City Council hosting public hearing on proposed building sale

SIDNEY -- The Sidney City Council will be holding a public hearing 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8 at the Sidney High School Performing Arts Center auditorium.

The hearing is for public comments on the proposed sale of the building previously occupied by UST Global. 

"While there are a lot of complicated facets involved in the proposed deal between the City Council and WTA, like a TIF assessments, appraisals, bond indebtedness held by Cabela's, there are so many different facets to this. The nuts-and-bolts of what is being traded straight across the board is the City owns the building at 812 Illinois St., and the City Council had an appraisal done on that and it was appraised at $1,092,000. What WTA is proposing to the council is that they give us their building at 1200 Pole Creek Crossing that was appraised at $575,000, plus a $92,000 deduction for the parking lot on the south side of the street that we would like to keep to continue to use park and share rides with Kimball County Transit and our own transit system as well as use for other events like gatherings, parades and things like that. We think that would be a great use for the city," City Manager David Scott said.

Scott said the WTA is also offering $150,000 in cash. Additionally, WTA is offering to forgo the remainder of a job-creation agreement with the City.

"The City entered into a job creation agreement with WTA back in 2019.  As you know, that's when a lot of the Cabela's people were let go. The City made a lot of these agreements to try to capture these people before they got out of town," Scott said.

The agreement calls for WTA to hire a minimum number of people and investment at least a specific amount in payroll. Meeting the requirements of job creation would get WTA $375,000 over six years. Scott said three years into the six-year agreement, WTA has met all of its obligations. However, WTA is willing to forgo the balance of $275,000 as part of the negotiations on the Illinois Street building. 

In September 2018, UST Global/Xpansion announced it was expanding to Sidney. In the company's news release, it announced it would be leasing a 65,000 square-foot area. That area is the three-story building at 13th Avenue and Illinois Street.

The company's press release said it would be"providing up to 200 jobs for the community. These new jobs for the Sidney area will feature professional opportunities focused on both technology and healthcare platform services."

During the COVID-19 restrictions, the company began moving Sidney employees to home-based employment. Ultimately, the company announced it no longer needed that much space.