman housing facility to reinvest property taxes from a new $61 million factory into new retail, housing or commercial development next door.
If approved by local and state authorities, the proposed tax increment financing (TIF) district would be only the third such TIF created in Chattanooga and is projected to provide more than $3 million of financing to immediately help spur more development in East Chattanooga.
Nippon Paint, one of the world’s biggest paint and coatings makers, is planning to build what will be the biggest new manufacturing investment in East Chattanooga in more than a century. Nippon plans to build a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing complex on about 29 acres of the 45-acre former Tubman site and hire 150 workers over the next five to seven years to supply paint for the Mazda/Toyota assembly plant planned in East Chattanooga.
The city is giving most of the vacant site between Sholar and Roanoke Avenues to Nippon for the project. But the Japanese-based paint company will pay full city and county property taxes on the new factory.