By Shelly Williams/editor-in-chief
The city of Euless asked TCC to contribute $1.8 million to a development project almost six miles from NE Campus during the Nov. 18 board meeting.
The project called Glade Parks will fill more than 200 acres of land providing about 875 new residents and multi-purpose facilities like retail stores. Seventy-three of the residents could be potential TCC students, given that one in every 19 Tarrant County residents attend TCC, said Euless deputy city manager Loretta Getchell at the meeting.
The total cost of the project is an estimated $21 million, which includes financing charges, improvements on streets, water and sanitary sewer lines, along with landscaping and wetland mitigation, Getchell said.
The development will run along Highway 121 to the east, near Glade Road to the north and Cheek Sparger Road to the south. The development will take several years to complete, she said.
“What happens is we take a piece of property that we have in a geographic area, and we receive state tax money for that,” TCC’s chief financial officer Mark McClendon said. “We use that money to pay for our expenses. So what they’re saying is ‘Will you allow us to use that tax base on the increase until we liquidate the TIF [tax increment financing]?’”
Getchell said if TCC decides to participate, the college could expect a $7.2 million net benefit based on the request given by the city.
Besides the net benefit, the project will help meet employment and housing needs for graduating college students, Euless city manager Gary McKamie said.
Though the project hasn’t been given final approval by the Euless City Council, the city has taken several actions to declare its support for the project, McKamie said.
“I fully hope and expect for Tarrant County College to participate,” he said.
If TCC approves the contribution, the city will bring forward a participation agreement no later than January.
“That’s really not a cost to us, is it? Because we forego taxes on revenue that’s not there anyway,” board president Joe Hudson said during the meeting. “If the land sits the way it is now, our tax revenue is going to remain constant or pretty close to constant.”
But if developers build on the land, Hudson said the tax base is going to soar.
“So it seems to me that it’s like a big return on the investment,” he said.
Apart from discussing a contribution for the Glade Parks project, the board of trustees also approved an internal auditor for the college.
Annette McCurdy has taken on the position of handling the risk management part of the district. She will have unlimited access to records and employees and will report directly to Chancellor Erma Johnson Hadley and the board.
“This is something we really discussed,” said board member Bill Greenhill. “This is not a KGB, snoop around and see what’s going on kind of thing. What it is, is a win/win thing for everybody to review certain aspects of our district where we’re spending the most money to see if there are any deficiencies — anything that might help us to keep things in order.”
