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ALPENA -- For years, the Alpena County Board of Commissioners has wanted to add infrastructure to its Airport Road property to help spur economic development.
Now, the commissioners are ramping up efforts to install utility infrastructure and access roads, which they hope leads to a new recycling center being built and other businesses following afterward.
On Monday, the board voted to spend between $5,000 and $7,000 to update a 2013 plan and put a new price tag in it.
The county owns 17 acres along M-32, and an additional 69 acres on Airport Road it wants to make available for developers.
Don Gilmet, chairman of the committee, said nothing became of the 2013 plan that projected the cost of the project to be in the neighborhood of $1.2 million.
Gilmet said he anticipates the cost for the improvements will be more now, but the time might be right to take action because of the amount of grant money available for infrastructure and the more than $4 million the county received from the federal government via the American Rescue Act.
The county has discussed using some of that money to help pay for the work on the property and Gilmet thinks the county can leverage a portion of it to receive additional funds through grants.
"There is a lot of money available out there for infrasture, and maybe we can find one with a 50-50 split, '' he said. "I have been hearing about this property and project for years, but nothing has happened. This might be the time to do it."
Alpena Resource Recovery, which runs the local county-wide recycling program, approached the county late last year seeking to lease a portion of the land and for help to add infrastructure so it can build a new recycling center. It requested $1 million to help pay for a match for a grant it received and an additional $1 million for infrastructure.
The commissioners have yet to decide how to spend the federal funds and have until the end of 2024 to do so.
Because the property where the proposed recycling center is governed by the Federal Aviation Administration, the county is not allowed to sell the property Resource Recovery is interested in.
County Administrator Mary Catherine Hannah said the FFA says the county must lease the property for market value, which she said estimates show as $5,576 a month, and would escalate by 3% annually.
The recommendation, Gilmet said, will now go to the Ways and Means Committee, for approval, or action could be considered at the regular meeting of the board of commissioners at the end of the month.