Multi-family housing, commercial space and a Little Bohemia revitalization.
Upward of $159 million in tax-increment financing, or TIF, was allocated in 2025, according to the city’s annual TIF report approved by the Omaha City Council this week. The total accounts for 22 projects.
Used in Omaha for more than four decades, TIF is a financing tool regularly sought in local development efforts.
Supporters of the economic incentive point to its successful history bringing private investment to areas in need of housing and revitalization. Critics contend that TIF is used too generously and is too often granted for developments that don’t contribute to civic improvements or affordable housing.
Love it or hate it, the city’s largest projects of the past two decades have used TIF.
Mutual of Omaha’s $600 million downtown tower was granted $68.6 million in 2022. An Omaha casino project also received $17.5 million that same year. And the long-awaited Crossroads redevelopment was allocated $79.5 million in 2023.
Last year’s projects don’t quite touch those price tags. The largest allocation, $7.3 million, was granted to Little Bo Village, a mixed-use redevelopment of three vacant sites and two historic buildings in Little Bohemia. New-build, market-rate apartments were the most common projects to request TIF last year.
Of more than 1,600 housing units, 375 are considered affordable or workforce housing, said Bridget Hadley, economic development manager with the city.
“(TIF) is a public-private partnership that allows these projects to be approved between the City Council and the mayor, and a lot of city staff are involved with these types of projects to create destinations around Omaha,” Hadley told council members Tuesday.
The City of Omaha describes tax-increment financing as a tool designed to revitalize neighborhoods by using future increases in property taxes to fund current development costs.
Under TIF, the developer of a city-approved project takes out a loan to help cover eligible redevelopment expenses tied to a project. The loan is paid back, generally over a 15- or 20-year period, by using the increased property taxes generated by the new development.
Normally, all property tax payments go to support schools, city and county government and other local tax-reliant bodies. But during the TIF period, the proceeds from tax payments are divided: Some tax money goes to local governments based on the valuation that existed before the improvements; the rest of the taxes, based on the added valuation from those improvements, are used to repay the TIF loan.
After the loan is repaid, all of the property taxes collected on the improved property start flowing to those local governments.
Omaha averages 21 TIF redevelopment project approvals each year, and has allocated $683 million in TIF loans since 2015.