GCDC’s Paxton now wants to promote tourism
Greene County Development Corporation is poised to add community development as an area of focus in the coming year, GCDC executive director Ken Paxton announced at the group’s annual meeting Sept. 14.
About 40 persons attended the gathering at the Greene Room Event Center at Wild Rose Casino in Jefferson. GCDC board president Sid Jones and treasurer Jim Ober conducted a brief business meeting before presentations began.
Paxton said job growth in the county in the past few years “maybe went too fast.” There wasn’t housing or childcare to support the growth, he said. “The GCDC board has made a decision that we now need to drop back and get our community ready for the next growth spurt,” Paxton said.
He suggested “Have you seen Greene?” as a new tagline for the county. He proposed working to make Greene County the single leading visitor attraction in western Iowa. He listed available tourist assets, and said adding a covered horse arena, a sports complex and a water park would put Greene County in a place no other county could touch in terms of what it could offer visitors.
“GCDC is looking at moving forward, to start looking at ourselves in a different way. How can we develop our community to not only attract businesses and employees and people who take jobs here, but to bring in tourists? That’s a whole new concept. I don’t think we’ve thought of ourselves as a tourist center,” Paxton said.
Guests for the evening were Bob Fagan, city manager in Spencer, and Matt Ott, project developer for MidAmerican Energy.
Fagan told of steps taken to create a public/private partnership to stimulate residential construction in Spencer. He said there were only four new homes built in Spencer in 2008, and a survey of employers that year showed the 10 largest employers all had jobs that were not filled because potential employees couldn’t find housing in the community.
The city of Spencer did a housing study similar to the study recently done in Greene County. That study found that potential buyers were looking for better mortgage interest rates, tax abatements, and down payment assistance. A team that included not only city and county officials, but also bankers and utility providers, set a target of being able to provide $20,000 in incentives for each of 40 new homes to be built in the next three years.
The strategy was successful and a developer built 40 new homes ranging from $110,000 to $180,000 in the first year.
“It’s all about collaborative effort,” Fagan said.
Ott provided information about the Beaver Creek Windpark planned for the northeast quadrant of the county, roughly north of Highway 30 and east of Highway 144. Beaver Creek Windpark will straddle the Boone/Greene County line, with 85 permanent wind turbines total, close to evenly split between the two counties.
The windpark will produce enough power for 68,000 average homes, he said. Over the next 40 years, it is expected to bring $21 million in property taxes to the county.
Negotiations are now under way with landowners to secure easements. Ott said construction will start next spring, with work on roads and foundations starting in May, delivery of turbine components starting in July and erection of the turbines beginning in August. The windpark will be fully operational by December 2017.
Jim Ober, vice president of operations at Scranton Manufacturing, gave a brief overview of the expansion project there that was completed since GCDC’s 2015 annual meeting. He said that since 2013, Scranton Manufacturing has added 56 new jobs, and that he has 15 positions for skilled employees unfilled at this time.
Peg Raney, program director of Jefferson Matters: Main Street gave a timeline for the downtown façade restoration project funded through a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant.
Bids for the work will be let in mid-January through mid-February, with construction to start at the end of March. Twenty weeks will be allowed for construction, with completion slated for mid-September. Jefferson city administrator Mike Palmer and Jefferson building official Nick Sorensen will serve as project managers. Fred Kesten of Region XII Council of Governments will serve as project administrator.
