The Invest Atlanta Board of Directors authorized $1.5 million in funding from the Eastside Tax Allocation District (TAD) Increment to establish a Predevelopment Assistance Fund to support residential and commercial real estate development within the Eastside TAD.

The program is intended to help small developers and property owners, outside the Sweet Auburn TAD, seeking to develop or significantly rehabilitate residential, commercial and mixed-use properties. The fund will help secure capital needed to complete the work necessary to bring projects to a level of financing viability.

There currently is a predevelopment assistance fund in the Eastside TAD dedicated to development in the Sweet Auburn Corridor. This program will serve the remainder of the TAD.

According to Alan Ferguson, Senior Vice President of Community Development at Invest Atlanta, there have been several requests from property owners and developers who want to activate their property. “The fund is designed to help small investors and developers activate their properties and fill in those final steps from a technical side to advance their projects from idea and concept and bring them into fruition,” says Ferguson. “This will be a new solution to assist those developers and projects.”

The program, which mirrors aspects of similar programs launched within the Campbellton Road TAD, the Perry-Bolton TAD and the Westside TAD, will provide funding to for-profit and nonprofit developers and property owners with annualized revenues less than $2 million and less than 50 employees to advance their projects towards construction and development. Funding will support feasibility and financial analysis, design and cost estimation services.