Dots being connected on possible project in Lee County

LEE COUNTY – Some preliminary dots are starting to be connected in what may be pointing to a possible large-scale development planned for Lee County in the Green Bay bottoms.
Rumors have been flying around about the possibility of a metals plant coming to the area, but local officials are tight lipped with any information around the proposal.
A property owner told Supervisors at a meeting about a month ago that his son was approached by a real estate agent named Jesse Caston about selling his property, but no agreements had been reached. He told the county that something was happening in the area.
Caston is a registered agent of CDM Real Estate out of Urbandale, Iowa and has been connected by the property owner to Green Bay Enterprises, a company that was formed about a month and a half ago on July 20. GBE is registered out of an office at 510 E. Locust Street in Des Moines. That address is also the address of Chuck Larson’s LS2Group, a public relations firm specializing in high-impact developments. They were part of the rollout of the Iowa Fertilizer Company in 2017.
Messages to Larson were unreturned. But that’s not uncommon with area officials. Both State Sen. Jeff Reichman and State Rep. Blaine Watkins replied via text to inquiries asking if there was information that can be shared around the possibility of a large development in the area - with the same exact answer.
“No, but thank you for asking.”
Lee County Economic Development Group CEO Emily Benjamin said it is LCEDG's policy not to comment on potential economic development projects that have not been publicly announced.
Larson’s LS2group specializes in marketing services on a global scale. Larson was the U.S. Ambassador to Latvia under President George W. Bush, after serving in the Iowa legislature, first elected in 1993. He served in the House and the Senate in Des Moines and chaired the Republican Party of Iowa for two years, according to his bio on the LS2group website. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve and a Bronze Star awardee.
LS2group specializes in public affairs including international affairs and government relations.
Specific to Green Bay Enterprises, the registered agent is Urbandale Mayor Robert Andeweg who is also listed as a shareholder with Nyemaster Law Firm with offices in Des Moines, Ames, and Cedar Rapids, also specializing in corporate communications.
The steel industry is in a growth mode in the United States and companies like Mesabi Metallics are building new mines in the Midwest including locations in Minnesota and Kentucky. The company has close to 60 job postings for the two locations and is expecting their new $2.5 billion facility in northeast Minnesota to go online this year.
Mesabi also has postings for three Burlington, Iowa jobs including a human resources manager and two permitting officials. Those jobs were all posted in August.
Lee County Supervisors hired a Des Moines law firm several weeks ago to help work through an ordinance for high-impact projects in the county. They retained BrownWinick, out of Des Moines at about the same time residents were starting to hear from Caston about land acquisition, but said the hire was to help create regulatory frameworks for high-impact projects, to include data centers. small nuclear projects, and other economic development. The county is partnering with Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission to draft those regulations and has been holding town hall meetings throughout September to gather public input.
BrownWinick specializes in industrial law, government and real estate regulations, and environmental regulations. It’s likely supervisors would rely on that relationship if a large scale development was to surface in the county as heavy economic and land use negotiations would need to take place with the county.
Supervisors have also been cagey about the issue and have not mentioned any specific development saying no one has come before the board.
“We hear the things that others hear and I’ll only say that we’re open to talking to anyone about those types of developments. But we haven’t and don’t really know anything more than anyone else,” Supervisor Garry Seyb said last week.
In a copyrighted article in the Des Moines Register Monday, Supervisor Chair Ginger Knisley said eventually any company looking to locate in Lee County is going to have to come to the board to discuss land use rights and localized tax incentives, but said she is as informed as the general public.