Development proposed to northby Nathan Arneal • Plan includes housing, gas station, apartments, community center. More housing and development is coming to North Bend, if the plans and dreams of a couple local entrepreneurs come to fruition. Chris Armstrong and Garret Hetzel briefed the North Bend City Council on their plans to develop a parcel of ground just under a mile north of town during the Nov. 7 council meeting. The ground sits between the Highway 30 expressway and County Road S and runs from Highway 79 east to County Road 8, about 45 acres in all. Armstrong and Hetzel shared a preliminary map they had drawn up by an engineer. The plans include 28 residential lots of a quarter to a third of an acre, two apartment complexes and five commercial lots between 2.1 and 2.4 acres each. Armstrong said the plans are flexible if it is determined the needs of North Bend would be better served by a different setup. “We definitely want input on this,” he said. “We’re not married to this at all.” In the northwest corner of the ground, closest to the intersection of highways 30 and 79, is five acres for a gas station or truck stop. Hetzel said they are in talks with four different companies that have shown interest in building on the location. Seven acres in the southeast corner is set aside for a community center. Hetzel and Armstrong said they would donate the land for a community center, which the Purcell Initiative, North Bend’s economic development committee, is in the early stages of working toward. “We’re flexible,” Armstrong said. “We want to help the town. We would like this to be in the North Bend tax base and provide tax revenue for the city.” He said he also wants to ease the housing crunch in North Bend, citing teachers hired by NBC that want to move their families to town but can’t find a place to move into. Hetzel said he and Armstrong want to work with the city on getting utilities out to the ground, which would also be necessary for North Bend to annex the ground and reap the tax revenue from it. “This isn’t possible on a well,” Hetzel said. “We’ve got to figure out how to get water and sewer there. That’s kind of the next step. If we can’t get power, sewer and water out there, then we keep farming it. We could probably still put in a gas station.” Councilman Ken Streff said the sales tax factor would be huge for the city if it was able to annex the land. He said sales tax receipts this year are down more than $3,000 a month due to a variety of factors, including less traffic passing through town, and it’s only going to get worse. “If you look four years out and put inflation behind it,” Streff said, “we’re getting killed. We’re nowhere close on sales tax.” Councilman Alex Legge said if the annexation could happen before most of the construction, North Bend would benefit from the sales tax on millions of dollars of building materials. Without annexation, that money would go to Dodge County. “It would be too bad to have this going on and the city isn’t able to capitalize on it,” Legge said. “I think it’s pretty important to look at how that would be done.” Streff said installing utilities to the north will spur further growth. “It’s not just about this development,” he said. “If we run that water line and sewer correctly, it opens up all that (to the north). It’s the only gateway we can get out of town. Everything else has been landlocked.” Building sewer and water lines to the north would more than likely require a bond issue approved by a public vote. “I think this is neat,” Armstrong said. “I think it would be good revenue for the city. I think it would be great for the town. But at the end of the day it’s their money. If the town doesn’t want to spend their money on it, I’ll farm it. That’s fine.” Councilmen Chuck Krenzer and Bart Bosco also expressed enthusiasm for the project. The council said they would reach out to JEO Consulting, the city’s engineer, to get an estimate on installing the water and sewer lines. Read the full story in the print or e-edition. <<Back to the front page |