Commercial projects have bolstered Orange Beach's take in recent months
Sunday, April 06, 2008
By RYAN DEZEMBER, Staff Reporter
ORANGE BEACH -- When developers of the new 54,000-square-foot Publix grocery store on Perdido Beach Boulevard applied for building permits in December, they paid $130,913.50 for what stands as the largest impact fee the city's collected to date.
That mark will surely be shattered as soon as construction starts on the next Gulf-front high-rise, but the first 17 months Orange Beach has collected impact fees has coincided with a halt in the resort real estate market.
That said, Orange Beach has taken in nearly $692,000 since the fees on new construction were enacted in November 2006, city records show.
After a slow start -- $12,072 was collected on three houses in late 2006 -- the city collected more than $383,117.15 in 2007, municipal records show.
"In reality that's not bad for a down year," Mayor Pete Blalock said Friday.
City financial planners had expected to bring in about $500,000 in impact fees last year and Orange Beach was on pace to badly miss that mark until the grocery store developers started construction. That group has also paid substantial fees for four other commercial buildings it's constructing at the intersection of Alabama 161 and the beach highway, a project called Palm Pointe.
Click here to read the full article from the Mobile Press-Register.
