Copperas Cove EDC looks at proposed annual budget for 2020-2021, approves property sale closing in The Narrows

By BRITTANY FHOLER 

Cove Leader-Press

The Copperas Cove Economic Development Corporation held its regular meeting Wednesday afternoon where they reviewed the 2020-2021 budget and approved a resolution authorizing the EDC’s boad chair to execute the closing documents on the sale of 10 acres in the Narrows Business and Technology Park. 

The property sale is to Fieldstone Commercial, LLC. The EDC approved Project Gateway during its February 19 meeting, accepting the offer of $800,000 from Fieldstone. The project was approved by the Copperas Cove City council on March 17. The closing date is not yet determined. 

As part of The Narrows, the property - divided into three prospective lots - may be sold or leased for not more than one gas station/convenience store and one non-fast food restaurant on two of the lots. The property may not be used for niche retail, personal service, pop-up retail, fast food/drive-through restaurants, self-storage/moving units, residential/multi-family residential apartments, or hotels. The property may be used for professional office space, back office, customer service, and “Destination Retail.”

The EDC also looked at its proposed budget for fiscal year 2020-2021. EDC Executive Director Jonas Titas presented two options for the proposed budget- one which includes using the city of Copperas Cove’s financial services and one using a third party for financial services. Using a third party will result in an operational savings of $19,300 annually.

The EDC’s personnel expenses are projected to come in slightly lower than originally budgeted for and Repairs and Maintenance will see a decrease due to some fees being moved to Non-Departmental as well as the demolition of the building on 2nd Street. 

Titas said that the budget “will provide the tools necessary for us to be successful.”

The budget includes the carryover of the $2 million for the land swap between the city and Fort Hood, and the DEEAG Grant matching funds of $500,000, which were unspent because the grant was not funded. 

“There’s a lot of other things that we have spent a lot of time looking at and we have some really good opportunities to create some legacy projects for this board,” Titas said. 

The board chose budget option two, selecting a third-party service. 

Prior to the action items, Titas also updated the board on the status of the CCEDC Cares program, which provided grants to local businesses affected by COVID-19. 

The program had 57 applicants and resulted in 39 partnerships with Copperas Cove businesses, which received funds in the amount of either $1,000, $3,000, or $5,000.

“This has been a very, very well received program that we were able to put together,” Titas said. “All $110,000 has been allocated. They are in the hands of local business. Those funds are being used to promote local business as well as confront or mitigate some of the impacts of the pandemic and the economic downturn because of that. So, they’re paying rent, they’re paying employees, they are keeping the lights on and that’s exactly what we wanted to happen with this program.”