City sets stage for $1.5 million truck care business

On Tuesday, Le Mars residents Brent Brownmiller and Tom Ortmann brought their plans before the Le Mars City Council, requesting the road work and several other incentives from the city. The council voted 4-1 to approve the request.

Brownmiller and Ortmann told the council their proposed new $1.5 million truck and tanker wash facility will create 7-10 jobs with start up incomes from $25,000-$50,000.

Groundbreaking on the expanded facility could be as early as Nov. 1, Brownmiller said.

He and Ortmann, under the name O.B. Investments, are purchasing nearly 30 acres located west of Business Highway 75 in the corner created by Sixth Street Southwest and Holton Drive.

The land includes a truck wash facility, formerly part of Harker's, will likely see a 90-by-100-foot addition. The expanded facility will house the tank and truck wash area, Ortmann said.

A cold storage building, also on the lot, may be used for rental storage, he added.

Brownmiller and Ortmann asked the city council to consider literally paving the way for the new business, emphasizing the positive impact it could offer the community.

Construction of a new road was the first of five incentives the planners sought from the council.

The proposed street, coming perpendicular off of Business 75 to the northeast and connecting with Holton Drive, was approved by the council.

The council's approval stipulates that the street project costs stay at $250,000 or less. Construction should include adequate truck turning access, along with curb and gutter work.

Brownmiller and Ortmann told the council they give the land needed for the street construction to the city for free.

Putting a road there, they stated in a letter to the Le Mars City Council, would keep the majority of truck traffic in a controlled area away from current businesses.

"We're going to have a lot of truck traffic going coming in there," Brownmiller said.

The entrance for this street would be between the Le Mars Glass Company and the Yamaha Golf & Equipment Company on Business Highway 75.

The street had been planned years ago when Harker's bought the land, Ortmann said.

"We're not asking that the entire street be put in," he said. "If they want to do it in chunks over several years, we don't care. If they can just get it up to our property, we'd be fine for that for a while if funds were tight."

Paving 600 feet of the street would be enough to get truck traffic to their property, Brownmiller said.

Money for the road project, council members determined, would come from one of two sources: either RISE (Revitalize Iowa's Sound Economy) money from the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT), or Tax Increment Financing (TIF) from the Joint Urban Renewal Area shared by the city and county.

City Administrator Scott Langel cautioned the council during the discussions that while the Department of Transportation's RISE program exists, money is likely unavailable at this time due to earlier diversion of dollars to areas hit hard by this spring's Eastern Iowa flooding.

Langel said he will be meeting within the next two week, he said with IDOT officials to determine if RISE funds can be available to the city.

Langel will be returning to the council in the near future with construction costs.

Other benefits sought by Ortmann and Brownmiller include:

*A city tax rebate of approximately $32,000 on the planned $500,000 expansion of the truck wash facility.

*Fill dirt for the 9,000-square-foot facility expansion. The dirt would come from the Le Mars Industrial Park, Second Addition, owned by the Le Mars Business Initiative Corporation (LBIC). Brownmiller and Ortmann said they would pay for hauling the dirt to the site of the new truck wash.

*Water and sewer needs for the project.

*Curb, gutter and sidewalk along Sixth Street Southwest.

Council member Delana Ihrke indicated she "was uncomfortable" in joining fellow council members in approving the benefit package due to "a lot question marks" she felt remained.

Ihrke cast the lone vote against approving the assistance, saying she would like to see more additional information on the availability of RISE funds for the street construction.

Ihrke said she'd like to know the street project expense's ramification on taxpayers as well as costs of the requested city funding for water and sewer lines for the project.

The final council vote was 4-1 to grant the benefits.

Brownmiller and Ortmann also visited with the Plymouth County Supervisors before speaking at the Le Mars City Council meeting Tuesday to get their OK for the city to use TIF money since it may come from the shared county and city district.

The supervisors gave their nod of approval to the project.

Ortmann, who already owns a tanker company, told the supervisors the proposed business, Blue Diamond Truck Wash, would fill a need for the tanker community.

"It would be semi-tankers and trailers hauling to places like BoDeans and Wells' Dairy," he said. "Most of it's going to be food-grade type thing. We're not going to mess with any haz-mat (hazardous materials). No cattle pods."

The list of products they'd be potentially washing out of trucks and tankers was OK'd by the city sewer superintendent, Ortmann said.

The truck wash's property, the duo noted, will house not only the new business, but also two rural trucking businesses and the expansion of Le Mars' BLT, Inc. trucking and Brownmiller's business -- Total Truck Care.

Total Truck Care is a truck facility in southern Le Mars.

"The location we're at right now, we're landlocked and we want to grow," Brownmiller said. "We talked about going out on the bypass. We've been working on this for two years."

County Supervisor Don Kass said he remembered that the truck wash developers had looked into building a facility near the Le Mars Highway 75 bypass.

"I think this is a lot better fit, as far as location," Kass said. "You're keeping the lights on in a building that would otherwise be empty, and I think that's great."