Julie Davis
jdavis@cherryroad.com
Thursday afternoon, June 5, was a time to celebrate at the Kreifels Hills Subdivision near CHI Health St. Mary’s.
Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce and the Nebraska City Area Economic Development Corporation hosted a ribbon cutting at 1717 Morgan Drive and open house tour to celebrate the completion of two homes in the new subdivision.
Amy Allgood, NCTC executive director, said it was time to celebrate “a collaboration of big ideas” that brought together not only the City of Nebraska City and NCAEDC, but also the Nebraska Department of Economic Development and the Southeast Nebraska Economic Development District to start adding to the community’s long-standing lack of housing stocks.
Mayor Bryan Bequette said that while the ribbon cutting itself took an extremely short span of time, the work behind the scenes to make the ribbon cutting a reality had been underway for nine or 10 years.
NCAEDC Executive Director Dan Mauk said not many other Nebraska communities have been willing to address community housing needs on the scale that Nebraska City has.
He added that collaborations on development with state and city agencies will continue, and he said conversations have begun with developers from Lincoln and Omaha about possibly adding even more to Nebraska City’s housing supply.
Mauk said that state senators are becoming increasingly aware of the rural workforce housing issue, and he credited Sen. Bob Hallstrom for his work at securing current rural workforce housing funds and also introducing a bill that would provide $25 million in additional funds if it is passed by the State Legislature in the future.
Since ground was broken on the subdivision project in October 2023, four homes have been completed.
Four more lots are in the process of being sold for additional single-family homes to be constructed in the first phase of construction, which includes a total of 28 single-family home lots and 8 multi-family home lots.
Plans call for a total of 79 single-family and 48 multi-family units—127 new residences in all—to be built in the development, the land for which was purchased from Clint and Kim Kreifels using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds the City of Nebraska City received following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city purchased 30 acres, and the Kreifels donated an additional 13 acres to the project.
