TDC Capital Improvement Grant Program

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

In 2003, the St. Lucie county Board of County Commissioners agreed to increase its Tourist Development Tax (bed tax on short-term rentals and hotel/motel/RV stays) by one cent per dollar. As part of that ordinance, .33 percent of that one center was to be allocated to capital projects in the northern portion of the County, which would promote and/or enhance tourism. For the first few years that this ordinance was in place, these capital funds were spent on projects recommended by the county administrator. For roughly the past six years, those funds had been collected; but not spent, building up a reserve of more than $400,000. In early 2009, St. Lucie County Commissioners asked the Tourism staff to develop a competitive grant program for local agencies to apply for this funding to improve and enhance existing tourist attractions within the northern part of St. Lucie County. The concept was to award the grant money to worthy tourism projects that were essentially “shovel-ready” as a way to not only enhance tourist attractions, but help stimulate the local economy by creating much-needed construction jobs in a county where the unemployment rate has been in the 12-14 percent range.