Community Economic Development Associates
Article by Tim Jacobson
Boscobel’s Airport Commission members, including CEDA team member Tim Jacobson, and other city officials met on the site of the general aviation terminal building under construction to review progress and to select finishing materials.
In June, GW Granger Construction of Richland Center broke ground on the construction of the new 1,800 sq. ft. terminal building. Already, the footings have been poured, the framing has been completed, and sheathing is in place. When finished, it will include a training room, pilot’s lounge, vending/kitchenette area, restrooms, utility room, lobby space, and vestibules.
“I’m really pleased with progress on the building,” said Peter James, president of the Airport Commission. “It’s going up fast while also being built well.”
“It’ll be great to have a beautiful and practical new terminal to greet business people and other visitors who fly into our airport,” said Mayor Steve Wetter. “The old terminal building was constructed in the 1950’s. It served us well but exceeded its useful life.”
Until recently, the project had been fraught with difficulty and delays. Originally, the state announced approval of the terminal project for completion in 2014 with federal airport improvement funds to cover the majority of the cost.
With the initial set of plans, bidding was conducted three times without success. The first time, no bids were received. The second bid process resulted in bids being about double the original estimated cost. The third time, bid amounts still exceeded funds available. Commission members felt that the costs were not realistic for a community of Boscobel’s size.
“Part of the difficulty was that this federally funded project came with the extra red tape one might expect,” according to Ken Schweiger, a local banker and commission member. “But we were intent to keep the project alive while containing costs.”
The Airport Commission worked with Paula Groom, Project Manager from the Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics, along with Federal Aviation Administration representatives, to seek a creative solution that would save tax dollars.
Ultimately, Boscobel perhaps became the first airport in the state to be given the opportunity to use a request-for-proposal (RFP) process in these particular circumstances, which provided the city and contractors with much more flexibility. With these changes, three proposals were received at a much lower projected cost. The Airport Commission and the Bureau of Aeronautics ranked the proposals, and GW Granger Construction’s proposal was selected, with the lowest base building cost and lowest overall cost.
Or read the report below
Or read the report below
Article by: Chris Giesen
Halcon Furniture recently broke ground on a 15,000 square foot, $3.3 million expansion at its Stewartville, Minnesota headquarters. The expansion will create at least 10 new jobs at a wage of at least $14 per hour over the next two years and will likely create an additional 40 jobs within that same time frame. The project will create a “working showroom” that will bring Halcon’s nationally-based clients to Stewartville to view Halcon’s products in action, freeing up existing space for additional manufacturing capacity.
In order to facilitate this expansion, Stewartville’s CEDA team members were able to secure a $175,000 Minnesota Job Creation Fund grant as well as work with the Stewartville EDA and City Council to approve a $400,000 tax increment finance (TIF) district. “Halcon has been a great community partner and we look forward to their continued success in Stewartville” said CEDA Vice President Chris Giesen, who is assigned to Stewartville. He continued, “This is the second Job Creation Fund award that CEDA has helped secure for a business expansion in southeast Minnesota. The program is less than one year old, and to my knowledge CEDA is the first and only organization in Minnesota that has successfully authored two such applications; this one in Stewartville and another in Harmony earlier this year.”
