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  • A proposed parking deck and cancer treatment center for Copper Ridge has been planned for development near the main campus of Munson Medical Center. Record-Eagle/Keith King

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September 12, 2012

Center's location may be windfall for agencies

BY BRIAN McGILLIVARY bmcgillivary@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Munson Medical Center's decision to build a cancer center at its main campus could create a $600,000 windfall for some local governmental agencies.

Grand Traverse County officials this month will discuss ending a brownfield redevelopment plan that since 2010 captured property taxes at the 73-acre Copper Ridge development in Garfield Township. That money was supposed to fund construction of a $6 million parking deck to serve a new Munson cancer center at Copper Ridge.

But Munson officials are moving ahead with plans to construct the cancer center on their main campus on the city's west side.

Munson was "keeping its options open," while it researched the best location, said Ian Jones, hospital spokesman. Munson eventually determined its best move was to build the $45 million center on its main campus.

"It's safe to say we don't feel the need to construct a public parking structure at Copper Ridge," Jones said.

Munson has a contract with the county's Land Bank Authority for the parking deck, a deal that expires Dec. 31. But with local officials busy finalizing budgets for 2013, the county would like something definitive from Munson before Oct. 31, said Jean Derenzy, the county's deputy director of planning and development.

"Munson is a huge economic driver for us, and we would definitely want to help them, assist them anyway we can," Derenzy said. "If the cancer center is going on their main campus, that's great ... but we need to release this money to the taxing jurisdictions."

The Copper Ridge development is on property formerly owned by the county road commission. Land there is valued at about $22 million, but area taxing jurisdictions such as the district library, Garfield Township, the county, Bay Area Transportation Authority and county Commission on Aging receive just a fraction of the taxes generated by commercial properties there.

The county's Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has captured all tax revenue from new construction at the development since 2001, when it was mostly vacant land. The tax capture would have ended in 2008, but the county board of commissioners in a contested, pre-Thanksgiving Day voted opted to extend that program to pay for the would-be parking deck.

If county officials decide to drop the Copper Ridge tax capture, about $266,000 will pour into the county's coffers. The Traverse Bay Intermediate School District would receive about $158,000.

The county Commission on Aging, which recently increased senior services fees and trimmed services, would reap about $20,000 from its cut of the banked money and about $6,500 more a year beginning in 2013.

"That's a lot of money," said Georgia Durga, COA director. "I don't know if it will save a program, but it will help."

Reductions in property values and state tax tribunal decisions that slashed assessments on large commercial properties battered public agencies such as the COA that rely on property taxes for operating revenues.

"Anything we can get to keep us from going down is good," Durga said. "That's a nice piece of property, so if that goes back on the tax rolls it will boost up everything."

Release of the tax capture will free about $288,000 a year in property taxes for the local jurisdictions, Derenzy said.

Munson purchased property for the deck in 2010 and plans to move some of its support functions to existing offices in Copper Ridge. But office space won't extend the tax capture, Derenzy said.

"If it isn't a cancer center, it would have to be something pretty substantially close to the same thing," she said.

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