Developer Tom Valenti has told the city of Mission he expects construction work on the Mission Gateway project to start by next week. But he’s also asking them to tweak the public finance incentives agreement the city approved last year.

The Mission Gateway developer has asked the city to delay the start date for a community improvement sales tax effective at the development for another year and a half.

The Mission council in October 2017 approved establishing the Mission Gateway Community Improvement District #3, which would impose a 1 percent sales tax on all retail transactions that occur within the district, with an implementation date of Jan. 1, 2019.

The developer has now requested that the effective date be pushed back to July 1, 2020, to align with the completion of the development and the beginning of retail activity. Mission and the developer must notify the Kansas Department of Revenue no later than Sept. 30 if they will change the CID’s implementation date.

Mission councilmembers will discuss the request during their finance and administration meeting Wednesday, Sept. 5.

Valenti has now told city officials construction on the Gateway development will not be completed by Jan. 1, 2019, according to Mission city documents.

Mission staff said the request is not an approval of new incentives; rather, it is simply an extension of the date when CID taxes are collected. With no retailers on site generating sales tax until completion in July 2020, the developer would not want to activate the district early.

“Delaying activation preserves the entire 22-year duration for collection of revenues within the district and provides the council with the greatest degree of flexibility in evaluating how CID revenues might be used,” according to an Aug. 28 staff report by Brian Scott, assistant city administrator. “Once activated, the CID ‘clock’ can not be reset.”

Valenti said Mission residents can expect to see construction workers moving dirt Wednesday, Sept. 5.