WILLMAR—If all moves along smoothly, an addition to Willmar Middle School could open as soon as Sept. 1, 2021.
The planned addition would have a larger gym and a small alternative learning center for the school district and a wing for special needs students served by the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative.
Willmar School Board approved the framework of a lease agreement with the cooperative this week. The Board approved the document unanimously.
Superintendent Jeff Holm said the document
Today, Aaron Backman, Executive Director of the Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission, announced the release of the Willmar Opportunity Zone Prospectus. The prospectus highlights the designated census tract in Willmar to potential opportunity zone investors and developers.
Opportunity Zones are low-income census tracks designated by governors and certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury offering investors a tax-free investment vehicle that creates additional
Clara City promotes itself as the “Crossroads on the Prairie,” but there is a downside to the meeting of state Highways 23 and 7 at the south end of the community.
Traffic accidents at the intersection of the two highways have long been a concern for emergency responders and law enforcement.
At the urging of elected officials in Clara City, Chippewa County, and the Highway 23 Coalition, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is looking for ways to make the intersection a safer one.
WILLMAR—While it is not exactly the dark ages in downtown Willmar, home to many successful businesses and low vacancy rates, there is also plenty of opportunity for development, whether it is upgrading an older building or constructing a project from the ground up. The area is already part of Willmar’s only Opportunity Zone, which provides capital gains tax breaks for those who invest in eligible projects.
In an effort to bring even more development to the area and open it up to a larger
A small 3D print shop in central Minnesota is building parts for some of the state’s biggest companies.
At DI Labs’ office about two hours west of Minneapolis, machines operate 24 hours a day printing prototypes of parts and thousands of other components for 3M, Toro, and a handful of other companies throughout the Upper Midwest and across the country. The company has built everything from full-sized aircraft fuselage to jigs and fixtures for manufacturing.
Last month, DI Labs rounded out its
WILLMAR — The spark of inspiration can happen at any time and be caused by the smallest of things. For Steve Vossen and Julie Vossen-Henslin of Willmar, it was the two inches of shampoo left in the bottle after the pump stopped working.
“I used to cut the bottle off,” Vossen said.
At first, trying to solve the problem was just an idea, nothing concrete. Then the husband and wife team started thinking about it a bit more seriously.
“It continued to bother us,” Vossen-Henslin
SPICER—Brand new, pint-sized tables and chairs, books, cribs and colorful toys were unpacked from boxes Monday, and in a mad dash against the clock, were put in place in the new child care center in Spicer in time for a ribbon-cutting Thursday morning.
A collective “whew” could be heard by the volunteers and staff from the Kandiyohi County Area YMCA who have been involved with the fast-paced project to create a new day care facility to help meet a serious shortage of child care in the county.
Located
Governor Mark Dayton qualified one area of Willmar, out of the 128 census tracts throughout the state, to be qualified as an Opportunity Zone. An Opportunity Zone designation provides potential investors with tax breaks while funding development or redevelopment of the neighborhood.
The Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission contracted with Golden Shovel Agency to attract investors. The ultimate goal is to develop or redevelop areas within the designated tract through
On October 25th, we received exciting news from the Minnesota Department of Employment & Economic Development (DEED). DEED Commissioner, Steve Grove, approved a $1.3 million IBDPI grant with the City of Willmar for the Epitopix sewer line project. The EDC prepared and submitted the grant application on behalf of the City.
Epitopix, LLC is a privately-held company located in Willmar and an affiliate of Vaxxinova, a company based in the Netherlands. Epitopix has corporate offices at the MinnWest
A contract with Compass Consultants Inc. for an engineering study will determine fiber broadband feasibility in rural Kandiyohi County townships, including Dovre, Mamre and St. Johns townships. Pending the study outcomes and a positive response from the township constituents, we will submit a Border-to-Border application to the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development (OBD) by August 2020.
Border-to-border high-speed internet access is the goal throughout Minnesota. The OBD helps Minnesotans understand
