Schuylkill County commissioners and other officials will review, and likely approve, a new entity to create and oversee the tax-fueled fund that pays for the upkeep of the county's largest business park, Highridge.

The new entity is a Neighborhood Improvement District called the Highridge Improvement District, or HID. It would replace the original Tax Increment Financial District, or TIF, which was created when Highridge came into being in 1997.TIF, which expires in 2016, created and uses a fund for maintenance through property taxes paid by the companies in the park to Cass and Foster townships, the Minersville School District, and the county. A main function of the TIF was also to retire some of the original debt borrowed for the initial public infrastructure.HID rebalances the funding formula and focuses specifically on maintenance, rather than debt service."HID will also more equally distribute funds from the county and the school district, that are getting the larger percentage of the taxes, versus the smaller millage paid by the two townships."It basically creates a more balanced distribution of funds back into a pool for long-term maintenance," said Frank Zukas, president of the Schuylkill Economic Development Corporation.SEDCO handles the daily operations of the park, which is managed by the Schuylkill County Industrial Development Authority."The reason we're doing this is that we believe that by maintaining a class 'A' business park setting we can continue to grow the park with additional tenants," Zukas said."We also want to maintain strong property values in the park. By having a dedicated budget associated with long-term maintenance, we will maintain those property taxes as well," he said.Zukas said the creation of HID takes the existing property taxes generated in the park and creates an allocated budget so that the park is self-contained in terms of maintenance."It doesn't add any new form of taxation," he said.Commissioners seemed to favor the change from TIF to HID, and spoke proudly of the park, which houses Lowe's, Wegmans, Electrolux, Sara Lee, Jones Stephens, and Gordon distribution centers, the Jeld-Wenn door manufacturing plant and the Fanelli trucking and warehousing logistics center.A hearing will be held on the matter on Nov. 6 at a location in the Minersville School District. Details will be announced when they are available.Looking 25 years down the road, officials hope to create two more business parks associated with Highridge the Schuylkill Airport Business Park and Highridge Business Park North.The Schuylkill Airport Park would be about 1,000 acres in Foster Township, near the county airport. About half of that land, all zoned industrial, is owned by the county, and the other half by CES Landfill.Highridge Business Park North would be about 300 acres on the west side of Interstate 81, near the federal prison on land owned by SCIDA, SEDCO, Coal Products and the Blythe Township Municipal Authority.The two sites are not expected to require municipally owned streets, street lighting or landscaping. The developer and Schuylkill County Municipal Authority will deal with sewer and water infrastructure base on requirements of future users.The additions would house two proposed fueling stations that would "allow some of the logistics operations of the park, which does have a distribution center orientation, to begin converting some of their diesel fuel tractor fleets over to natural gas, both compressed and liquid, which we think is a long-term conversion because of the efficiencies of natural gas versus diesel," Zukas said."One would be fueled off of a natural gas line in the park, that's the compressed natural gas station, and the other would be a liquid natural gas facility that would bring in liquid natural gas from outside sources," he said.No drilling for natural gas will be conducted in the area, Zukas said.Because the initial debt for the park, built in 1997 is paid, under HID, he county's current payment of $234,354 will drop to $53,900; the school district's $257,813 payment drops to $53,900; Cass Township's $26,358 payment dips to $26,180; and Foster Township's $20,897 payment dips to $20,020.