Franklin moves forward, but slowly

Franklin - When first formed, the Forward Franklin Economic Development Committee was charged with attracting and retaining business in the city.

The seven-member panel replaces the disbanded EDC, and its goal was to create a more balanced mix of commercial and residential development and, thus, the tax base.

Since first meeting in August, Forward Franklin has been laying the groundwork for business development. But it has been slow going, said Chairman Craig Haskins, who sat down with the Franklin NOW to talk about how to move Franklin forward.

Does Franklin need a downtown to have a successful retail environment?

I guess it depends on who you ask. Do citizens like me want to drive to a central location when I need to buy something? Probably not. Do developers have a better time attracting national retailers in Franklin if there's a central location? Absolutely. I just don't know if that's how it should be in Franklin. There could probably be a number of retail centers.

What parts of the city are being eyed as a downtown retail area?

Definitely the one that has always been talked about is the Crossroads (Loomis Avenue and Highway 100) … as a neighborhood town center, sort of a Bayshore feel. There's a ton of developable land. It's served by water and sewer. It has its pluses. But there's nothing there yet.

Rawson and 76th is another, where you have two large shopping centers. You have three major arteries going through there, and Southridge mall's only a short ways away. It just has a head start.

Then there's 51st and Rawson, where there's Sendik's. There was talk about a cultural center over there.

Twenty-seventh Street naturally is an area that people like to talk about. You've got Northwestern Mutual and the hospital and tons of land. While I don't know if that's the retail area, it might be more suitable for offices. It's outside of the general population base.

If I had to pick, I'd say 76th and Rawson because of the head start.

What seems to be hindering Franklin in attracting national retailers?

I'm not an expert on that, but I think national retailers are going to go where other national retailers are. If you're going to have a TJ Maxx, you're going to have to have a Linens-n-Things. They need to be clustered together in order to be viable. We don't have that. That's hindering us now.

What incentives could Franklin offer?

That has been the focus of the first four months of Forward Franklin - the incentive plans.

But I'm not convinced they'll work on a small scale. You offer a developer a low-interest loan or small grant - I'm not sure they'll work but we're looking into that.

Then you look at mega-incentives - major grants. Obviously, they work. Big incentives such as tax-incremental financing districts - yes, those are proven in Franklin.

We would have to budget in some funds to be used for business. If we do our math, if the money we shell out is recaptured in taxes … that's a win.

Another incentive is our ad hoc committee. Franklin, historically, has had a sort of a bad reputation with developers. Developers would come to us and they had this great plan only to get beat up and shot down by the approval process. Now, we'll take a look at it, prep you, trying to make your plan more palatable. Assistance like that makes perfect sense. I think the Forward Franklin committee needs to be the first stop in the process. Let us know what your plan is. If we think it works, we'll cheerlead for you all the way through.

What's the next step for Forward Franklin?

The initial goals of Forward Franklin are to attract, retain and market the city. It's hard to market the city when you don't have any materials. So immediately, we're developing new handouts we can give to prospective tenants.

We're also in the process of creating a website strictly based on economic development in Franklin. That's the immediate need - to have the material to disseminate information about Franklin.