ADC touts year of milestones, progress

The Aurora Development Corporation had a lot of news to share during its annual meeting last week with shareholders, recapping a year reflecting momentum and progress on several fronts.
ADC President Jim Ediger welcomed a group of nearly 30 people to the Bremer Center, kicking off an hour-long meeting filled with project updates, as well as reports from representatives of several area businesses.
“It’s an exciting time for our community,” Ediger began. “I’m not sure that I remember a time with more positive momentum in housing, quality of life and business growth and attraction. As Gov. Pillen mentioned during the recent groundbreaking, other communities are envious of what we have going on in Aurora.”
Kelsey Bergen, ADC’s executive director, then presented a detailed review of all the organization’s activities, beginning with one of the year’s major headlines.
“Obviously I can’t talk about our annual meeting and what happened in the past year without talking first about the groundbreaking event that we had in August with the governor for the future Specialty Ag Formulations facility that will locate as the anchor tenant on our Mission Critical site,” she began. “A lot of activity has happened there and that’s probably been 11 months in the making. It’s been kind of fast-paced, but it’s been a lot of fun and it’s one of those big milestones that you work years and years and years for.”
While the $20 million project is in an of itself a major development, Bergen noted that the work required to land an anchor tenant is in her view just as big of a deal.
“There are a lot of things tied to this that are equally if not more important and one of those is that it has helped us plan for our Mission Critical site,” she said. “It gave us the opportunity and it pushed our board to start looking at how do we build it out to serve businesses … So we spent a lot of time and effort into developing the site, which really paid off.”
Dirt is already being moved now on the Specialty Ag Formulations site, though Bergen said what is not as visible is the fact that by next spring several more lots will become “shovel-ready sites,” meaning that purchase agreements could be signed with prospects which could then begin construction within 30 to 60 days.
“As a whole this project also just gave us the ability to continue to partner with the state to find out what programs are available and how to apply for them,” Bergen said. “It strengthened our relationship with those different partners that are able to walk alongside us and help with those efforts, and then it also helped us work with our utility providers. The city of Aurora was a big partner for us, making sure all the infrastructure came together and helping us set ourselves and the community up for success as the rest of those lots develop.”
As an added bonus, the combination of jobs to be created by the new anchor tenant, as well as an expanded number of employees at Mid-Nebraska Land Development, has helped ADC meet a job-creation requirement tied to a Community Development Block grant used to purchase the property more than a decade ago.
Bergen also reported that the pace of activity regarding businesses looking for potential development sites has picked up considerably in the last year.
“In the first three years that I was here we had one site visit where we had a business come to town and in the last 12 months we’ve had eight from five different companies,” she said. “So we’ve definitely had a lot more traction of people showing their interest in Aurora and in Hamilton County.”
Two of those prospects, she noted, are within three to six months of becoming more public, and another is very close to finalizing a purchase agreement for a parcel on the Mission Critical site.
“We don’t have official papers signed, but we’re very close on a data center, which is actually what the site was created for,” she announced. “I’ve talked with probably three or four different (data center) companies this past year and this is the only one that really fit all the criteria that we had that we wanted for our community. It’s not containers, as they involve stick-built buildings that don’t produce a lot of sound, and it’s an individual person that we’re working with directly who wants to benefit our community and partner with us. So, there are just a lot of great things that we’re excited to see coming in the next year.”
“It all goes back to our mission statement,” she added of an organization celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, “which is to improve the economic conditions of Hamilton County by encouraging investments in agriculture, manufacturing, business, housing and community facilities, thus fostering increased employment opportunities.”

Helping existing business
Bergen then went on to say that while efforts to attract new business and industry to the area are important, so too is time spent trying to help existing businesses grow and prosper.
“While attraction efforts bring new people to town, we want to make sure that they’re successful once they get here and that they can continue to grow and expand,” she said, noting that she is currently working with seven local businesses on potential expansion plans. “It’s really stretched our office to look at how can we better support our businesses, what programs are available, and does our organization structure help us set those businesses up for success as well. So that’s been a really exciting thing to see.”
Bergen, who was hired as ADC’s executive director in 2020, reported that she spends part of her time working on other initiatives as well, including the downtown revitalization project and assisting the Aurora Housing Development Corporation with its housing efforts.
After Bergen’s report, several local business leaders offered brief updates on their operations, including Mike Morrow, manager of the BonnaVilla Homes plant in Aurora; Todd Vettel, co-owner of International Workforce Services; Gary Bales, plant manager at Aurora Boardworks; John Worsley, representing Mars Petcare; and Jannelle Seim, president of the Aurora Housing Development Corporation.
Details from some of those reports will be highlighted in future News-Register coverage.
The ADC’s annual meeting’s agenda also included an election of directors, with four members due up to begin another three-year term. Bill Hunter, Justin Wolf, Jim Ediger and Trevor Thorell were all re-elected by unanimous ballot.