Platte Co. aids area enterprises with loans

COLUMBUS - The role of the Platte County Board of Supervisors in economic development may not be widely known, but projects in the county looking for a boost can turn to the supervisors for assistance.

The supervisors recently approved gap financing for Patrick Adamy in the amount of $80,000 to complement $80,000 from the Northeast Nebraska Economic Development District and $890,000 from BankFirst. Adamy will use the financing to purchase the Country View Estates mobile home park. Adamy will provide an additional $125,000 to round out the total project costs of $1,175,000.

Platte County's portion will be allocated from its revolving loan fund with a term of 15 years at a fixed interest rate of 4.5 percent. The county will have a third lien position on the business personal property, including the real estate - excluding the mobile homes. The county also will file a deed of trust on Adamy's personal residence in Columbus.

The development district's $80,000 will be backed by a second lien position on the business and personal property, including the real estate (except for the mobile home) and will file a Deed of Trust on Adamy's personal residence subordinate to BankFirst.

Country View Estates is a 144-lot mobile home park located on East Highway 30 north of Behlen Mfg. Co. The mobile home park was established 20 years ago and contains 144 lots and 29 trailers.

The park has paved streets, parking areas, sidewalks, established trees and street lights.

The $890,000 loan from BankFirst will be split into two loans. An $815,000 loan will be setup as a regular real estate loan amortized over 20 years and a $75,000 loan to be repaid in 5 years with proceeds from the liquidation of 14 of the 29 mobile homes on the property.

The project will create or maintain at least four full time jobs.

Platte County's revolving loan fund was established in 2004 as a result of a $505,000 loan from the State of Nebraska, Department of Economic Development to Platte County, which the county loaned to Shell Valley Companies Inc. of Platte Center.

As Shell Valley pays back the loan to the county, the revolving loan fund is built up to loan back to other businesses and economic development projects.

“Technically, we don't count Shell Valley as part of the revolving loan statistics, because they were the business that originally used the full amount of the funds,” said Jeff Christensen, business loan specialist with the development district.

The activity of the county's revolving loan fund has been steady since its inception. Other projects include Alice's Cedar Inn in Creston and Robison Machine Co. in Columbus.

Alice Long purchased the former Cedar Crest Inn in Creston in November 2006 with plans to reopen it as a steak house. Long, operator of Alice's Northside, saw an opportunity for an expanded catering service in the area but was limited by the amount of food storage space she had available.

The addition of Cedar Crest, with its walk-in refrigeration unit and kitchen area, provided the features needed to expand the catering service. The former Cedar Crest Inn building includes more than 4,000 square feet with an adjacent lot and on-street parking. The project created six full-time jobs.

Rex Robison Jr. started Robison Machine Co. (RMC) in 2000 with two CNC lathes manufacturing fabricated metal parts and doing business primarily in the Columbus trade area. In the early years of business RMC had blanket orders from two of its largest customers; Mastercare Patient Equipment and Columbus Hydraulics. The company had historically received machining orders from EGS Electrical Group (Appleton Electric), its largest customer, on a job-by-job basis. In March 2005, EGS changed its relationship offering RMC a blanket 12-month contract.

As a result of the contract and its business with other main customers, RMC found it necessary to add a third lathe.

In June of 2005, RMC partnered with the Cozad State Bank and Trust Co. and the Platte County revolving loan fund to purchase a Daewoo Puma 240 MSB lathe for $137,000. With taxes and shipping, the total investment in the RMC expansion totaled $140,000. Platte County provided $56,000 for the equipment purchase. The project created three full time jobs and retained four existing jobs.