Costco announces they will invest more money and expand its operation for the chicken processing plant in Fremont.
KMTV got an exclusive first look into what the updated Costco chicken processing plant will look like.
The processing plant expands from 250-thousand square feet to 360-thousand square feet. The investment in the project skyrocketed from $180-million to $275-million dollars. Interim city administrator Brian Newton said usage of water, sewer, electric and gas will all increase which is a win for the city, “It's all good news so we're really tickled to have them.”
Costco gave the designs to the city just days ago and the Fremont city planning board accepted Monday night.
“It’s more investment so eventually we are going to see that in property taxes,” said Newton.
It’s common for an expansion like this to a major project, said Newton, as companies fine tune its designs, “It's routine, we have this often in most plans they come back and typically revise it.”
The plant will be placed just southeast of town on over 400 acres which are currently farmland.
The city faces a lawsuit claiming they illegally annexed that land-designating it blighted and substandard. The two sides will go to a bench trail on Febuary 8th and 9th.
Randy Ruppert's has been opposed to the plant from the get-go, mostly for environmental reasons-he's disappointed by the expansion.
“We are not surprised, this is the playbook that most of these processing plants use,” said Ruppert.
This latest move from Costco is just the beginning said Ruppert, “They will continue to expand, they will keep asking for more TIF money, they'll keep asking for more annexation.”
Newton said Costco is also looking at getting $20-million dollars in TIF money as well.
The next step in this project is the Fremont city council will meet next Tuesday, December 27th to look at this-and if all goes according to plan-Costco hopes to start construction in the Spring.
