The Huntsville City Council approved nearly $3.7 million in new public spending Thursday night for the MidCity Huntsville development on the site of the old Madison Square Mall. The money will go to roads, decorative lighting, benches and other open space improvements on the site, the council was told.

The MidCity project is a massive "live, work, play" project that has already attracted a Topgolf center that opened hiring this week to fill 350 jobs. Davis said developers RCP Companies are making a $550 million initial investment, and the discussion Thursday was on the city's investment.

As council members tossed questions, Davis made the following update reports:

* The city has agreed to invest between $18 million and $20 million altogether in the form of roads, sidewalks, lighting and other public improvements. Thursday's vote takes the total spent by taxpayers to about $9 million.

* The city expects its 20 year return on investment to be "somewhere around $320 million in property tax and sales tax," Davis said. "So it's a very good investment." Davis said Madison Square Mall property taxes had dropped by 80 percent in the center's last years. "We used to collect over $4.5 million (a year) there," he said. "The last year it was open, we collected about $70,000."

* Davis said development on University Drive "is coming back strong" since MidCity started. He cited the new Rooms To Go center and the Jim 'n Nicks Barbecue restaurant under development. "I've had several others along that corridor come into our office and talk about making investments or redevelopment of property," Davis said.

"It's what we had to do," Davis said of the city investment. "As I told you over a year ago, it will pay dividends not only on that corridor, but also in (Cummings) Research Park, which is the lifeblood of our city in terms of jobs and the economy."

* MidCity could be complete by 2020 or 2021, Davis said. "We thought it would be a slow start," he said, "but with the economy starting to turn on a national level, the interest that has come into that area has been much greater than anticipated. That's why we've brought you a couple of (city investments) quicker than we thought, but we've been able to budget that. In correlation, that means getting some of that property on the tax rolls and the return on investment started soon than what we projected."