The Flint Hills advantage

The city of Odessa and the Odessa Development Corp. could be taking home a share of sales of property at the former Flint Hills Resources Odessa chemical plant site.

An agreement, which still needs approval from the Odessa City Council and ODC board, will allow the entities to share 15 percent of the revenue from any sale of land at the plant’s site that the city and ODC refer, City Attorney Larry Long said.

“It would allow us to receive funds for Flint Hills if we are able to find someone to pay part of the industrial district agreement or the Gulf Coast agreement,” Long said.

Those agreements come from contracts owners of the petrochemical complex entered into years ago. The industrial district agreement requires Flint Hills to make payments to the city in lieu of taxes of around $700,000 for another six years.

A $13 million sewage agreement with the Gulf Coast Water Disposal Authority requires Flint Hills to continue making payments for seven years, even if the plant is no longer operating, said Gary Vest, economic development director for the Odessa Chamber of Commerce. That gives Flint Hills, a division of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, incentive to find people to pay for parts of the property.

“They want us to try to find users that do have a demand for sewer because that can lessen their contract,” Vest said.

ODC is currently working on brochures and advertising campaigns that will help promote the 1,100-acre property. But Vest said what would happen is largely dependant on whether former executives of one-time petrochemical complex owner Rexene Corp. are successful with their plans to reopen much of the 52-year-old facility as a specialty polyethylene and polypropylene polymers plant.

“We’re really pulling for the Rexene group,” Vest said. “We want that to happen. But if it doesn’t happen, we’ve got to find a way to come up with other uses for that property.”

Even if the Rexene deal does go through, Vest said there are “several hundred” undeveloped acres at the site that could be marketed to other companies. Those companies could be drawn to what Vest calls the best rail yard between Fort Worth and El Paso.

Flint Hills is doing its land transactions through Grubb & Ellis, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based commercial real estate firm. Vest said the Havens Group is representing the company locally.

Efforts to reach Havens Group President Janice Havens were unsuccessful.

So far, Vest said there have been quite a few “lookers” at the property and most of those were referred by ODC.