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On Tuesday night, the Troup County Board of Commissioners provided the final approval that will allow for a Tax Allocation District that will help connect Whitesville Road and Hamilton Rd. on the other side of Interstate 85.

The City of LaGrange and the Troup County School Board have already signed off on the TAD.

Selig Enterprises, a developer out of Atlanta, owns the property that will make up the TAD.

Selig Vice President Kent Walker said they are planning what’s being called the LaGrange Logistics Center. The development will provide warehousing and commercial space for manufacturing and other industries in the area.

Up to $20 million in bonds were approved for the TAD to be issued by the City of LaGrange, which would primarily pay for a road to connect Hamilton and Whitesville Rd. The new road is expected to intersect with the Bryant Lake entrance on the Hamilton Rd. side.

Walker said the property had a TAD that was created in 2010 when they purchased the property.

“When we purchased the property, the idea was that it was going to be a commercial development primarily and outlets. Unfortunately, that didn’t gain traction because we were still coming out of the recession at that time and then outlet centers were looking for more urban locations rather than rural,” Walker said. So over time, we thought we need to think a little bit differently about how we’re going to use the property.”

Walker said that due to manufacturing increases in the area they began considering industrial uses for the property so he reached out to Mike Gray of Ridgeline Property Group to help with the development of the property.

Gray said that consumer changes have increased the demand for e-commerce, which has caused companies to start expanding out from major cities, like Atlanta, to take advantage of labor and transportation.

“This is an excellent site that can serve a real need down I-85,” Gray said.

“One of the really attractive things to us is the flexibility of the size of the [proposed] buildings. They go anywhere from 40,000 feet up to a million square feet. Not only can we go after regional distribution users, but also serve a local need. There are a lot of private companies in this area that could use smaller spaces and multi-tenant buildings,” Gray said.

The bonds will be repaid using incremental property tax increases as the value of the property increases with the development. The property owners will be fully responsible for repaying the bonds using property taxes that are abated as the value increases.

County Manager Eric Mosley noted that the abatement only applies to real property (land and buildings) and not personal property, such as manufacturing equipment.

“The gain is still fairly high for the county and in the school system on the personal property side of things,” Mosley said.

LaGrange has no direct tax stake in the TAD due to the city not collecting a property tax.

Work on the property could begin as early as late next year.

“We’re anticipating that we’re going to be able to get through the individual permit with the US Army Corps of Engineers in the early third quarter of this year. Once that occurs, the closing is triggered and off we go,” Gray said.

The TAD agreement was approved 4-0 with Commissioner Jimmy McCamey abstaining.