A mixed-use project planned for a vacant site on Tennessee Avenue recently reached a critical milestone after securing a tax exemption from the council of Atlantic City. The developer, which intends to deliver 12 market-rate residential units and retail space, secured the incentive from the council nearly 20 months after the state’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) granted a $2 million grant towards the project.
Meeting minutes from the council meeting, held on August 16, show that the council approved a 30-year exemption for the project, located at 155 and 161 S Tennessee Avenue. The developer, a limited liability firm known as 155 S. Tennessee QOZB Urban Renewal, projected the cost of the building not to exceed $4.9 million.
For the first 10 years, the project will pay 10% of the project’s gross revenue, 11% for the next 10 years and 12% for the last decade for an aggregate PILOT payment of approximately $1.2 million.
A land use application filed with the Casino Reinvestment Authority, the state agency that oversees some tax incentives and planning in the city, says that the existing duplex and existing rooming house will be redeveloped into five-stories with commercial space. The application also lists Evan Sanchez and Zenith Shah, the co-founders of development firm Authentic City Partners, as the co-owners of the parcels.
The CRDA, which sold the parcels to the developers in 2021, granted preliminary and final major site plan approval to the application in Feb 2023, less than four months after 155 S Tennessee QOZB submitted its land use application.
The project appears to have not moved forward for a year, as the next update about the project came in February 2024, when a report in RE-NJ said that the New Jersey EDA granted a $2 million grant towards the development.
The site was demolished in late-September and foundation work is underway. Authentic City Partners expects construction to wrap up by the end of 2026.
Authentic City Partners has several projects in Atlantic City and even completed a residential and commercial conversion on Tennessee Avenue last year. The company lists four other projects including The Leadership Building, an upscale restaurant known as the Cardinal, and a gut renovation of a 100-year-old building along New York Avenue known as Bywater.
Despite Authentic City Partners’ ongoing work in Atlantic City, a 30-year PILOT and a $2 million EDA grant represent a significant public subsidy for a relatively small, 12-unit mixed-use project. The onus is now on the developer to wrap up construction at the site, which had sat idle since at least 2021.
