By next week, a decision that could have a major impact on downtown Wilmington will be in the hands of the city's elected officials.

That's when Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Wilmington Downtown Inc., will deliver to Wilmington City Council a task force's recommendation on establishing the Port City's first Municipal Service District.

Those who own property in the recommended district (see map below) would pay an additional 7 cents per $100 of assessed value to pay for a myriad of extra services, from additional cleaning methods to economic development efforts, if the recommendation is eventually adopted by the council.

"We deliberately took a transparent, thoughtful and deliberate approach. We wanted to engage the broad range of downtown constituents," said Wolverton, who is scheduled to present the task force's recommendation during the city council's meeting at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at City Hall. "We feel like that has produced a recommendation reflective of what additional services would help move downtown forward even more."

If the council decides to move forward with the proposal, it would still be far from a done deal. Additional required steps include holding public hearings; creating an oversight committee that would include members who are property owners; and selecting a vendor to provide the added services. But delivering the recommendation, the product of 18 months of study by the task force, to the council is a big step in a process that has been tried before without success.

"I have seen at least two other attempts to do this in the last five or six years, and this process has been the most in-depth and far-reaching and inclusive effort that I think has been done to date," said Clark Hipp, chairman of the MSD task force and an architect whose office is downtown. "We've talked with a lot of people. We've made every effort to talk with different people that would be impacted, gained their insights and tried to incorporate that into our recommendation."

Referring to an MSD, council member Kevin O'Grady said Thursday, "I've always thought that it was a missing piece for downtown."

So far, he said, he's liked what he's learned about the recommendation.

"Right now, I'm feeling very favorable toward it ... I could hear something that would change my mind, but I don't think so. My analogy has always been that they were a shopping center in search of a landlord," O'Grady said. "Most shopping areas -- Independence Mall, Mayfaire -- there's a property owner that collects Common Area Maintenance (CAM) fees and provides services with that [money]. Downtown doesn't have that."

A recent WDI presentation on the MSD proposal, presented at a public meeting last week, compared some of those fees -- $3.42 per square foot at Landfall Center, for example -- to what the MSD rate would cost Front Street Brewery -- about 6 cents per square foot. The presentation also showed the rates in the state's existing service districts that are part of towns and cities throughout North Carolina, from the lowest of 1.68 cents, 2.33 cents and 3.58 cents in three Charlotte districts, to the highest -- 23.5 cents in Goldsboro.

The state average is 13 cents per $100 of assessed tax value, according to the presentation. If the recommended 7-cent Wilmington district rate is adopted, the owner of a $500,000-valued downtown property within the district would pay $350 per year.   

"It is a tool that has proven to be successful, and it is a tool that the task force determined in their investigation should be employed in downtown Wilmington at this point," Hipp said. 

Now that the task force has finalized the recommendation, Hipp said, "The city council has to decide whether or not they feel like it's worth the effort to push forward."



Some services the proposed MSD tax would fund in part of downtown (Source: Wilmington Downtown Inc.)

Public safety	Cleanliness	Economic Development	Public space	Marketing
Target areas city police don't routinely patrol, challenge low-level crimes	Graffiti identification and removal	Publish business recruitment packets, market studies, demographics	Install, maintain, expand street banner program	Publish annual shopping, dining and entertainment guide
Escort people to their destinations	Deep clean/power wash sidewalks, trash cans	Attend national or regional trade shows to attract investors	Install, maintain additional cigarette waste disposal units	Add messages to include quality of life amenities for residents, consumers
Help those in need to shelters, other aid	Remove illegal handbills, flyers and stickers	Matching grant programs to spur private investment	Monitor pet waste stations	Create and direct cooperative marketing campaigns to attract commercial and residential consumers
Public relation checks with businesses, homeowners	Damp-wipe benches, news racks, trash cans, utility boxes	Report on residential amenities and growth to real estate brokers and community	Install and maintain new landscaping such as flowers in tree wells, containers	Promote donations to charitable agencies instead of giving money directly to panhandlers