A Monday announcement of plans to finalize a retired North Platte sewer lagoon’s sale signaled the nearing of groundbreaking on the long-awaited Sustainable Beef LLC plant.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Authority will meet in City Hall at 9 a.m. Thursday, with adoption of a resolution executing the $142,500 sale to beef-plant organizers listed as the last order of business.
That step presupposes the completion of Sustainable Beef’s $325 million financing package, as required by the City Council approved a redevelopment plan for the former lagoon Dec. 7.
“I have not seen the document, but that is my understanding” that financing has been wrapped up, Mayor Brandon Kelliher said Monday afternoon.
Based on that, he said, “the CRA will act appropriately based on the previous council and CRA resolutions.”
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Sustainable Beef organizers were required to present evidence of both a signed construction contract and the project’s full financing to gain title to the 80-acre site east of Newberry Access and south of Golden Road.
The council took a preliminary step in that direction July 19, voting 7-0 to adopt an ordinance turning over the old lagoon to the CRA.
The five-member panel will first be asked Thursday to finalize its purchase of the site from the city. Action on selling it for the same $142,500 price to Sustainable Beef will follow.
Project CEO David Briggs of Alliance did not return messages seeking comment. Gary Person, president and CEO of the North Platte Area Chamber & Development Corp., referred questions to Briggs.
Sustainable Beef’s mostly western Nebraska organizers announced the 1,500-head-per-day project in March 2021, stating their desire to increase capacity in the U.S. beef industry and give regional ranchers another place to sell their cattle beyond the nation’s “Big Four” meatpackers.
After several public hearings and a trip to a similar Idaho plant by a community delegation, the council gave 8-0 approval to $21.5 million in tax increment financing in addition to the sale of the former sewer lagoon.
Before that decision, council members in August 2021 approved a pair of $500,000 forgivable loans for project planning from the city’s Quality Growth Fund and the NorthWestern Energy Economic Development Fund.
The Legislature pitched in as well, passing a budget bill April 7 including $20 million for Sustainable Beef’s in-house wastewater treatment system in allocating Nebraska’s $1.04 billion share of federal COVID-19 aid through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Organizers plan a single-shift, 1,500-head-per-day beef processing plant. Some 875 jobs are expected to be added by the plant, with hundreds more from related businesses expected to follow.
Thursday’s CRA meeting will be in the City Hall council chamber, 211 W. Third St.