North Platte Post
NORTH PLATTE - The North Platte City Council met in regular session Tuesday night. Rich Rasta and Briar Berger were reappointed to the North Platte Library board. The council also approved hiring Marvin Planning Consultants to help with a comprehensive plan and a new housing plan. Councilman Ty Lucas talked about keeping North Platte’s housing plan current.
“Our comprehensive plan is over 10 years old. And our last housing study was in 2018. And what's interesting is, if a developer comes to our community who's interested in working here who isn't local and doesn't have the familiarity that the local developers do, the first thing they ask you for is the housing study and the comprehensive plan," he said. "It's also important to have some common direction as a community locally. When it comes to any federal or state grant money, those plans are extremely important.”
Lucas added that Judy Clark, director of the housing authority, had actually had trouble finding firms who would do the study.
“There's so much work going on in the state that the last time we did a housing plan, maybe we had 11 proposals, and I think this time we had maybe less than three so you can tell there's a lot going on in state.”
Kubota Podcast - North Platte City Council
The council also held a public hearing last night about awarding TIF money to Wilkinson Development to develop and build a new Fat Dogs Truck Stop and office buildings at the Interstate 80 179 exit adjacent to Newberry access on the north side of the interstate, according to North Platte Mayor Brandon Kelliher.
“Well, I'm just excited that we have a local developer that's going to develop not only a Truck-Stop but also potentially another hotel and also continue to establish their regional operation," Kelliher said. "Their (Wilkinson Development) headquarters is right here in North Platte. They’re planning to build another building out there to run their headquarters out of and that's all jobs in our community. Those are local people who spend their money here — they buy houses, they buy their groceries, they spend all that money here, right here in North Platte.
"It's not a truck stop that sends most of its money off to some other community. And don't get me wrong. We appreciate every truck stop we have. They provide jobs and provide services. But anytime you can promote your local companies growing and bettering themselves it makes your town a better place.”
Councilman Lucas said he didn’t think this area would ever be developed, if it wasn’t for a project like this.
“I didn't know if I would ever see that quadrant developed in my lifetime. And I'm pretty excited about that," he said. "It took tremendous foresight by the chamber and development corporation because when they were working on a proposed site for what later became known as Sustainable Beef, they had the foresight to include this area in the blight substandard study to get it designated to be TIF-eligible. When that was accomplished and we talked about that a lot at the time at the council recognizing that this creates an opportunity for this quarter to be developed. I will never be convinced that that area would ever have been developed without tremendous assistance. I frankly can't be more excited that, first it's a local company headquartered here; and second, I think their ask was conservative and reasonable for the assistance they need to pull it off.”
The next step for the project will be a return to the Community Redevelopment Authority for finalization of the plan, and a contract that would need to be signed. Wilkinson Development would be free at that time to collect bonds and break ground which they hope to do by the end of the year.