The Kearney City Council met on September 8, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers to conduct a series of public hearings and votes related to the Tech One business park, new data center regulations, and a proposed data center project by Horizon 1 Kearney Owner, LP. The council also handled consent agenda items, consent ordinances, and regular agenda items including a land purchase agreement and a community benefit agreement. All major votes were unanimous, with one abstention on a separate claim.
And for a moment of silence. All right, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under indivisible with liberty and justice for all. In accordance with section 841412 of the Nebraska revised statutes, a current copy of the open meetings act is available for review as posted on the wall of the council chambers. Peggy, please take roll. Mayor Nicola. Here. Okay, we have uh no oral communications and no unfinished business. So we're gonna start with public hearings one through four. And public hearings one through four can be discussed together but voted on separately. They pertain to the application submitted by Miller and Associates for the development of Tech One Fifth Subdivision Planning Commission recommended approval, Craig. All right, I'll just move those things a little bit there. Good evening. My name is uh Craig Bennett, 1111 Central Avenue here tonight, and I'm here to represent uh the city of Kearney on behalf of uh the subdivision, which is one of the first public hearings that we have here to be known as Tech One Fifth Subdivision. So the property that we're looking at tonight, we're looking at it both from a final plat and then from a rezoning standpoint as well. So the property is located as shown on here on the north side is 56th Street, on the west side is Antelope Avenue. Uh this is the MPPD substation and the expressway for orientation. So what's shown in the red boundary that encompasses all of that with the exception of this parcel here is up for rezoning tonight. Um and the yellow portion is the portion that we'll be walking through, which is uh the final plat. So I thought I would take this back just a little bit, but just to remind everybody that in 2010 was when we first looked at this site and when we done an ULTA survey for this property, um, specifically for industrial park data center. And so it's kind of kind of interesting to see us. Here we are 16 years later, and um we're with another phase of a data center on this site. Um at that particular point in time. This happened to be the slogan which I still kind of like, um, where the high tech uh meets the high plains, and that was what we had when we were promoting um the data center that came here to look at our site. And as I've said before, it seems to be like that's where we got second in the Super Bowl. Um, and so uh anyway, we were selected as Carney was selected as a as a sole city to represent Nebraska for that particular data center project. So it was quite an accomplishment for us to have as a community on our record. Um at that time, too, was when we created the BP zoning designation, a business park zoning designation that allowed specifically allowed data centers. So since that time, since 2011, uh the zoning to allow data centers has been in place over this parcel here. So that is the zoning map from 2011. Um additionally, at that point in time, we also created um six five-foot easements that encompass the site starting at 56th Street, and they ran south to a carrier hotel, carrier hotel, not a place for somebody to reside, but it's where uh the fiber infrastructure uh is located in a left up there and then does loop the site there. And so those easements have been in place again, specifically for a data center on this particular parcel. Um moving forward to today. This is the current or effective zoning map that's in place today. And so what you see uh by the red boundary that you see here, with the exception of where the crypto mine data center is located at um is a BP PD plan development overlay district on top of that. Um it includes the the existing law office here, which they're uh um also a part of this rezoning where um the rezoning that we're asking for tonight would be to change it from BPPD to straight BP. Um further, furthermore, you'll see later with the conditional use permits provide um the overlay district that the PD would normally do. Um the comprehensive plan, the effective comprehensive plans future land use map um currently has that as BP, so no change or amendments need to be made to the comprehensive plan for this rezoning request from an infrastructure feasibility standpoint in looking at this final plat. The yellow boundary here represents the area that we are looking at vacations and replating, and I'll kind of walk through those. So currently, right now we have a 16-inch water main that traverses along 56th Street and then is brought down into the subdivision on Tech 1 Boulevard. It follows global drive and then back out and terminates with the terminus point on both the west and the east portion of that. The project that we have tonight will show connectivity of looping that back through in circulation. So we have uh wonderful water infrastructure that was made available as part of the subdivision and the creation of taking the 16-inch water main from east to west from the high pressure system. The sanitary sewer map that I have here shows that we have sanitary sewer that traverses southerly along along this corridor here, and then 56th Street, and there's a 27-inch sanitary sewer main that's along the west side of the property. So that 27-inch sanitary sewer main will serve an area that extends out into this property about where that ditch is at. So there's current infrastructure here that um was was built and extended to serve which was at that time expansion of software company now, the law office that sits there. Um around the neighborhood, there's also existing gravity sanitary sewer that that goes easterly and uh traverses back up around uh the vet's home from a stormwater standpoint or surface water drainage there. The blue boxes on here represent the inlets that are currently in place and provide stormwater direction and conveyance for stormwater from the runoff of the lots and the streets, and there's a ditch that was dug here by which we were planning to if we had to put this road in here, which would be a tech one boulevard link, um that ditch would be replaced with stormwater pipe and then be filled in with the project that we have here. Um that ditch will no longer be needed. Um, but the stormwater conveyance then goes to the stormwater outfall channel located in the NRD outfall channel that conveys itself all the way to the Wood River Valley Basin.