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By EMILY SPARACINO | Staff Writer

HOOVER – The Hoover City Council’s approval of tax abatements for a tech-related real estate company’s expansion will bring more jobs and capital investment to the city.

On Monday, Feb. 7, the City Council voted in favor of providing tax abatements to Lake Homes Realty LLC to relocate and grow its operations in a major office deal in Inverness.

“We are really a technical marketing company that uses traditional real estate brokerage with our own agents, no franchising, operating all over the country and still growing,” Lake Homes Realty CEO Glenn Phillips said. “We just think the opportunity here is ripe for growth. We think that the jobs we create will not only bring people here, but the reinvestment.”

The abatements will allow for the retention of more than 50 jobs and the creation of nearly 300 new jobs over the next three to four years.

In addition, the project represents nearly $1 million in new capital investment and adds to the cluster of technology-based companies located in Hoover along the U.S. 280 corridor.

“Their average wage would be over $52,000 a year and would include positions in management, customer service, marketing, technology, finance and other similar operations,” Greg Knighton, Hoover’s economic development manager, said. “Based on our impact analysis done here in the city, we believe that from property taxes, building permits fees and indirect sales taxes spent in the city, that Lakes Homes expansion would benefit the city by over $500,000 over the next 10 years, and the impact to Hoover City Schools from property taxes would be over $200,000 over the next 10 years.”

Lake Homes provides technology development, marketing support and brokerage operations support for its agents and staff across the country.

“As the country’s largest lake real estate company, Lake Homes Realty is proud to be based in Hoover now and in the future,” Phillips said. “Our company offers lake real estate services in 34 states and has exciting growth plans ahead. We thank the city of Hoover for their partnership and look forward to sharing more information from our future corporate headquarters on Monday, Feb. 21 at 10 a.m.”

Beginning in 2016, Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato and the City Council placed emphasis on growing the city’s base of technology companies and jobs through its economic development and planning efforts.

Hoover’s first comprehensive plan calls for a technology cluster in the areas of Meadowbrook and Inverness.

“I am very pleased Lake Homes Realty will remain and grow in Hoover,” Brocato said. “This project is another example of growth in Hoover’s STEM-based industries. We are seeing announcements each year of such growth in our city, and I am glad to start 2022 off with such a strong announcement. I am also pleased that this public/private partnership will assist a Hoover entrepreneur to further grow a company and further contribute to the city’s economy.”

The abatement, allowed for under the Tax Incentive Reform Act of 1992, contains non-educational portions of city, county and state sales use and personal property taxes.

The city’s estimated value of non-educational abated sales/use and personal property taxes is $43,411, and the total estimated value of all abatements (non-educational city, county and state taxes) to Lake Homes is $102,645.