The Clinton County Drainage Board approved the first steps leading toward a groundbreaking for the Banderas Point project in Clinton County.
The $30 million investment coming to the intersection of I-65 and State Road 28 has received approval for the phase one master plan from the drainage board, which will allow the developers to begin moving dirt following the receipt of building permits from the Clinton County Area Plan office. The approval will jumpstart the plans to build the 20,000-square-foot event center with a 56,000-square-foot indoor arena that is expected to seat 5,000 people.
Commissioner President Jordan Brewer commented after the approval that the board approved the plans for phase one of the project, which includes the arena and surrounding outdoor area with no regard to the RV park, hotel and shopping district plans expected to begin in phase two. Brewer stated that the project developing in an active wetland area provided unique difficulties that the board was tasked with reviewing and developing a plan to help the developers overcome the obstacles.
“Without drainage, there’s no project,” Brewer said. “We approved the event center and kind of the outdoor stuff at the event center, but any future projects or development phases will need to be reviewed and potentially could have additional drainage, even though the plan that was presented is technically for the whole development.”
Brewer commented that the approval will allow for the developers and Good Oil Company, the company involved with controlling the parcels in the area, to begin development in the very near future for the initial steps of the project.
“We kind of confined it a little bit more so that it can continue to have review processes as needed,” Brewer said. “It shouldn’t go back to the APC because we approved everything. We did the PUD at the commissioner level, and now we did the drainage, so really it should just be permitting, building permits through the Area Plan office to start doing stuff.”
During the meeting, a community member approached the board regarding the tile in the area, stating that without the redevelopment of the tile, the surrounding farmland may experience flooding as well as the project area, which remains as a key focus of the county to address in the future. However, Brewer stated that the issue presented to the county when attempting to address the tile lies in the funding.
“There’s a lot of plans, but there’s no money,” Brewer said. “We applied for a grant that we were told, ‘oh, you have a great opportunity to receive,’ and we didn’t receive it.”
Brewer stated that regardless of the funding, the county is still developing plans to address the tile situation, and once the funds become available, the county will take action in reparing the tile to prevent the situations highlighted by the community member.
“We have a list of items that need addressed,” Brewer said. “Not just drainage, but all over through the county, and this one is one of the top priorities out there. Ultimately, it’s really a priority for the city as well as the county.”
Brewer expressed that regardless of the recent implementation of a new tax increment financing area, known as TIF, in the area, the lack of projects expected to enter the area in the near future has halted the county from launching the project immediately to address the tile. The new TIF was slotted within an existing TIF to help fund the water and sewage pipes that were constructed in the area on schedule with the 35-year bond payments.
“The issue is the funding, where if a project comes, and we haven’t had any that have really explored that kind of corridor outside of this development, but if we knew we had TIF revenue coming in, then it wouldn’t be a problem to take on the expense to do it up front if there was a project coming right behind it,” Brewer said. “It’s the unknown that there’s no project, and it could be 5 years, 10 years, x many years down the road, so how do we take money that we don’t have and spend it on a project that is not ultimately going to have a return for so many years. That’s where the challenge is of fixing that tile.”
Brewer commented that the commissioners would become willing to begin the tile redevelopment and address the drainage concerns if a project was proposed to enter the area outside of Banderas Point, which would allow for the county to develop a plan around the TIF funds that would be collected from the area upon the completion of the project.
“I think the best case would be to have a project that wants to come to that area, because then there would be revenue associated with it rather than trying to take money from other pools around the county and utilizing other areas that are paying for something for one specific area,” Brewer said.
Brewer stated that the tile issues are a barrier to developing projects in the area alongside the access to water that would be utilized by the hypothetical project that may enter the corridor. The county pledged one million gallons of water to the area, but Brewer commented that the tile situation must be addressed in the future to allow for new developments to enter alongside the need for more water.
“There’s not a lot of development that’s going to happen out there until that tile’s fixed,” Brewer. “Maybe there’s a few more that can just based on location, but nothing else on the southeast corridor is going to happen until that’s upgraded. It’ll be kind of a big step for any more future development for that corridor specifically.”
The board approved the master drainage plan specific to the phase one design on the southwest corner of the Banderas Point project. The approval is contingent on signed and stamped documents that must be turned into the surveyor and engineer for additional review. The motion specified that the board will maintain its authority to review any future revisions and the drainage plan for the following phases.