City seals CenTel deal

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Jan 15, 1999

CenturyTel will locate a regional office with at least 350 jobs in downtown La Crosse under agreements passed unanimously by the La Crosse Common Council Thursday.

"I'm very excited that we're able to move forward," Duane Ring Jr., vice president of CenturyTel's Wisconsin Division, said after the vote. "This puts some closure on this whole thing."

"This was a big night for the city," said Mayor John Medinger. "We are talking of hundreds of new jobs and tax base. In a few years, people are hardly going to recognize the city of La Crosse."

Estimating he has participated in between 50 to 100 meetings to negotiate the contracts, Ring said, "I have not done anything but this for two months, but it will be worth it for our employees and for the city of La Crosse."

The council's action gives the green light for CenturyTel to plan and build a $15 million office between Riverside Park and the Freighthouse restaurant. Thursday's decision followed months of negotiations on development agreements with CenturyTel and developer Jay Hoeschler, who has a right of first refusal on the site. Agreements are to be signed Wednesday. For giving up his option, Hoeschler is to receive $250,000 of the $2.3 million the city is paying Charles Robers for a major piece of the site at the closing.

If the agreements had not been passed, downtown leaders said Wisconsin might have lost CenturyTel to Michigan. The city also would have lost a $1 million state brownfields grant to clean up the area.

CenturyTel began hiring to fill 60 vacancies after Tuesday's yes vote on a development agreement by the council's Committee of the Whole, Ring said. The company now will begin working on final site plans in preparation to put out bids next fall and begin construction next winter, he said. CenturyTel, which is spread out in five locations in the city, hopes to move in the new headquarters by 2001, he said.

Hoeschler hopes to put another development, probably a RiverPlace Two apartments, on 2 acres of the property if CenturyTel does not need all of it. Ring said CenturyTel officials are trying to plan their development to leave room for Hoeschler's.

"We have been working on this non-stop since late October," Hoeschler said. "I think everyone will agree it has been worth it because now we've got better projects than what we started with, that provide jobs, tax base and the stimulus for future developments. This is a significant move toward completion of the Riverplace Redevelopment plan that was put in place in 1995 ... and a significant step forward to the redevelopment effort started with Harborview."

The council also unanimously rezoned properties near the site from a mix of heavy and light industrial to community business.

Ring, Hoeschler and several community leaders told the council's Committee of the Whole Tuesday the rezoning was necessary to protect these two investments and to entice further development in the area.

In last-minute negotiations in a Finance and Personnel Committee meeting before the council meeting Thursday, the city attempted to set a 20 percent cap on cost overruns above $500,000 the city has agreed to spend to prepare the Hoeschler site. The work includes environmental cleanup as well as removing a box culvert and some fill.

But the committee voted against the cap on overruns after Hoeschler objected. However, the city can decide not to prepare the land if it determines it cannot do the site preparation within the $500,000. Hoeschle can then waive his option. If CenturyTel needs the 2 acres or if Hoeschler waives his right to develop them, CenturyTel is to pay him $250,000.

The CenturyTel jobs include 200 already aboard locally, 100 to be added soon, and 150 more the company is committed to hire when it moves into the new headquarters in 2001. Ring said Tuesday he anticipates the number of jobs may reach 450.

The CenturyTel jobs are in addition to 100 jobs that Electronic Data Systems Corp. has said it hopes to employ in an office it will lease at Second and King streets, if agreements are completed.

As a utility, CenturyTel pays property taxes to the state rather than the city. But the movement of CenturyTel will put its current offices, estimated to be worth $2 million to $2.5 million, on the market, possibly to be bought by a business paying local taxes.