WAUPUN — City Administrator and Director of Economic Development Kathy Schlieve announced a $100M Agribusiness Development Project with United Cooperative at Tuesday’s City Council Meeting. Waupun’s previous Economic Development Strategy, which focused on encouraging local retailers, had not accomplished every goal. Among the unfulfilled goals was city-wide growth, in both community and industry. Schlieve argued that Waupun needed to diversify local industries and create opportunities for large-scale non-municipal industrial developments.
After determining Waupun to be a great site for industrial development, the City of Waupun and United Cooperative began to work on a development agreement for a new agricultural production facility in the Waupun Industrial Park. For the last six months they have worked on plans which are now up for finalization.
President and CEO of United Cooperative Dave Cramer gave a short speech on the background of United Cooperative. Headquartered out of Beaver Dam, United Cooperative is an agricultural production company which operates throughout Wisconsin and in other regional states including northern Illinois, upper-Michigan, eastern Iowa, and southeast Minnesota. United Cooperative primarily produces grain, feed, and gas. UC Vice President John Scheuers was also in attendance.
United Cooperative plans on constructing a new soybean production facility as well as a grain storage facility. The first and second stages are planned for 2024, and stage three is projected to be complete by the end of 2025.
The proposed development site is a 65 acre undeveloped lot on the south side of the Waupun Industrial Park, with a proposed road that will connect at the intersection of WI-26 and Shaler Dr near the Truck Stop. The overview included an economic impact, which included an investment of $100M and a tax valuation of $33.5M over the life of the Tax Incremental District (TID). The land will be sold at $20K/acre for a total purchase price of $1.3M, which is estimated to generate $13M over the life of TID.
The presentation included a list of estimated figures for the completed facility. Once fully operational, the plan estimated the creation of 50 full-time skilled operations and management positions at minimum $22/hr, with an estimated annual payroll of $3M. Once complete, facility input and output will result in 4-5 rail cars daily and an estimated 60 daily trucks with potential peaks of 200 during harvests, mostly using shipping routes along US-151 North and WI-26.
The project plans included a section on environmental and safety concerns in compliance with state and federal laws. Air quality standards will need to be maintained and plans written for groundwater contamination protection. The plan included a section on decommissioning the facility if operation ceased.
Schlieve stated that the Final Developer Agreement and related information will be available on the city website by June 7th, and a final project review will be completed at the City Council Meeting on June 14th. Once a final decision is approved the site plan review and permits will begin for construction.
