BURA considering its own BID

BOULDER – Perhaps taking a cue from downtown Boulder, the Boulder Urban Renewal Authority (BURA) will consider a Business Improvement District (BID) as a way to fund – and perhaps expand – its role of supporting development in central Boulder.

BURA oversees the BVRC, a 300-acre district that encompasses Boulder Crossroads and the surrounding commercial development, as well as an urban renewal district encompassing Ninth Street and Canyon Boulevard. The BVRC is bounded by Spruce Street on the north, 32nd Street on the east and Boulder Creek on the south.

Bonds issued almost 18 years ago to help pay for redevelopment of the BVRC will be retired in 2003, and BURA now is looking at its future role and financial options.

A BID, authorized by state law, is a taxing district created by voters who own real or personal property in the specific geographic area of the district – except residential property owners or government and non-profit agencies.

Downtown business and property owners passed a BID on Nov. 2. It will provide services such as marketing and maintenance above and beyond what’s supplied by the city. Marilyn Haas, executive director of Downtown Boulder Inc., a non-profit organization of downtown businesses, has said the proposed BID budget would include as much as $616,300 annually raised from a tax on BID property and business owners, but the total budget for the first year could be more than $1.2 million with additional city and DBI funds.

At its October meeting, BURA heard from Frank Gray, director of the Community Planning and Development department in Lakewood, regarding possible initiatives such as a BID that would enable the authority “to assume a more direct role in the ongoing transformation of the BVRC,” according to a Nov. 11 memo from BURA Executive Director Brad Power. Gray was executive director of BURA at the time of its inception.

“It was timely to ask him now that we’re 17 years down the road from the (bond) election what he thought was a reasonable set of options to see BURA evolve into,´ said Phil Shull, chairman of the BURA board.

BURA, governed by a nine-member board of commissioners, was created in April 1979 in accordance with state urban renewal law to plan and execute the redevelopment of Crossroads Mall, now known as Boulder Crossroads.

The authority issued about $20 million in tax-increment bonds in association with the redevelopment of Boulder Crossroads from 1981 to 1983.

“BURA does not necessarily go out of business in 2003,” Power said. But there are questions as to what is the best form for it to take.

“Becoming more active in the long-term development and management of the area is a key goal,” Power said of BURA revisiting its mission and looking at possible reorganization. The board was expected to discuss the propositions more extensively at its Dec. 15 retreat.

“There’s a lot of ideas on the table,” Power said.

BURA also has scheduled a joint study session with city council in late January “to ensure that BURA’s consideration of possible strategies for the BVRC will benefit from the early involvement and consideration” of council, according to Power’s memo.

A BID would allow BURA to continue to exist, but the BID would assume a greater management role in the BVRC, Power reported in the memo. “If it is convincingly presented and argued, property owners will endorse the BID because the costs will typically be borne through tenant lease rates,” the memo states.

Possible BID projects in the BVRC could include the purchase and management of shared parking lots and parking structures in the BVRC, improvement of pedestrian, automobile and bicycle connections in the district, development of a fiber-optic ring throughout the district – the ring would be owned by BURA with office and retail tenants leasing rights to access it – and the creation of a housing trust fund from the current surplus of funds generated from the district tax increment. One of BURA’s primary goals for the BVRC has been the development of more housing in the district, which is primarily commercial.

Shull said commissioners reacted favorably to the idea of a BID, and they will both study the downtown Boulder BID as well as BIDs in general. The board also will hear from the director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, who “may have some other models that would work, too,” Shull said.

Shull said it is not too premature to study continuation of the authority and what BURA might become but that he would not hazard a guess as to when a BID election would be other than that it could possibly come in 2000 or 2001. Property owners in an area vote on whether they wanted to tax themselves to support a BID.

“All of these things would probably require an election, assuming that we want to assess taxes,” Shull said.

BURA board member Denis Nock said he was “dazzled” by Gray’s presentation, which he said included some of the best, most current information the board has received.

“Some of the changes he suggested, including the BID, were right on,” he said. “I was on the edge of my chair through his entire presentation. He had a lot of good, provocative ideas that we ought to take into consideration.”

Nock said some of Gray’s suggestions were “precisely” what BURA must do to move not only Crossroads but also the entire district forward in a new economy in which shopping centers may be rendered the same fate as dinosaurs.

City Council Member Dan Corson has said that he read “with interest and excitement” the BURA memo. “The ideas for a BID, infrastructure improvements and funding for housing seem to be right in line with city goals,” he wrote on the city’s electronic discussion forum in mid November. “I would encourage BURA staff and commissioners to also consider expanding the boundaries of the new ‘district’ beyond the BVRC to include all areas east of Folsom for which city policies encourage redevelopment.”

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