At last night’s Huron City Commission meeting, Greater Huron Development Corporation president and executive director David McGirr announced the purchase of a 127-acre site, east of Custer Avenue and south of Highway 14. The site will be named “Vantage Business Park”. The north one-third of the 127-acre site is zoned for office and light industrial uses. The southern two-thirds is zoned for heavy industrial occupancy.
McGirr said after selling a spec building to Dakota Provisions for their new west plant and designing the new spec building in the West Industrial Park, GHDC has been looking for more industrial land. He said the largest available lot was only 6 acres which is not large enough to accommodate most warehouse, manufacturing, or agricultural businesses.
A task force has been working on the issue for over a year and has identified 13 parcels of land adjacent to Huron. The task force ranked the parcels based on a number of factors, including topography, highway and rail access, water and sewer access, fiber optic telecommunications and industrial natural gas access.
McGirr said GHDC was recently able to acquire the land.
McGirr said over they have already had serious inquiries about the land.
McGirr said it will be several months before they know if these businesses will be a good fit for Huron.
The city commission approved a request to make a ten-year commitment of $75,000 per year to the Community Development Foundation to help pay for the land. The next step for the city is deciding whether to begin making the payment in 2018 or 2019. Commissioner Doug Kludt asked where the rest of the money would come from.
Also last night, McGirr announced that the first draw-down to the city had been processed from a grant GHDC received from the state to improve access to the West Industrial Park and the Southtown commercial and residential areas.
McGirr presented the city with a check for the first payment of $132,256. A total of $600,000 will be made available to the city as the roads are completed over the next year.