NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson City Council approved an update to the Industrial Revenue Bond amount for the city's spec building with Salt City Investments at their meeting on Tuesday.
"In March of 2022, the City Council had passed a resolution determining advisability of issuing IRBs of $4 million for Salt City Investments, LLC," said Finance Director Angela Richard. "The amount has changed to $5.3 million. The new revised cost benefit analysis, even with the new revised increased amount of the bonds, every party involved still has a greater benefit than cost, evident by a 1.0 ratio or higher. It still is advisable that we issue these bonds."
Brad Pryor with Salt City Investments explained why they need the additional bonds.
"We have two prospective tenants," Pryor said. "The feedback we're receiving from our tenants is they would like to see the leasehold improvements wrapped into their lease. Originally, that wasn't part of our business model. That's a feedback that we've received. It's beneficial, obviously for the tenant to have leasehold improvements wrapped in with the IRB incentives. That's where the $5.3 million comes in. We currently have two prospective tenants that are very interested."
Pryor said lease agreements are out to both tenants and the first to sign will get the building.
"It's been very successful," Pryor said. "We're very close with landing a tenant. We hope that this first one is a homerun and then we can look at phase two. My goal with Salt City Investments is to always have a building for the community to market that allows us to bring in prospective businesses, because everybody has land. When you have a spec building ready, it just puts you a leg up compared to the other community."
The additional authority was approved on Tuesday.
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