When the resolution was passed County Administrator Judi Boyko noted none of the funds will be used for a proposed Millikin Road interchange at I-75, a project the Liberty Twp. trustees have been pushing hard to get. If all the roadway improvements surrounding it are included the estimate — without current inflationary issues factored — could be $72 million-plus.
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News it would be unfair to make the people who have been paying into that funding vehicle all these years to have to pay for a new interchange, “it’s time for new businesses to take over and pay their way.”
“There’s going to be new money coming in but this TIF is going to be retired, those folks have done their job,” Dixon said. “When you’re talking about the Millikin Road TIF you’re taking $90 million, maybe $100 million that would be totally unfair to lay that cost on the existing people.”
The township has created a Millikin Road TIF in preparation for the interchange. Financial analyst Andy Brossart has conservatively estimated the interchange project, when fully phased out, is going to be worth $388 million in new investment. There are about 700 undeveloped acres slated for commercial development in the Millikin Road area, and the intersection and Cox Road extension to Ohio 63 would open better access to 1,200 acres — which would hold the equivalent of 12 Liberty Centers.
Dixon said he would rather see the federal and state governments pick up the lion’s share.
“I for one think that they need to step back a little bit and look at that Millikin interchange and fund it the way almost all new interchanges are funded,” Dixon said. “Apply for federal grants, you apply for federal money, state money and then you come up with the 20% match or whatever it is and then it gets built that way you’re not carrying $100 million worth of debt in a TIF, you’re carrying $20 million and it goes away sooner.”
When helping out other jurisdictions financially the commissioners never want theirs to be for start-up costs. It’s not that the commissioners don’t support the interchange idea and won’t help but this vehicle isn’t the right one.
“We don’t want somebody to make a funding choice just because we got in,” Commissioner T.C. Rogers said. “A project should stand alone on its own numbers and then of course we would participate in it.”
Commissioner Cindy Carpenter said they do not want to be a major financial contributor “we’re not against it, we’re just not for it right now.”
Liberty Twp. Trustee Steve Schramm said he understands the commissioners might be a little ”gun shy” because there is no big, existing or planned development “driving” the interchange.
“What we were originally talking about was using some of the University Pointe TIF to front load the Millikin Road interchange since the upfront cash is the hardest stuff to get,” Schramm said. “Nobody wants to be first in, whether it be the state government, the federal government, they usually rely on the local government, so all the county has done is say we don’t want to be first in either. All the guns keep pointing back at us to find a way to be the first cash in which is a little disappointing.”
Before the parties can start building a concrete financing plan they need the federal government’s blessing on the concept. Dan Corey, director of the Butler County Transportation Improvement District, said the Ohio Department of Transportation has given its blessing and submitted the project on the township’s behalf for approval to the feds. He doesn’t have a timeline for approval. The latest cost estimate is $30 million to build the diverging diamond interchange and possibly $10 million to acquire right-of-way.
As for getting federal funding he said “I do know that a lot of federal funds will be moving, but I know the Ohio Department of Transportation their number one priority for Ohio is the Brent Spence Bridge, so we’ll have to see what happens there.”
Schramm and Trustee Tom Farrell both said tapping the existing TIF isn’t even possible at this point because Millikin is not within the geography of the University Pointe TIF. They were hoping they might be able to get that changed, but they have other options to consider, because building the interchange is imperative. They need more commercial development to ease the tax burden on homeowners.
“When you the taxpayers shouldn’t pay the funding has to come from somewhere, we will do everything in our power to get funding from the sources that are available,” Farrell said. “But at the end of the day we have to look past the development and the building of the interchange and what it’s going to look like a decade or two decades from now and will it generate the revenue and infrastructure necessary to keep us a sustainable community.”
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