City Council Convenes to Discuss New Local Business
Lucas Robertson
lrober22@uwyo.edu
Proposals and progress on two large business expansions coming to fruition after years of work could have rippling effects on the city’s economy, these effects were discussed at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The council heard comments from representatives of a venture to bring a Love’s Travel Center to Laramie, as well as a local small business package to include downtown building expansion.
The Love’s Travel Center will create 40 to 60 jobs paying above minimum wage. There will be three to five manager positions as well. All employees will have access to insurance and benefits. The facility will include a 24-hour tire service shop and a restaurant.
“We currently plan to develop a large travel center, there would roughly be enough parking for 70 trucks,” Steve Walters, real estate project manager of Love’s Travel Centers, said. “This Laramie location fills a big gap in our services to our customers – it’s going to make a safe place for the drivers to rest.”
Interstate 80 serves as a primary route for many transportation companies when hauling material goods across the country, and with Laramie often falling midway between one destination and another, Love’s Travel Center is looking to put a travel plaza located on Interstate 80 within the Laramie city limit.
The Love’s Travel Center is set to break ground in the Spring of 2017 and will likely open later that year.
The council heard from representatives of Laramie Main Street Alliance’s Business Ready Community Program on their project of taking what was once the Empress Theatre, now referred to as the ‘Fox Hole’, and revitalizing it as a small business center to include a newly expanded Big Hollow Food Co-Op.
The team behind the project has been working for nearly seven years to bring together land grant monies, property donation packages and collaboration with the Laramie Downtown Business Association to deliver a progressive proposal toward completing the project to city officials.
In order to start construction, final authorization forms and monies need to be approved. A large portion of the funding for construction will be drawn from private funds, not city tax funds, according to the committee.
The presentation noted past successes of the Business Ready Community Program including Cirrus Sky Technology Park and introduced the phrase ‘build it and they will come.’
The initiatives set forth seek to provide infrastructure for growing small businesses including an apparatus on improvement to already existing structures as a means to celebrate Laramie history and culture, Trey Sherwood, executive director of Laramie Main Street Alliance and general manager of Big Hollow Food Co-Op, said. The new facility gains inspiration from the former Empress Theatre, mimicking some architectural choices of design.
Big Hollow Food Co-Op is partnering with the new business expansion package, and is seeking to relocate its business into the would-be new facility, Sherwood said.
“It’s been a long time coming, and we’re all very excited to see the pieces begin to fall together,” Sherwood said. “It’s been a six or seven year vision that we’ve held on to pretty tenaciously to get to where we are.”
The council also reviewed zoning standards as they apply to the downtown area and northwest Laramie.
