Common Area Fee
The Church Street Marketplace is a business improvement district. Properties that abut the district pay a special assessment called the common area fee. These funds represent approximately 75% of the annual operating budget. The City Charter, Section 326, provides specific instructions on how the fees are levied. Briefly, however, property owners of record in the Marketplace District as of the previous April 1 pay common area fees. The fiscal year begins on July 1. The Commission holds a public hearing, in the Spring, at which it proposes individual fees and its levying formula for the upcoming fiscal year. After this, the fees are recommended to the City Council. That body then has another public hearing in late May/early June on the same issue(s), which it follows with a twelve-day grievance period. Finally, on or before June 15, the City Council (again, after a public hearing), levies the fees.
Payment: Common area fees are paid in four equal installments during the fiscal year: August 15, November 15, March 15, and June 15. Unpaid amounts are subject to an immediate 5% penalty, as well as a 1% additional penalty on the fifteenth of each month following nonpayment. Any payments unpaid on June 30 are turned over to the City Treasurer for collection. The City Treasurer may force a tax sale of the relevant property to enable collection.
Formula: The current formula is based on ground floor square footage alone with the exception of Burlington Town Center and the Old Navy property. Beginning in FY 05, it was agreed that those properties would pay no more than 80% of the established common area fee each fiscal year for the following reasons:
- properties occupied by a single tenant that operate within the confines of a single retail enterprise, in excess of 20,000 square feet on the ground floor of the property, directly fronting Church Street Marketplace
- enclosed regional shopping malls which have, within the confines of the Marketplace district or directly connected to it, total gross leaseable area in excess of 150,000 square feet. This exception applied to Burlington Square Mall, now called Burlington Town Center.
- The continuation of this formula for Burlington Town Center is based on a mutually agreeable joint marketing program between Burlington Town Center and the Church Street Marketplace, approved by our two organizations April, 2005 and reviewed annually.
