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City: Florida's Natural Again Slowing Industrial Park Progress

    “We’re kind of in a holding pattern.”   
    Umatilla City Manager Aaron Mercer is pleased, overall, with the progress being made in the city’s development of its industrial park, but there is one caveat.  As in earlier planning for the facility, an unresponsive neighbor is slowing the effort to create a jobs-producing magnet at the site of the city’s former wastewater spray field complex.
    Mercer on Monday provided an update to the facility’s development, which has been spurred by a multimillion-dollar state grant.  The goal is to create at least 300 jobs in the coming decade, and the city is chomping at the bit to complete needed infrastructure improvements at the location.
    But much as it did in the early stages of planning, the city’s neighbors at Florida’s Natural have been slow to respond when asked to partner with the project.
    Florida’s Natural borders the southern edge of the road serving the industrial park, and months ago charged the city an estimated $100,000 and demanded other concessions - like fencing and access pads - to allow a needed easement along the road to the industrial park location.  Today, the city and park electrical supplier SECO Energy are nearly a month into waiting for a response from Florida’s Natural regarding the need for an easement for three power poles in the area.
    “We need approval from Florida’s Natural,” Mercer said, noting that both city and SECO inquiries to the firm have resulted in little response.
    The delay is affecting work in the southern and eastern section of the project, to the point that other options are being considered.
    “We’re looking at alternative methods,” Mercer said, adding that it would be much easier to work along the road into the park, if Florida’s Natural would engage. Until then, needed work at the corner of Golden Gem Drive may also be slowed.
    Elsewhere in the project, the city has completed most of the necessary paving and curbing into the industrial park, with one section needing additional work before final paving can be done.  At the north end of the project, RCM Utilities has begun site work for its large complex that will bring an estimated 100 jobs to Umatilla in the coming year.
    The industrial park has an estimated 15 acres remaining for development, with Mercer saying the city is open to selling the land as one piece or breaking it up for smaller employers, depending on commercial interest.