Evansville has been picked as a potential 300-acre soybean processing facility built by Minnesota-based company CHS Inc. The $700 million soybean processing facility received an endorsement from the Rock County Board Thursday night.
Evansville has been picked as a potential 300-acre soybean processing facility built by Minnesota-based company CHS Inc. The $700 million soybean processing facility received an endorsement from the Rock County Board Thursday night.
JANESVILLE — The Rock County Board voted Thursday night to support a proposed $700 million soybean oilseed processing plant in Evansville, and authorized county officials to lobby for exemptions to state public financing laws to help fund its construction.
The city of Evansville has been negotiating with CHS, a St. Paul Minnesota-based farmer-owned cooperative, for more than a year to bring a soybean crushing facility to Rock County. The potential construction of the processing facility, would “complement the company’s existing capabilities,” according to an October CHS statement.
“This signifies the county’s support for this very important agricultural project, which not only has local implications, but it has rather significant regional and statewide implications,” Rock County Economic Development Director James Otterstein said. “The state of Wisconsin, as a whole, is effectively a soybean-crushing desert. There isn’t anything of size and scale. As consequence, farms are forced to find alternative markets and find alternative markets elsewhere out of the area, and that cuts into their bottom line in a big way.”
Under state law, the value of property that lies within tax increment finance districts may not exceed 12% of a city or village’s total equalized value. Both the state Assembly and state Senate have bills before them now that would ease that restriction for the city of Evansville, for this project.
The bills were presented by several area legislators, including state Reps. Clinton Anderson, Jenna Jacobson and Scott Johnson and state Sen. Mark Spreitzer.
The resolution requests the Wisconsin Legislature to give the city of Evansville an exemption from state law on tax increment finance districts.
“Without this legislative fix, the city will be TIF-ed out, which is a technical term for not being able to access and use TIF as an economic development tool during a defined period of time,” an executive summary submitted to the county board states.
CHS has predicted that if a plant is built, it “could bring as many as 90 jobs to the region.” The company has also been looking at other locations. CHS operates soybean crush, processing, refining and export plants across the Midwest.
“Adding capacity aligns with overall CHS growth strategy and creates more value for farmer-and-cooperative owners,” the statement said, adding that it is “evaluating several locations.”
Doug Rebout, vice president of the Wisconsin Soybean Association, endorsed approval prior to board discussion.
“It’s going to be a boost for our local economy. Rock County is the number-one soybean growing county in the state, with about six million bushels,” Rebout said. “We don’t know what the price increase is going to be per bushel but even if you look at 15 cents, that will be $1 million extra coming into our community.”
By the end of 2023, Evansville had approved annexing 300 acres, a rezone, a site plan and a conditional use permit for the project.
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