(Audubon) Officials in Audubon County have a decision to make on how to handle funds from the sale of the Valley Business Park.
The Board of Supervisor’s met Tuesday with Audubon County Economic Development (ACED). “We had a very long, philosophical discussion about what is entailed in economic development and what is the best way to proceed. We are sitting on about $1.25 million from the proceeds of the sale of the Valley Business Park and ACED would like to have access to that money and use it for a variety of things. They came with a good presentation outlining what they would like to do with the money.”
Supervisor’s Chairman Doug Sorensen says it begins with cleaning things up. “Demolition and tear down of real estate, commercial and residential, to make room for new growth. Some of it was the purchase of another piece of land for another business park, potentially.” Sorensen says, “Some of it was going back to the communities and having them throw in their own funds and having a match.”
There are multiple viewpoints on how to distribute the roughly $1.25 million. “There’s kind of two camps. One says we should break the money all apart and disburse it and let each community decide how they wan t to do economic development. The other camp was just put the money in ACED’s hands. They are the experts. Let them target the money strategically and carefully to remove the barriers for economic growth in the county.”
Sorensen believes in order to attract more business, the need for housing must be addressed. “We have a very hardworking, industrious work force. Audubon County is very innovative. Most of our growth in our businesses comes from within. It’s from small businesses that are expanding and growing. We don’t have to really attract we just have to grow what is here. The problem everyone is running into is housing. If I hire people where are they going to live? 40% of our houses are 80 years old and older. This is a problem. That’s not where they want to live. They want to live in nicer houses and we just don’t have it.”
Sorensen adds the last apartments to be built in Audubon came in the 1970’s. Two developers are currently working in Audubon County to add houses and apartments.
