MONTROSE - Area business leaders and elected officials got an update on economic conditions of Lee County over some bacon and eggs Thursday morning.
Lee County Economic Development Group hosted a stakeholder breakfast at the group's offices in Montrose.
LCEDG President Dennis Fraise outlined the group's plans for the next capital campaign and talked about the importance of natural gas to the area.
Danville Mutual Telephone CEO Tim Fencl also provided an update on the company's ongoing fiber optics project in the county.
Fraise said LCEDG's public/private partnership has been successful. The group is funding with 50% private investments from county businesses and 40% from Lee County Supervisors, 5% from the City of Keokuk, and 5% from the City of Fort Madison.
LCEDG had planned to conduct another 5-year campaign in 2023 with their last being in 2018, but Fraise said they are pushing that for a year to get away from other area capital campaigns taking place the same year.
"We'd ask that you just roll your contribution over for one more year and then we'll do our capital campaign in 2024," he said.
Fraise said the group has come a long way in the past 10 years.
"Today feels pretty normal but that wasn't the case five or 10 years ago. People didn't know each other," he said.
Two of the major steps forward for LCEDG have been the acquisition of the new office building, the former KL Megla building, and then installing the Career Advantage Center at the same facility.
LCEDG Vice President Emily Benjamin said every 8th and 9th grader in Keokuk, Fort Madison, and Central Lee schools have come through the CAC this fall, but the push now is to focus on the older students with programmed and work-based learning.
One of the most eye-opening discussions was around natural gas.
Fraise said the county has lost three projects this year to other areas due to the lack of natural gas supply, despite the county being the location of choice for two of them.
Fraise said the problem is an expensive one, and a frustrating one.
"We chased a project for a couple years that will ultimately go to Clinton, because we were the site of choice in the whole United States except we couldn't deliver the natural gas," he said.
"That project was hundreds of millions of dollars and we didn't have the gas."
He said the solution is a $100 million project. So LCEDG has engaged Southeast Iowa Regional Planning and Greater Burlington Partnership to create a study at a cost of $65,000.
He said the study was an engineering study and a legal review of getting more natural gas in Southeast Iowa.
"We greenlit that. We don't want to just sit and talk about stuff," Fraise said.
Iowa Fertilizer Co, Alliant Energy, Roquette, Liberty Utilities, and others have come in to put money in that project. He said the study will be completed by the year's end and a meeting has already been set for Jan. 5 with Iowa Economic Development Authority's Director Debi Durham.
"Debi is very interested in this project and she has some state and federal money they could perhaps use in this project," he said.
Fencl outlined the broadband expansion project that will create a redundant service loop for Danville Telecom and will provide fiber optic cable to 121 homes in Lee County with potential to drop more as funding becomes available.
Fencl said construction on the $5.4 million project should begin when the frost is out of the ground and is scheduled to be completed before the end of 2023.
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