The Metropolitan Development Commission today approved a 10-year property tax abatement on a project to build 600 apartments at the site of the long-vacant Bank One operations center Downtown.

The 7-2 vote is the second key endorsement the project this week. Monday, the City-County Council narrowly approved, by a 13-12 vote, the zoning change needed to build the project, which is adjacent to the former site of Market Square Arena.

Developer Tadd Miller said he hoped to finalize a project agreement with the city in the next several weeks.

Groundbreaking on the $65 million project is tentatively set for next spring.

City officials have proposed buying the operations center and an adjacent 1,667-spot parking garage for $18.5 million and turning over the operations center site at no cost to Miller’s company, Market Square Garage/Ops Partners LLC.

The developer would lease about 600 spaces in the garage for its future tenants.

Commission Chairman Randy Miller voted against the abatement, saying he thought the city is overpaying for the garage. The garage is valued for tax purposes at $10.5 million.

City Deputy Mayor Nick Weber asked the commission to approve the abatement, saying it’s needed to help redevelop the abandoned operations center and help revive the east edge of Downtown. He said the city’s price is based, in part, on future parking revenue the city would get from the garage.

Control of the huge garage, also built by Bank One, improves the city’s ability to attract a developer to the Market Square Arena site, now used as a vast surface parking lot, he said.

The city’s plan is to close the lots next year, when a variance for parking lot use expires, which will help funnel customers to the under-used garage, Weber said.
The seller of the operations center and garage is an entity controlled by Lewis Smoot, chief executive of Smoot Construction of Columbus, Ohio.