EDC evaluating potential sites for office relocation

WILLMAR - Nine sites have been identified as contenders for a new office location for the Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission.
A subcommittee is still evaluating the options, however, and isn’t ready yet to make any recommendations.
“We’re still working on the numbers,” Jean Spaulding, assistant director of the EDC, told the joint operations board in an update given on Thursday.
The lease at the current location, in Centre Place in downtown Willmar, expires later this year, creating an opening for the Economic Development Commission to consider locating somewhere else.
There has been no shortage of potential sites, said Gary Gilman, a member of the joint operations board who’s also serving on the site subcommittee.
Once the word was out that the EDC was looking at other sites, “we were getting all kinds of calls,” he said.
Nine sites were toured earlier this week by the subcommittee. The group hopes to narrow the list to three to five finalists and schedule tours for the joint operations board and joint powers board to see each location before making a decision.
“We feel that even with all the resources and all the data, it would be difficult to vote on a location without having actually seen it,” Spaulding said.
Cost, square footage and net operating cost per month are among the factors for evaluating all the sites, some of which may require remodeling before the EDC can move in.
Location also will be important, said Rollie Boll, an operating board and subcommittee member. “The big thing we were really looking at was location. We really liked some of the locations,” he said.