Non-profit Longmont Industrial Park to disband

LONGMONT – The Longmont Industrial Park board, a non-profit formed to bring businesses to the city, is disbanding.

It’s the end of an era.

A subsidiary of the Longmont Chamber of Commerce formed in 1962, The Longmont Industrial Park Inc. was a non-profit with a board elected by the chamber board. It started with 10 individuals who, as a board, issued bonds to buy land in south Longmont and develop the infrastructure in order to sell the land off to businesses – such as Staodyn Inc. – that would bring jobs to Longmont.

“It was brought into existence for a specific purpose and that purpose is over now,´ said board member Dick Salberg, president of First National Bank of Longmont.

The board worked as other organizations that issue bonds – it paid 6 percent on units sold at $100 apiece. For a long time it sold the land at cost, but eventually the bonds were worth substantially more than what was invested. “So we started making some money,´ said John Fenstermaker, president of the board.

The agency has been made up of the city’s heavy-hitters in business such as former board president Tom Brock, a prominent accountant who passed away last year; commercial broker Ed Kanemoto of Prudential LTM Realtors; Dan Allen, former president of Pioneer Bank; accountant Lawrence Jensen and broker Larry Green. Fenstermaker said when he first joined the group in the mid-’80s it was a “secret society” that wanted no publicity.

Now members plan to disband or go out of business as a non-profit. The group sold its last piece of land in 1989, when it had several hundred thousand dollars with which to encourage economic development. With its last $75,000, the board will support the Boulder Technology Incubator and Front Range Community College’s plans for a permanent home on the Baker property east of South Main Street and north of Quail Road.

“I think we’ve done a really good job of managing the money and managing the property,” Fenstermaker noted. “We feel good about that. I think everybody feels it’s time to go.”

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