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NDTO News Article

JSDC Reports Business Growth in Jamestown at Annual Meeting

The Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corporation (JSDC) reported new business, thriving industry and continued growth in the City of Jamestown and Stutsman County at the JSDC Annual Meeting on April 25.  With high value crop production and food processing, cutting edge renewable energy and a list of local entrepreneurs, JSDC continues to prove that Jamestown offers much more than just quiet neighborhoods and picturesque landscape.

JSDC Vice President, Gary Riffe, led the JSDC 2011 Year in Review and highlighted initiatives over the past year that assisted JSDC’s objective of creating high skilled jobs and assisting existing businesses with expansion projects.  The annual goals and objectives of JSDC for 2011 were to:

  • Enhance and support the development of agriculture and renewable energy
  • Actively support and assist local entrepreneurs through the innovate ND program
  • Create a more favorable environment for development at the Jamestown food processing industrial park and high-value crops production
  • Actively pursue partners to expand and locate into I-94 business park
  • Maintain the marketing and promotional capabilities of the JSDC
  • Implement a Jamestown/Stutsman area workforce development and labor recruitment program to respond to the needs of local employers

One of the largest projects in 2011 was the creation of Spiritwood Energy Park Association (SEPA), a partnership between Great River Energy and JSDC.  SEPA will be a development park dedicated to area economic growth and diversification.  According to the JSDC website,

“The business concept is to leverage the development of a more robust energy and transportation infrastructure than any single business might be able to afford on its own and share the resulting benefits to attract new businesses under a landlord-tenant relationship to Spiritwood Energy Park. Spiritwood Energy Park Association (the landlord) would own and operate the land and improvements and the individual tenants would pay their pro rata share, which will almost certainly be at a lower operating expense than if they each duplicated all of the capital infrastructure on their individual sites.”

SEPA will house Great River Energy’s recently constructed heat and power plant, Spiritwood Station, which will produce electricity and simultaneously sell industrial process steam to its neighboring businesses.

Located adjacent to Spiritwood Station will be Dakota Spirit AgEnergy biorefinery.  This proposed 75 million gallon per year (MGY) hybrid ethanol biorefinery will be comprised of a 65 MGY dry mill ethanol plant which will use corn to product ethanol, corn oil and distillers grains, as well as and a 10 MGY cellulosic ethanol addition.  This cellulosic bolt-on facility will convert biomass (corn stover and wheat straw) into a variety of higher value energy products including cellulosic ethanol, molasses and lignin pellets.

“I believe we have successfully laid the foundation for future opportunities for Stutsman County with the creation of Spiritwood Energy Park Association (SEPA),” JSDC President Alex C. Schweitzer said in a letter to the JSDC 2011 Annual Report.  “SEPA presents a unique opportunity to combine resources from two separate organizations, Great River Energy and JSDC, for the significant greater good of the community and local business.”

In addition to business reports, the ‘Growing Jamestown/Stutsman Award’ was presented to Cavendish Farms, a producer of frozen potato products for retail, restaurant and institutional use.  Cavendish Farms is one of the largest employers in the region and has had a $335 million impact on the local economy.  Andrew Macleod, director of operations at Cavendish Farms, accepted the award.

JSDC is an organization that aggressively works to improve business conditions and advance the interests of the City of Jamestown and Stutsman County, North Dakota by implementing and sustaining an organized effort to attract new businesses and industry, support existing businesses and industry, and encourage new business starts. Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corporation’s focus is primary sector job creation.  To learn more about JSDC and the business opportunities that exist in Stutsman County, visit www.growingjamestown.com.