Condo shoppers could have an added incentive to buy a downtown home soon — property tax breaks.

        Mayor Charlie Luken wants to extend a citywide tax abatement for all new home purchases to include downtown, possibly saving new condo buyersthousands of dollars in property tax bills and enticing developers to tackle more for-purchase projects downtown.

IF YOU GO

The Downtown Tour of Living is from 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. today.    Tickets, $10, are available at the Fourth & Plum Apartments, Sycamore Place at Seventh and Sycamore streets, and at the Emery Center Apartments, 100 E. Central Parkway.    The tour includes more than a dozen sites across downtown and in Over-the-Rhine, as well as the new City West development in the West End.    For information, visit the Downtown Cincinnati Web site at http://www.gototown.com.

        Until now, the 15-year tax break was available only for new home purchases in city neighborhoods.

        “The next phase of development (downtown) I hope is condos,” said Mr. Luken, who will introduce a downtown tax abatement motion this week to City Council. “We have found in a couple of cases that this makes a big deal to people.”

        Mr. Luken, who lives in a tax-abated home in the West End, said the proposal — being unveiled today, the day of the annual Downtown Tour of Living — might entice more downtown renters to buy.

        Downtown has been excluded because City Hall depended on tax increment financing — a method of using property tax collections to pay for large commercial projects such as downtown office buildings, parking garages or retail projects. Eliminating property taxes would essentially dip into the pot of money available for these commercial projects.

        However, because downtown condos make up such a small part of downtown's tax base, city leaders believe that extending the tax break for downtown home buyers is appropriate, said Peg Moertl, director of community development. It's also another sign that city leaders are stressing residential development as downtown office and retail projects stagnate.

        The proposal would eliminate most, but not all, property taxes. Homeowners are charged property taxes based on the value of the home and the land it's built on, and the city's proposal would only cut taxes stemming from the home's value.

        The abatement follows a few small-but-successful downtown condo projects.

        Developments of four to six condos at Fifth and Race streets and a 10-unit project across from the Aronoff Center for the Arts on Walnut Street are nearing completion with all but a couple of units sold, according to Christine Schoonover, a real estate agent.

        Mr. Luken hopes a tax break will convince more developers to build downtown.

        Most major downtown housing developments have been limited to apartment buildings thus far, including the renovated Power and Krippendorf buildings.

        No major condo project has been built downtown, but Al Neyer Inc. is considering a high-rise apartment tower that could include condos atop a city-funded $9.1 million parking garage under construction at the area bordered by Seventh, Broadway, North and New streets.

        Kathy Schwab, residential adviser at Downtown Cincinnati Inc., said the tax abatement would be added incentive for developers to take a chance at renovating older downtown factories or obsolete office buildings.

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