The Tax Allocation District (TAD) is one of the most popular economic redevelopment tools in the City of Atlanta — one that helped finance the redevelopment of Atlantic Station as well as hundreds of projects throughout the city.
In December 2024, the Atlantic Station TAD was shut down because it had lived up to its goal to redevelop the area that housed Atlantic Steel, a mill that’s now abandoned.
Before Atlantic Station was redeveloped, the property was valued at $2 million in 1999. When the TAD was closed at the end of last year, the value of the property was worth $843 million, according to Eloisa Klementich, president and CEO of Invest Atlanta.
As a result, the three governments that participated in the Atlantic Station TAD – City of Atlanta, Fulton County and Atlanta Public Schools — saw their tax revenues jump from $350,000 to more than $25 million.
TAD believers said that economic success would not have happened without the financing tool, also referred to as Tax Increment Financing.
Courtney English, chief policy officer and senior advisor to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, spoke to the Transform Westside Summit on June 20 when he made a case for extending the city’s existing eight TADs until 2055. He used the platform to call specifically for the extension of the Westside TAD, which would help pay for numerous affordable housing projects in the communities of Vine City and English Avenue.
“We are looking to extend the TADs,” English told attendees of the summit. “We need your help. We are moving aggressively to move this strategy. We can’t wait. Now is the time when we have a mayor and a council that’s forward thinking.”
Meanwhile, in Fulton County, opposition has been brewing. Fulton County Commissioners Bob Ellis and Khadijah Abdur-Rahman introduced legislation to withdraw from the current Westside TAD. After a six-hour Fulton County Commission meeting, the body decided not to act on the legislation, which undoubtedly would have faced a legal challenge.
Ellis and Abdur-Rahman argued the county needed those funds to cover its budget without needing to increase property taxes. Abdur-Rahman also said the TAD had contributed to gentrification in her district.
One of the recent projects financed through the Westside TAD was the redevelopment of the former Atlanta Constitution building across the Five Points MARTA Station. The renovated building is being transformed into the Folio House, a residential and commercial development. The $40.6 million project received $3.5 million from the Westside TAD to make housing affordable.
Another high-profile project that received financing from the Westside TAD was the restoration of 220 Sunset Ave., an apartment building that was originally developed by the father of Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson Jr.
But the move by the Fulton County Commissioners was a warning signal. If Fulton County is considering withdrawing from the Westside TAD (even though it is supposed to be in place until 2038), it may not bode well for Fulton County’s approval to extend all eight of the City of Atlanta’s TADs.
Of the city’s eight TADs, three are the most substantial — the Beltline TAD, the Westside TAD and the Eastside TAD. The other five include the Perry Bolton TAD, the Campbellton TAD, the Metropolitan TAD, the Stadium TAD and the Hollowell TAD. In addition to sunsetting the Atlantic Station TAD, the city also closed the Princeton Lakes TAD years ago.
So, are TADs an elixir for community redevelopment, or do they suck up future tax revenue that could be used on current needs? That is the tension.
Steve Labovitz, a partner with Dentons, helped put together the Atlantic Station TAD, and he has worked on TADs and related projects ever since.
“A TAD is the best economic tool for redevelopment that exists,” Labovitz said. Both Klementich and Labovitz said TADS not only help raise property values in the actual TADs but in the half-mile areas beyond the TAD boundaries, which they called the “halo” effect.
By revitalizing those areas of the city, all the jurisdictions benefit — Atlanta, Fulton and APS — they said.
The driving force behind extending the existing TADs to 2055 is to invest in Mayor Dickens’ neighborhood strategy, a plan to invest in seven of the city’s most underserved areas.
David Edwards, the City of Atlanta’s senior policy advisor for neighborhoods, said that extending the TADs would give the city the ability to accelerate its work to revitalize the city’s place-based initiative.
“We’ve got a 20-year plan, and we are going to execute it regardless,” Edwards said. “But the TAD extensions will give us a major injection of funds to accelerate our investments in the seven targeted neighborhoods.”
Edwards said once TADs expire after the bonds are paid off, the three governments will enjoy access to a new stream of revenue that likely would not have existed without the TAD.
“TADs are one of the most effective means for local governments to collectively invest in historically underinvested neighborhoods,” Edwards said. “Nothing improves the future financial sustainability of all of our partners than ensuring that all our neighborhoods are thriving.”
Edwards added that the city has strategies to prevent the negative side effects of gentrification, such as an anti-displacement fund for legacy residents.
Clearly a disconnect exists right now between the city and the other jurisdictions — as the move by the two Fulton County commissioners to withdraw from the Westside TAD indicated.
The city only represents a quarter of the property tax collected. The county represents another quarter, while the Atlanta Public Schools represent half. In order for a TAD to live up to its potential, it would need approval from all three jurisdictions.
The problem is that TADs are complicated to understand and explain. Most of the county commissioners and school board members who initially approved the TADs are no longer in office.
That means the city will need to embark on a major education initiative to explain to the county and the school board the benefits of staying in the Westside TAD and, more importantly, to extend the existing TADs.
“I don’t really think they understand how much TADs and the areas around them have increased the county’s revenues,” Labovitz said of the Fulton County move to pull out of the Westside TAD.
When asked whether the city has been trying to convince Fulton County and APS leaders about the benefits of TADs, English said conversations are ongoing.
“We have got some convincing to do,” said English, who was named the city’s interim chief of staff on July 14 in addition to his other responsibilities.
More importantly, English added that the city will need to rely even more on TAD financing than it has in the past because of possible changes in federal programs that once helped urban areas.
“Help is not coming from Washington,” English said. “We are going to have to do it ourselves.”
This article is a ridiculously one-sided advertisement for slush funds. If the campaign to extend TADs to 2055 is successful, it would impose a multi-hundred million annual tax increase on Atlantans to pay for operating our schools, city and county.
This a great idea were Zohran Mamdani mayor-elect . . .
How much do each TAD generate per year? What would that money be allocated to? How could we reallocate that money if flowed into regular budgets instead?
Simply saying we need to extend TADs is not good enough. Way too much money on the table to be speaking in blanket statements.
Stop the TADS – fix the ATL city and residential roads! Start implementing the work with the tax dollars that were set aside to fix the roads. Show some progress!
This article is (another) piece of PR for the Mayor and the regime.
I am not naive and understand that many people’s policy recommendations are sensitive to what jobs they hold at the time. But, I am disappointed to see the Mayor of Atlanta’s chief policy person quoted here as calling for the *extension* of City TAD/TIF districts (including the Beltline TAD) until *2055*.
He was head of the *school board* years ago and fought for the schools to get funds that had promised to schools by the Beltline but weren’t being paid. This was a courageous position, IMO, standing up to the growth-machine Atlanta regime. But now, he is calling for TADs being extended for the next 30 years, depriving the schools and the city/county from their fair share of the gentrification occurring in these areas, including the Beltline.
This makes no sense. TIFs/TADs are only justifiable if they are viewed as “priming the pump” in disinvested/distressed areas. They are not justified if they are simply going to steal revenue from *schools* and basic city/county services elsewhere. Even if a large portion of these dollars go to affordable housing (which seems unlikely), they shouldn’t be restricted to narrow TAD districts, but used where they make sense throughout the city. Otherwise you are funneling dollars to places that are, now, generally doing quite well.
The city has shown zero progress towards building Beltline rail. Why would we approve an extension?
Also misleading is that the Westside TAD’s biggest project is The Gulch. When people think of the westside, they don’t think of downtown. Pull out the downtown projects from the Westside TAD and look at the numbers then. It won’t be quite the “success” story portrayed.