PADD Submits Store Proposal

Gering natives' proposal picked for grocery store

from the February 23, 2010 Star Herald

The Gering City Council didn’t shop very long Monday night before heading to the checkout counter to choose a developer for a downtown grocery store.

Shortly after the meeting started, and following an eight-minute executive session, the council unanimously selected a joint effort from the Woodbury Corporation of Salt Lake City and WRK, LLC of Lincoln to re-open a store that has been closed for more than four years. The council followed the recommendation of its LB 840 Application Review Committee, which reviewed three proposals Friday morning.

The developers have a local tie. Josh Berger, WRK’s director of projects and construction, his brother Jordan Berger, who also works for the company, and the firm’s CSO, Mike Green, are all Gering natives. Zach Wiegert of the Woodbury Corporation is also a Nebraskan and was a University of Nebraska football star who went on to an NFL career.

“We have an interest in making this go,” Josh Berger said Thursday after his firm’s proposal was received by the city. “We’re excited about submitting and being part of the project, It’s a great project for Gering and we’re excited to be part of it.”

The Panhandle Area Development District of Gering and Harrison’s Homesteads of Scottsbluff also submitted proposals and finished second and third respectively.

The Woodbury Corporation and WRK, LLC submitted a proposal in January that was rejected because it arrived 90 minutes after the city’s deadline, City Administrator Lane Danielzuk said Monday. A North Platte firm also made an offer that was rejected last month but it did not submit a proposal this time.

Danielzuk, who served on the review committee, said Woodbury and WRK ranked at or near the top in the areas the committee used to make its recommendation.

“The redeveloper of record that was chosen tonight scored really well in all categories,” Danielzuk said.

Monday night’s decision doesn’t mean Woodbury and WRK will definitely open the closed grocery store, according to the city administrator. He said the city will enter into “good-faith” negotiations with the companies to try to hammer out a deal to open the grocery store.

Under a downtown redevelopment plan adopted in December, the firm selected through this process would receive city incentives and be able to buy the closed Sun Mart building, which the city owns, for $100,000 and would receive $475,000 in incentives from the city. But after Monday’s council meeting, Danielzuk said negotiations would start from scratch.

He said the new developers might hire as many as 50 full-time workers. The city is requiring the developer to guarantee jobs, wages and benefits for its employees as a condition of receiving city financial and tax incentives.There’s no timeline on when the store would open, Danielzuk said. Josh Berger said last week getting the business up and running would be a major task but one his investment group looked forward to tackling.

On Friday morning, the city’s LB840 Application Review Committee spent about an hour reviewing the three proposals, according to committee chairman Brent Holliday. The committee felt Woodbury and WRK “would be the best for the City of Gering,” Holiday said as he left the meeting.

He said the Bergers’ and Green’s roots in Gering weren’t a determining factor, noting that “all three had ties to Gering.”The LB840 committee ranked the applicants by investor financial commitment, city financial investment, square feet dedicated to grocery, grocery departments, hours of operation, number of full-time employees, wages and benefits, additional retail development, experience and references.

The effort to open a grocery store in Gering started not long after Sun Mart closed its doors in 2005. The city bought the building and has sought a business to open a grocery store since that time.

The project heated up last fall, as Gering negotiated with an out-of-state firm whose name has not been released. A second firm from North Platte also showed interest but in January both proposals were rejected, one because it arrived 90 minutes after the city’s deadline and the second because all the paperwork had not been completed, according to Danielzuk.

According to a press release issued by the city, once a first choice is selected, the city will begin “good-faith negotiations” with that company, using the Redevelopment Plan and Strategy that was amended last fall as a starting point. The city’s plan called for selling the store to a developer for $100,000 and offering $475,000 in financial assistance while asking the developer to spend at least $1.6 million, provide full-time jobs and reach other city-imposed goals.

If all goes well, a draft contact would be prepared that would detail the agreement between the city and the developer.

The agreement would be made available for public inspection and a public hearing would be held, according to the press release. If all those hoops are successfully jumped through, the city and the developer would have a deal and a grocery store would return to Gering.

LB840 committee members are Holliday, the owner of Nebraska Transport Company, who is the chairman of the committee, Jim Cauble, senior vice president of Platte Valley Bank, Craig Landers of Allo Communications, Dennis W. Wiedeman, owner of Wiedeman Financial, Dawne Wolfe, a banker at First National Bank, and Rawnda Pierce, executive director of Twin Cities Development. Danielzuk and City Treasurer John Mejia also serve on the panel.

Mayor Susan Wiedeman, who is a committee member, didn’t take part in the process, since she works for the Panhandle Cooperative, which would be in competition with a new grocery store. Dennis Wiedeman is her brother.

Council President Larry Gibbs sat in on Friday’s committee meeting. Gibbs also chaired Monday’s City Council meeting, since the mayor and Councilman Don Christensen were out of town at a conference.