About the DDA

"DDA" is an acronym for "Downtown Development Authority." The purpose of a DDA is to organize and facilitate investment into a town or city's downtown area. Most downtowns feature unique and privately owned small businesses. A DDA is often closely associated with encouraging people to shop locally and support small business in their home communities.

DDAs in Michigan largely began as a result of a law enacted in the late 1970s by the Michigan congress called PA 197. DDAs were created to counteract the decline of downtown areas after World War II that was caused by increased patronage of malls and shopping centers instead of local business. Due to this shift in shopping habits, downtown businesses often went bankrupt, buildings fell into disrepair, and became chronically vacant and dilapidated. 

A DDA's main ability is to invest money and management expertise into downtown districts. Utilizing DDA resources, city planners and downtown managers rebuild public spaces, invest in business and public works projects, and help with advertising and marketing. All of this is designed to encourage people, both local and visiting, to favor a downtown district over a shopping center because of the downtown's uniqueness and specialized businesses. 

To put it simply, a DDA comprehensively manages a downtown district to maximize its local economy. This can mean a variety of things, and what each DDA does is often dependent on the particular details of the corresponding downtown district. However, there are several categories of activity that most DDAs across the state, ours included, fall under:

• Infrastructure Improvements

DDAs often fund and enact projects designed to repair or improve streets, sidewalks, lighting, and sewer and water lines throughout the downtown district. Our DDA has most recently performed some revitalization along Almont Ave and 1st St. 

• Design of Public Parks

Often it is the responsibility of DDAs to design and construct new public gathering spaces and parks within the downtown district. If you have a public park or gathering place in your downtown, more than likely your DDA is behind its creation and maintenance. In Imlay City, this is most evident at Rotary Park.

• Revitalization of Vacant/Underused Properties

Going hand-in-hand with the prior bullet point, a DDA is tasked with finding creative ways to maximize use of often limited downtown space, and it does this by always looking for new uses for old areas. If a building can be revitalized and refurbished in order to house a new downtown business, the DDA will attempt to do so, and if a building would be better as a park, well, the DDA will do that as well. 

• Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings and Facades

Most people agree that one of the biggest draws of a downtown district is its historic charm, and the DDA works tirelessly to preserve and maintain that historic feel by enacting programs designed to encourage business and property owners to highlight that charm. The Imlay City DDA awards over $13,000 in facade grants each year to help business owners ensure their business is attractive to visitors looking for that downtown charm.

• Business Recruitment and Retention Programs

A downtown isn't much without interesting and unique businesses to populate it. As a result, it is often one of a DDA's primary goals to attract new businesses to open in their downtown district, as well as keep existing businesses open and successful. There are a number of tools to do this. As an example, the Imlay City DDA hosts job fairs and performs retention calls with established businesses. 

• Marketing and Promotions

Every DDA in the state, and probably the country, uses its resources to in some way promote the downtown district businesses and events. There isn't much use in revitalizing a downtown district if no one knows the district is even there. A DDA spends a considerable amount of time marketing the businesses and events in the downtown district in all forms of media possible, including social media, newspapers, flyers, and radio/television. In addition to marketing these events, it is often the DDA's responsibility to plan and put on the events as well. The Imlay City DDA is directly involved in several weekly and annual events in our downtown, like the Farmers Market, the Summer Concert Series in Lamb Steele Park, “Buy Local” Campaigns, and many others.

Since the establishment of PA 197, way back in 1975, the State of Michigan has enabled DDAs to utilize Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to acquire the funds needed to reinvest in downtown districts and finance all the projects detailed above.

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is the annual capture of the year-to-year growth in property values in a defined downtown district. The power of TIF is that it allows municipalities to direct funds to engage in specific, critical, economic development activities without needing to raise local property taxes. In essence, as a DDA works to improve the downtown district, property values will increase as a result of that hard work; as the property values rise, the amount captured via TIF will also increase, providing the DDA with more funds to use to aid the downtown district. DDAs that use TIF are self-sustaining, because as a DDA invests in its district, property values increase, and as they do, the DDA captures more funding and can accomplish more projects.

Do you still have questions? Feel free to contact your Imlay City DDA for more information. We're happy to answer any questions you might have.