What’s more appealing to an investor than stability, lower costs, and growth?

O’Fallon is a growing community with a stable political environment, growing economy, and…decreasing property tax.

The City of O’Fallon recently lowered its property tax rate by over 3% – the lowest it has been in over eight years. O’Fallon is able to decrease property tax by focusing on growth.

And the growth is just beginning. Over the past few months, the City has been working with land owners, other taxing bodies and a developer to prepare the area near Exit 21 for development.

The founder of the Gateway Commerce Center, TriStar, is proposing a development on 200+ acres north Interstate 64. Early conceptual plans have included over 1.5 million square feet of construction in phase one. In addition, it has the possibility of creating additional development in the area’s remaining 1,300 acres.

This type of development can positively alter the future of the O’Fallon community, like other major projects like St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Scott Air Force Base, and construction of the Interstate.

In addition to the large amount of jobs and economic impact that this development could create, it has the potential to generate a large amount property tax. It would also diversify O’Fallon’s economy, which will help make the community stable even through the toughest of economic times.

Preliminary scenarios calculate that TriStar’s phase one development could generate over $5 million in property tax for O’Fallon’s school districts over a twenty-year period.

This type of property tax generation could help the O’Fallon taxing bodies be less reliant on residential property tax. Which theoretically would help reduce the property tax you pay on your home or small business. How is this possible you ask?

Every year, the various taxing bodies in O’Fallon, which includes the City of O’Fallon, Schools Districts, St. Clair County, etc. request an amount of dollars that they need to provide their services. This request is sent to St. Clair County, where they distribute that request amongst the taxable property in the taxing bodies’ jurisdiction. This is a very simple explanation of how property tax works, but the point is that if there is industrial or commercial development that is generating millions of dollars per year in property tax, that’s millions of dollars that the residential and small business taxpayers of O’Fallon don’t have to pay.

This development took a great step forward last week. The O’Fallon School Districts, City of O’Fallon, St. Clair County and O’Fallon Township have all formed a partnership to help make this area competitive on a national scale. This partnership helped create a property tax incentive program that will help attract long-term investment and job creation to the area.