The Casper Area Economic Development Alliance has neither the personnel nor the finances to be the primary marketer of the Salt Creek Heights Business Center, according to CAEDA's president.

"We represent all of Natrona County and everyone in it," Chris Manegold told members of the BP Amoco Reuse Joint Powers Board - the stewards of Salt Creek Heights - at a meeting Thursday morning. "This (Salt Creek Heights) is clearly one of the premiere sites but we can't dedicate 100 percent of our time to it."

In discussions prior to Thursday, members of the Joint Powers Board considered using CAEDA's resources as the primary means of attracting potential tenants to the new 245-acre business park, located south of the bypass of Wyoming Hwy. 20-26 and east of Salt Creek Highway.

When Joint Powers Board Chairman Dick Lindsey brought up the notion of having CAEDA do the lion's share of the marketing for the business center, he was told that plan would be "a huge mistake," by Steve Wood, a Seattle-based developer contracted by BP.

Wood suggested instead that the Joint Powers Board hire a full-time employee to specifically market Salt Creek Heights to interested parties.

Salt Creek Heights sits on the site of Amoco's old North Tank Farm. A lease between BP, which inherited the land when it acquired Amoco, and the Joint Powers Board, was signed earlier this month. The lease stipulates that BP will lease the land to the board for 99 years at a cost of $1 and the board is then allowed to divide the land and sublease the parcels to private businesses.

Alice Kraft, the board's president, said earlier this month that Salt Creek Heights will stay in unincorporated Natrona County and will be zoned as a Planned Unit Development. The lease with BP also stipulates that only commercial and industrial sublessees will be allowed.

After the meeting, Lindsey said the Joint Powers Board will take up Wood's suggestion of hiring a full-time marketer for Salt Creek Heights at its next meeting.

The board has spoken in the past about hiring a full-time employee to both lure sublessees to Salt Creek Heights and administer the property once tenants are in place, Lindsey said.

"I don't think you are going to see any resistance" from the board in moving forward and hiring someone to market the property, he added.

What funds the board would draw from to pay the salary of the new employees have not been discussed, Lindsey said.

Ideally, the full-time marketer of Salt Creek Heights will work with CAEDA and local real estate brokers to attract tenants, Wood said.

Luker weighs in

In order to make the business park successful, Salt Creek Heights' marketer and the Joint Powers Board will also need to work hard to get information out to the public about the project, Casper real estate developer Betty Luker said Thursday afternoon.

Because the Joint Powers Board has basically leased Salt Creek Heights from BP for free, a perception may grow in the community that the board is subleasing the land at extremely low prices, prices that private developers have no chance at matching, Luker said.

In order to not anger many of these private developers - especially the city's smaller developers - the Joint Powers Board would be wise to publicize exactly what they are doing with the 245-acre area and at what prices they are subleasing Salt Creek Heights' lots, she said.

The board should also make sure that the folks it's considering subleasing to have solid businesses, she said. Many fly-by-night operations may try to set up shop on land the board acquired for such a low price, Luker added.

Luker herself has taken a cautious approach on land she has developed on the east side of Casper in the past, she said. She continues to work solely with solid corporations when it comes to her current development projects, such as the land she and her husband, Bill Luker, own along the newly extended portion of East Second Street.

The land the Lukers are developing on East Second, along with the McMurry Business Park, which is east of the Lukers' land, coupled with Salt Creek Heights give Casper about 600 to 700 acres that will be "business-ready" six months from now, Manegold said.

One of the main points businesses make when they are looking to locate a new facility somewhere is that they are attracted to places with business-ready land - land where infrastructure such as roads, water, sewer and electricity is already in place and can be developed immediately.