Northern Lancaster City is no field of dreams.

They are already coming. Now the city needs to build.

But before city officials build roads, a parking garage and other infrastructure improvements to accommodate planned development, they need the money.

On Tuesday, City Council members will be presented with a plan to borrow about $8 million through a special bond issue tied to projected increases in property taxes in the designated area.

"It will be an investment in future revenues because it will allow more to be produced in the future in areas now producing little or none," Mayor Rick Gray said of property taxes in the area, which stretches roughly from Lemon Street north to the Amtrak station and includes the former Armstrong floor plant site to the west.

Council members will be presented with a resolution to establish the Infrastructure Improvement District. It would also call for using half of all increases in property tax revenue from the area to be used to make the annual debt payments on the bonds. The bonds are expected to have a 20-year life.

The actual bond borrowing would need a later council vote, likely before the end of the year, said Randy Patterson, director of the city Economic Development & Neighborhood Revitalization department.

The initiative received a substantial boost Tuesday night, when Lancaster School District board members voted to approve the measure. School property taxes are significantly higher than those of the city.

"I think it's a wonderful opportunity to participate in the city's growth," school board member Marta Howell said at the district meeting.

Unlike previous proposals for tax increment financing, this money will not go to support specific private projects. Rather it will fund public infrastructure in the area.

Two projects specifically cited by the mayor and Patterson are a public parking garage near the former Lancaster Press building and the construction of new streets on the former Armstrong factory site.

The garage, which would be operated by the city Parking Authority, would be constructed on the site of a parking lot behind the Brickyard sports bar. The garage, containing at least 300 spaces, would provide parking for patrons of the Brickyard and retail shops that are planned for the first floor of the now-vacant Lancaster Press building.

The garage would also provide parking for the residents of the 47 condominiums and apartments slated to be built in the Lancaster Press building, as well as neighborhood residents and workers, said Gray.

Plans call for the "Residences on Prince," as the Lancaster Press building units will be known, to be a $16.7 million project.

The Armstrong site is undergoing a $33 million transformation from a former factory complex to a medical campus for Lancaster General Hospital and, initially, sports fields for Franklin & Marshall College.

The effort will add four blocks to the city. The bond funds will help pay for the creation of streets and other infrastructure on the site.

Lancaster General officials have told the city that their portion of the former Armstrong property will stay on the tax rolls and that as many as 2,000 well-paying, high-tech jobs could be brought to the site, Gray said.

The financial projections for the bonds are based on the 2006 tax year assessments of $118.8 million. The city and school district would continue to receive revenue at that level, Patterson said this morning.

Half of any additional revenue brought by increased assessments after investment would go to paying for the bonds.

With the developments currently planned, Patterson said assessments are projected to increase to $221.5 million in the next five years — a $102 million increase.

Without the infrastructure spending of the special taxing area, the assessments are expected to increase to $164 million — an increase of $45.4 million, Patterson said.

Gray said the infrastructure spending is designed to spur that investment and other projects.

And, he said, "by doing this we free up other sums in the capital improvement budget that could be used in other areas of the city."

Patterson said approval and participation of the third local taxing entity — the county — is not required, but is being sought.

CONTACT US: bharris@LNPnews.com or 481-6022