Malting plant moves ahead – $200,000 study may yield candidates to become tenants in industrial park

Local and state officials spent two years courting the owners of a huge barley-malting plant being built north east of Great Falls.

By JO DEE BLACK
Tribune Staff Writer

Although that plant, owned by International Malting Co., is well under construction, those officials aren’t sitting around doing a lot of back-patting.

They are looking for ways to scrape together $200,000 for a study to find out what other businesses they should be trying to attract to the site.

"We are just starting this thing and International Malting is our first project," Great Falls Development Authority President John Kramer said.

The plan is to use the extension of water, sewer and railroad tracks to the malt plant to lure other businesses that add value to Montana-grown commodities to town.

If the project, dubbed the "value-added commodity park," is successful, it will be much more than a local asset, Kramer said. The whole state will benefit.

"My personal view is that this should be the state’s value-added commodity park," Kramer said. "It will cost $8 million for the infrastructure needed to make this happen. You can’t build 10 of these parks in Montana. And obviously we didn’t do it for just one tenant."

The infrastructure costs are being paid for with a combination of federal grants. The city also will back some of the bill for the water and sewer line extensions.

The vision of such a park moved one step ahead Wednesday.

Members of the City-County Planning board voted during their meeting Wednesday to recommend bringing the roughly 45 acres northeast of Great Falls that will house the plant into the city limits.

During the hearing, Kramer told board members the time is now for a study to define the park’s size, design and appropriate tenants.

Kramer said his organization has about $35,000 of the $200,000 needed for such a study. He hopes the rest will come from state and federal economic development programs.

"We haven’t even said who ‘we’ are yet, but my view is that it will include the Montana Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture," Kramer said. "We need to concentrate efforts so Montana can compete in the world market."

Great Falls Mayor Randy Gray buys into that theory.

"The true value here isn’t the 35 jobs International Malting will provide, it’s the potential to expand this park to bring more of these businesses to Montana," he said. "That’s where our future is, in adding value to the wheat, the barley, the livestock we produce."

Although International Malting Co. is the world’s third largest malting company, the concept of being part of such a value-added commodity park is new, said Philip VanRensburg, the company’s director of corporate engineering.

"In the United States, our other plants are in urban areas and the spinoff businesses are already there," he said.

Odor is one thing International Malting Co. will be concerned about when welcoming neighbors.

"Malt absorbs odor in the area, so that will be considered when we recruit new tenants," Kramer said.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20031113/localnews/633331.html