Mason City council approves terminating development agreement for proposed golf car factory

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City this week approved terminating an economic development assistance contract with EVCO Holdings LLC and the Iowa Economic Development Authority on EVCO’s proposal to develop the former ShopKo building into a golf car and electric vehicle manufacturing facility. EVCO was not able to fulfill the project and the property has reverted to a real estate holding company owned by the Pritchard Group.

City Administrator Aaron Burnett says redeveloping the site in the near term is still in the works. “The property owner is already looking at additional development of the site. I’ve had numerous conversations with them. It will continue to be an opportunity for development. While this project fell through and did not move forward, as we know, the Pritchard Companies don’t sit around long and wait for things, so I have high confidence that we’ll see redevelopment of that site.”

Burnett says he’s confident there will be a future use for the building.   “It’s a great site with the sheer size of it and the existing building like that is a huge benefit to somebody who is looking to create operations or move operations to that site. I would say we’ll see redevelopment of that site in the near term I think.”

Burnett still sees some sort of light industrial-type business taking over the former discount retailer building at some point.  “From a retail standpoint, as we’ve seen that big-box retail like that has really struggled with just the changing nature of retail, and so with a parking lot like that, the land that the greenspace that’s adjacent to the building, and the 90,000 square foot building that’s there, there’s just a lot of opportunity there.”

The council approved terminating the development agreement which originally called for a tax rebate after renovations were made to the property. The Iowa Economic Development Authority in September terminated their High Quality Jobs Program contract with EVCO since they were in default of its terms.