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Downtown Athens Businesses Generate 6.5% of County Tax Revenue on Minimal Land
A 2017 analysis shows the central business core's outsized role in taxes, jobs and visitor spending as new housing and hotels continue to rise.
How we reported this
Downtown Athens businesses and property owners paid $3.28 million in property taxes in 2015, equal to 6.5 percent of all Athens-Clarke County collections, according to a report prepared for the Athens Downtown Development Authority.
The figures matter now because the authority is weighing how to steer future growth in hotels, student housing and events while keeping the area competitive as a regional draw. More than 60 percent of county sales tax revenue already comes from non-residents, and downtown captures a large share of that flow through dining, shopping and entertainment.
Authority role and recent changes
The Athens Downtown Development Authority, created in 1977, runs parking, sidewalk cleaning and promotion for events such as the Twilight Criterium, AthFest and the July 4th fireworks. It sits next to the University of Georgia, whose more than 36,000 students and 10,300 employees add steady spending power. New hotels and apartments have opened in recent years, signaling continued investment in the core.
The same report found downtown businesses generated $3.87 million in local-option and special-purpose sales taxes in 2015, or 9.4 percent of the county total, plus 71.1 percent of hotel-motel tax revenue and 20 percent of alcoholic-beverage excise taxes. Direct employment inside the service area reached 2,384 full-time-equivalent positions, with another 716 indirect and induced jobs supported across the county.
Decisions ahead for the authority
Authority leaders can use the 2017 modeling to test how new projects would add or subtract from the $290 million in total economic output tied to the district. Choices about parking supply, event permits and business recruitment will shape whether the area keeps drawing outside visitors who now account for the majority of sales-tax dollars. The report notes that downtown occupies less than 1 percent of county land yet produces more than one-fifth of business-license revenue, giving officials a narrow but high-value footprint to manage.