MAGIC Fund OKs Land Purchases

The committee that recommends spending economic development money raised in Minot wants to buy more than a million dollars worth of land The MAGIC Fund Committee met today and voted in favor of two separate proposals for land purchases One is 410 000 to buy land near the existing Public Works building in southeast Minot That land would be available for sale to businesses wanting to locate there The second proposal passed today would spend 800 000 to buy land in the heart of the city s ag park on the east edge of town The land sits in the middle of the property where the Port of North Dakota and MG Grains are already located and just recently became available MAGIC Fund committee member Dr Mark Hildahl wondered about the wisdom of committing more than half of the available MAGIC Fund money on the two property purchases and suggested waiting on the 800 000 piece of land in the ag park Dr Mark Hildahl MAGIC Fund Committee Should this part be approved we will have committed 1 78 million dollars today out of our existing balance of 2 6 I have a concern about having funds available for other projects VO CONTINUES But committee member Terry Zeltinger said the ag park land was important to the city s plans to develop businesses there Terry Zeltinger MAGIC Fund Committee I think we ve been waiting for this land to come up for sale and now it is up for sale and there s a deal in front of us at the altar and I think we should go through with this at this time because I think it is a very important part of the strategy of the ag park In the end the MAGIC Fund Committee voted to recommend both land purchases The group also voted to change the terms of two agreements where businesses had failed to meet milestones spelled out in contracts Both InfoTech and Pure Energy were granted changes Both companies say they are secure in their plans to expand in Minot but have had problems filling some openings