RAPID CITY, SD – Western Legacy Development Corp. continues to search for a site to build its $1.1 billion beef processing facility after being rejected by two cities in the northern plains, according to Drovers.
As reported in “Meatingplace” both Rapid City, S.D. and Cheyenne, WY, are no longer considered in the running for the plant. When Western Legacy first announced its intentions to build the 8,000-head per day plant, Rapid City was the proposed site. But the city’s industrial center developer said the proposed space was not large enough to accommodate a plant that large.
Black Hills Industrial Center Dream Design International President Hani Shafai told the Rapid City Journal in a June 23rd story, “As far as the processing plant, we are in support of any business that helps our ag sector and creates added value industries,” Shafai said. “Though there is not enough room for the project within the current plan for the Industrial Park, we will work to help explore sites for the processing plant in the region. The size of the plant, the impact on the region, and its sustainability have to be considered in the evaluation process.”
In the same Rapid City Journal story, Rapid City Communications Coordinator Darrell Shoemaker said in an email that city officials had not been formally approached by officials with Western Legacy Development Corporation about their proposal.
“No permits, plans, applications or requests for information have been filed or submitted with the city,” he said. “There have been no inquiries with the city by company officials seeking information on the detailed processes and procedures that would need to be addressed and followed.”
“We cannot speculate based on hypotheticals or hearsay,” he said. “It would be premature for city officials to comment on general timelines or general application and permit processes and procedures without company officials providing to city officials the specific and detailed information on their proposal
Among other concerns was the facility’s ability to procure 8,000 head of cattle to be killed, 252 days of the year – totaling more than two million cattle and costing approximately $60 million a year.
This was in June. By last week rumors began to circulate that Cheyenne might be the next choice for the plant, but that city’s mayor said it could not meet the water demand of a meat plant that size.
“Meatingplace” reported Megan R. Kingsbury, president and CEO of Western Development, confirmed “that her company is the unnamed developer looking for a site in conversations with Cheyenne, and said Wyoming is but one of several states that the project has approached. She declined to name other locations under consideration, however.”
The plant “still is on track to break ground in 2023,” she said, and begin operations by 2026. And that plant is just the first of several, according to Western Legacy’s longer-term plans in the meat industry, she said.
“There are a lot of considerations, especially from the point of view of a green development,” Kingsbury said. “We have to negotiate with municipalities, and they move on their own timeline. In some cases, they are waiting on federal funding to be able to work to scale with us.”
