2 weeks Ago By TODD VON KAMPEN [email protected]
After a 66-minute executive session, the North Platte City Council Tuesday approved $3.3 million more in District 177-only “enhanced employment area” tax collections to complete the extreme makeover of “The Mall.” The 5-2 vote to amend Rev Development LLC’s June 2021 EEA agreement with the city flipped the Jan.
21 vote total by which the council tabled the matter until Tuesday’s meeting. Reconstruction of the 53-year-old mall’s east parking lots will start by late April or when the weather has warmed enough to permit the work, Rev co-owner Mike Works said after the vote. “I’m glad they got to the conclusion,” he said of the Lincoln firm’s 10-month-old request for extra EEA.
“This will jump-start the east side of the (main mall) building and what has to happen back there.” Councilmen Brian Flanders, Rod Dye and Nick McNew, all of whom voted to table Jan. 21, joined Councilman Pete Volz and Council President Jim Nisley this time in backing Rev’s request.
Councilmen Brad Garrick and Ed Rieker both voted “no.” Councilman Ty Lucas left Tuesday’s meeting early due to conflicts of interest with his job as chief lending officer of NebraskaLand Bank, which facilitated the former Platte River Mall’s 2020 purchase by Rev. As a result of Tuesday’s vote, Rev will continue to collect a 1.
95% tax on sales tax-eligible purchases at District 177 — on top of the combined 7.5% state and city sales tax — until 2041 or when $10.81 million in EEA has been collected, whichever comes first.
The previous maximum limit on EEA collections had been $7.51 million. Rev also received $8.
12 million in tax increment financing and a $1 million Quality Growth Fund grant nearly four years ago to revive the declining mall. Works has said Rev has spent more than $70 million on District 177 since then. Three areas of the 1972 main mall have yet to be renovated: the east-facing main entrance and central promenade; the longtime J.
C. Penney Co. anchor space; and the east side of the former J.
M. McDonald & Co./Herberger’s space behind T.
J. Maxx. Rev also plans to build a somewhat smaller version of its four-story Heartland Flats apartment-retail complex on the property’s southeast end near East Francis Street.
The Ollie’s Bargain Outlet discount chain is interested in the Penney’s spot, and Harbor Freight also has shown interest in the main mall’s east side, Works told the council Jan. 21. Both would have east-facing entrances.
Rev first asked last spring to collect $3.3 million more in EEA to finish the mall’s transformation. Works and partner Justin Hernandez won an initial council vote in May for an ordinance to allow their 2021 agreement to be amended.
But subsequent payment disputes between Hernandez-owned New Generation Construction and some District 177 subcontractors caused Mayor Brandon Kelliher to put off action for the rest of 2024. The council Jan. 7 finally approved the needed ordinance to consider the EEA request.
Several council members Jan. 21 sought more certainty about completion timetables from Works before Rieker won a 5-2 motion to delay action again. Works wasn’t included in the 1-hour, 6-minute closed session that preceded Tuesday’s climactic council vote.
But after it ended, McNew and Flanders praised both Works and District 177’s impact on North Platte’s economy. “This is not an easy decision for some of us, and we’ve taken in a lot of considerations,” said McNew, elected to the council Nov. 5 along with Dye.
He said he had talked to a couple who are “both directly and indirectly employed” in the District 177 area and saw the project’s benefits. “We’re moving in the right direction, and I just want to continue moving in the right direction while we protect the current citizens and look out for the future citizens of North Platte,” McNew said. Flanders, who seconded Volz’s motion to approve the extra EEA funds, said Rev’s request “just didn’t sit well with me” until he had a chance to read the original 2021 contract.
He replaced Jim Carman on the council in 2022. “Mr. Works, I appreciate everything you’ve done for the city and for what you’re doing over there at the mall,” Flanders said.
“My family thanks you. They’re shopping there all the time.” He added that “it occurred to me that that was a blighted and substandard area” — the designation required for both TIF and EEA eligibility — “and from what has been done, that has lessened that.
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“It’s increased employment. It’s brought investment into the city, and not just (from) the new stores that we didn’t have. People from outside the town are coming in and spending their hard-earned money.
” In other business Tuesday, the council approved spending $83,743 from city keno proceeds to pay Golf & Sport Solutions to do field renovations at the 1985 Dowhower Softball Complex. The firm from Fort Lupton, Colorado, performed similar work last year on the Little League baseball fields at Centennial Park, City Administrator Layne Groseth said. G&S will remove grass “lips” between Dowhower’s infields and outfields that have built up over 40 years.
They’ll also do “laser leveling” of the infield and treat its soil so it recovers more quickly from downpours and drains toward the outfield, parks and cemetery supervisor Jim Parker said. Council members also: • Cast separate 7-0 votes to amend the city’s land-use map and give first-round approval to a rezoning ordinance for the third phase of the Victory Village apartment complex near West A Street and Lakeview Boulevard. No one spoke at a public hearing on the pair of items.
• Gave 8-0 second-round approval to an ordinance converting the city’s fine schedule for animal control violations to a range of fines. A third and final vote will be taken Feb. 18.
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