The Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority (CHEDA) board held their final meeting of 2018 on Tuesday at the Valley Technology Park.
The meeting regular agenda consisted of an update on Vertical Malt from Adam Wagner; an update on a visit to the childcare center in Benson High School by Crookston Mayor Wayne Melbye mayor and Crookston Schools superintendent Jeremy Olson; the results of a review of policies and guidelines for the housing rehab loan program, and loan requests from the Crookston Inn, Serenity Adams and Luke Normandin.
Childcare has been a hot-button topic around the state at all levels of governments over the past few months and recently when Senator Amy Klobuchar visited Agassiz Townhomes and met with local officials during which she suggested that Crookston may want to visit Benson to learn more about the collaborative childcare center being run out of the Benson High School. Melbye and Olson provided the CHEDA board with a review of their recent visit to Benson and some of the information they learned. Central to their update were the points that Crookston needs to determine what its childcare need is in order to properly further explore a collaborative effort such as this and the support from the local businesses. Second, was the idea that a possible facility would not be intended to be competition for current childcare providers, but a supplement to fill a need in the community.
Adam Wagner also presented on his business, Vertical Malt, and the ongoing plans they have been working on with CHEDA for expansion into their own Crookston-based malting facility. “We’ve established a couple of committees with Adam, one for an advisory to help his business model, and one for planning more along facilities and a timeline,” said CHEDA executive director Craig Hoiseth. “Adam was kind enough to come and mention his plans, finances and hopes to actually start construction on a facility in 2019, becoming operational in 2020.”
The board also received a recommendation from Hoiseth after the CHEDA staff reviewed the housing rehab loan program policies and guidelines, to not make a change to the interest rate to prime on a late loan repayment, but rather to attach a small administrative fee of $50 a month for late loans. The board accepted his recommendation and the fee would be a part of any new loan that goes delinquent including two issued Tuesday.
The board received rehab housing loan requests from Serenity Adams for 406 Houston Avenue and Luke Normandin for 702 North Front Street totaling $65,000 which the board approved. The current remaining loan amount will come from the workforce trade funds, not the $350,000 recently allocated by the council explains Hoiseth. “Both these families have done loans before and have really good track records with borrowing money in the rehab loan program,” said Hoiseth. “The school district is only doing the construction trades class for half a year this year, so we had some cash outlay there we could use for the remaining loan requests. We wanted to leave the $350,000 sitting there as we take a step back, look at our objectives and move forward with the allocation in a strategic way.”
The board also approved a request for a loan from the revolving fund by the Crookston Inn for $25,000 to assist in paying property taxes. Since acquiring the business in 2013, Todd and Nicole Jacobson have been done significant renovations to the property which has drastically raised their property taxes for $16,000 to $52,000. The Jacobson’s had previous loans of $100,000 and $50,000 from CHEDA over the past few years. “He’s been really good at paying off his previous loan aggressively. There was a time they took out $100,000 and later $50,000 for a whirlpool and that one they’ve completely paid off,” said Hoiseth. The Jacobson’s currently had $17,392.26 remaining in a loan balance with CHEDA, and the board approved the additional loan at 4.5 percent.
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