Mayoral spokeswoman Rachel Laing called me Thursday night after our story ran about Mayor Jerry Sanders considering an overhaul of the city’s troubled redevelopment agencies.
She told me she was fielding calls by some people who were getting the impression that redevelopment itself would cease in neighborhoods if the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. and the Centre City Development Corp. were done away with or consolidated.
That is not the case, Laing said. Redevelopment would continue regardless of what happens with the nonprofit city agencies of SEDC and CCDC. If the two agencies cease to exist, they will be replaced by a different agency or structure, she said.
From her e-mail:
Regardless of the administrative structure of the agency or agencies overseeing these project areas, the city’s established redevelopment project areas, functions, debt structure and goals will continue unchanged. So we’re not considering “eliminating” them so much as merging them with the city’s redevelopment department.