Down By the Riverside

Iowa is already defined to the east and west by two of the nation's major rivers, adding historical heft to the state's reputation as a commercial crossroads. Some cities on those rivers carry even more weight by fostering work force and other connections with neighboring states.
        Even the lack of an Interstate does not keep Dubuque from growing its interstate connections, situated as it is at the meeting point of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. In August, Montreal-based printer Quebecor, emerging from a restructuring that will cost the company 1,000 jobs, is adding equipment to its Dubuque printing and binding facility in the second phase of an 18-month, $19-million expansion that better positions the company in the educational book market.
        "As part of our rigorous attention to cost control, we have recently completed an extensive, detailed review of our global asset base," Quebecor President and CEO Jean Neveu said in July. "During the last several years our strategy has focused on positioning assets into larger, more specialized facilities, resulting in greater efficiencies."
        Across the state, there's no denying the power of Omaha's economy on the cross-border city of Council Bluffs, hard by the Missouri River in southwestern Iowa. Commuting patterns show the increasing interdependence. Even the Nebraska city's most famous citizen, investor Warren Buffett, recognizes it's a mutual thing. He came across the river in September to help break ground on Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy's $1.2-billion, 790-megawatter power plant just south of Council Bluffs.
        Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway firm bought MidAmerican in 1999 for $9.1 billion. Company leaders said they chose the site because of the presence of three other facilities nearby, saving the utility some $120 million in infrastructure costs. Those facilities, which employ 146, already supply about 830 megawatts of power. While MidAmerican will own about 60 percent of the facility, two Iowa cooperatives, the municipal electric system of Lincoln, Neb., and about 10 Iowa cities will own the rest.
        The plant will generate a total of $3.4 million in annual property tax payments, of which $1.724 million will be distributed to Pottawattamie County, the city of Council Bluffs, the Lewis Central School District and other local government bodies. MidAmerican has entered into a long-term contract with Union Pacific Railroad to transport coal to the new plant straight from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
        In addition to the Council Bluffs plant, MidAmerican is investing another $900 million in other Iowa operations, including a natural gas power plant in Pleasant Hill, outside Des Moines, and wind energy production in the northwest part of the state. The Council Bluffs plant will employ 70 people, although about 1,000 construction workers will be needed to complete it by the 2007 target date.
        The Council Bluffs business community as a whole is getting a shot in the arm from growth at the Manawa Business Park and Southwest Iowa Industrial Park. Shared Medical Equipment Group, a portable MRI device provider based in Madison, Wis., has just occupied a 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,787-sq.-m.) spec building at Manawa.
        Automated Concepts, Inc. (ACI), a robotics systems company, has called Council Bluffs home since its founding there 20 years ago. Now the company, which serves clients like Caterpillar, Pioneer Seeds, John Deere, Starbuck's Coffee and Boeing, is poised to grow into a new 65,000-sq. ft. (6,039-sq.-m.) facility on a 10-acre (4-hectare) swath owned by the Southwest Iowa Foundation, which has pledged to build an access road. The facility will double the company's capacity, and company leaders spoke of its proximity to Omaha's Eppley Airfield as a key consideration. Approximately 13 jobs will be added to the company's payroll of 71.
        "We have purchased the land and it's in the architect's hands," says Steve Olson, ACI marketing director. "We should be breaking ground some time this spring [2004]."
        Olson says that on top of outgrowing its current space, ACI discovered operating cost reductions from selling the old facility and moving into the new one. The company received incentives from the city's enterprise zone program and the state's Community Economic Betterment Account program, which both required a minimum investment amount and the meeting of certain wage and benefit levels.
        Not far away from Council Bluffs, and beginning to enter the economic radius of Kansas City, is the town of Red Oak, home to a new $21-million lead plate manufacturing facility for Johnson Controls Battery Group. Employing 75 when it opened in October 2003, the plant consists of a 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,787-sq.-m.) core building that the company expanded by an additional 70,000 sq. ft. (6,503 sq. m.). Critical to the deal were energy efficiency programs and other economic development expertise offered by MidAmerican Energy.
        The facility will ship the plates to Johnson Control battery plants around the country, to go in products destined for both the replacement and original equipment markets.