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Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
The city again touted the benefits of designating the former Sioux Army Depot as substandard and blighted in a public hearing before the planning commission on Monday.
Megan McGown, community development director, spoke with the commission about LB 66, adopted by the Nebraska legislature in 2013. The law allows for redevelopment projects outside city limits on former defense sites, like the depot.
“The Sioux Army Depot, as you all know is ideally located in terms of logistics and warehousing and transportation for development for our community, with both Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern railroads coming together connected by a short line as well as a proximity to Interstate 80,” McGown said. “There’s just a great deal of potential there.”
If the depot is designated substandard and blighted, it will be eligible for economic development tools such as tax increment financing which, according to the city, has been a great boon to Sidney.
McGown displayed photo evidence of the poor conditions at the depot, with run down buildings, debris and tall grasses. Attempting to build in this area would be cost prohibitive to developers without the use of TIF, she argued.
TIF allows the city to bond against the predicted future tax increase that a project will create to pay for public infrastructure related to the project such as streets, sewer and parking lots. The former defense site contains buildings more than 70 years old, as well as shrapnel and possible cyanide contamination.
After performing multiple studies on the site, the U.S. Army recommended remediation, but there are no guarantees that this will be done in a timely fashion.
“We had a great push to get LB 66 passed,” McGown said. “We did a lot educating Senators to work on this particular bill that allowed this type of development and so we just don’t want to be all talk and no action. We told them it was important and it was important for us to move forward with some development projects and we just want to show them that it is and what we can do with that designation.”
This designation will not result in the change of any political subdivisions such as school or fire districts, or the service area for utilities.
The depot is located eight miles west and two miles north of Sidney. The area considered for the substandard and blighted designation is about 19,000 acres. This does not include the area annexed to Potter for the Bell Lumber & Pole project.
Many projects inside Sidney would not have happened without the help of TIF, said city manager Gary Person.
The redevelopment of the former Cabela’s corporate headquarters on 13th Ave and Illinois St. is a prime example of how TIF can benefit the city as well the developer. As a result of this project, the city was able to install new streets, sewer and water systems.
“We were able to improve as a city at that corner down here,” Person said.
The city’s first substandard and blighted designation for a TIF project was in 1994. Since then both the city and county have tripled in valuation.
“You have to prove to that developer and those investors that it’s smart business doing those projects here and we have to be competitive,” Person said. “This has made us very competitive, if not leading edge.”
Quite a few developers expressed interest in fixing up sites in the depot, but found that it wouldn’t be cost effective to do so without some assistance.
“Taxpayer dollars invested a tremendous amount of money in military installations and for the most part, they’ve been abandoned across the state of Nebraska,” Person said. “They’re sitting there, deteriorating just like this one is and it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
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