Business Improvement District Plan Rejected for Downtown St. Cloud

(KNSI) — Downtown St. Cloud will not form a Business Improvement District after too many property owners objected.

The BID would have allowed 169 properties in the downtown district to levy a tax to clean up the area and hire additional security and ambassadors. Mayor Dave Kleis told KNSI News that a vast majority of them petitioned the city to do it. “But there’s a process in state statute that if 35% or more of the properties in that zone object, then it’s vetoed. And so, it just reached that threshold, just a little over—I think it was 36%.”

The biggest issue was the tax structure in the zone.

Kleis explained downtown priorities have not changed and that the BID was just one piece of revitalizing the heart of the city. “In order for downtown to succeed, it’s going to be a private/public process, and the private sector has been leading this since the beginning. Now it’s just going to be even more private because this portion of the BID, the business enhancement district, failed.”

Kleis says there is good momentum for a private venture moving forward, as around $750,000 in donations were raised for the district. The mayor’s downtown task force has been meeting for 19 months and will continue to work on improving downtown.

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