Gateway Development reports busy pipeline, cites housing push

Published 1:20 pm Monday, October 12, 2026

Gateway Development Corporation Executive Director Mike Rooks said the organization has hosted three site visits, received six new requests for proposals and had several properties close in the last two weeks.

“I’ve been busy touring people around town for site visits,” Rooks said. “So we are pushing those out and getting those submitted to see if we can get some other projects that way. I mean, that’s what’s really been keeping me busy right now.”

“And unfortunately, I can’t say more, but we’ve had several properties close in the last two weeks, and I’ll have one close next week,” he said. “But it’s not for me to say exactly who is buying those at the moment.”

“We are not a broker,” Rooks said. “When I say property closing, I mean we have been working with either the seller or the buyer on said project, and they have closed on the property.”

The projects are “commercial and residential,” he said.

To some residents, the Washington County Community Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce and Gateway can seem vaguely similar. “Well, first of all, those are all very different entities,” Rooks said. “Gateway Development is basically the economic development arm for Washington County. So we help either local businesses expand … and we bring in new businesses that want to be in the communities.”

“In the last couple years, we’ve also dabbled in residential housing. And that all spurred from the City of Blair’s housing committee that they built out,” he said. “So based on that, we have helped bring in developers that are willing to build in Washington County, such as D.R. Horton and … Bear Creek. … We helped Metonic (the developer behind Blair Crossing). That’s more commercial, I would say. Commercial residential, I mean, multifamily.”

“But typically, besides for the last two years, honestly, it’s been the commercial, retail and industrial side that we always really focused on,” Rooks said. “But it came to a point where we didn’t have enough housing, and we were losing — not losing businesses, but businesses stopped looking at us because they didn’t have places for their employees to live close by.”

As for the odds any of the new prospects come to fruition, Rooks said Gateway has roughly 26 projects in its overall pipeline. “The ones I just referred to before are brand new, so it’s tough to say, you know, are these going to land or not?” he said. “Because typically with RFP, it’s a nationwide search. You submit. If you make it past the first cut, you submit more information, and then that third round is when they actually come and have boots on the ground and start looking at the property.”

“I know we will be landing another residential subdivision probably in the next three to four weeks,” Rooks said. “I know that for a fact. … It’s already zoned properly and everything, and a developer will be purchasing that property.”

“Housing developments, especially like single-family homes, they don’t just — just like Bear Creek, you’re not gonna see 132 homes there tomorrow,” he said. “But yes, I think this other subdivision that will be going in, in the next two years, I mean, the roads will be going in, the platting will be done, and it’ll be available for sale.”

Told there seemed to be more going on than he first let on, Rooks said, “It is and it isn’t. I mean, that’s what Gateway does. We do a lot of behind the scenes things.”

“I tell everyone, economic development, it’s a process, it’s not an event,” he said. “Even if the land changes ownership, there’s still platting … They still have to build roads, water, sewer, all those pieces.”

“Look at Calcium Products. We worked on Calcium Products for two years, and they’re still not fully functional,” Rooks said. “I mean, they’re hiring people now, which is great.”

He agreed the general public often doesn’t understand how long development takes. “There’s always capital stacks that you have to find, all the fundraising and build all those things, just like Metonic,” Rooks said. “It took a while for Metonic to get going on their apartments. Hopefully they will be fully up and functional by end of this year.”

Pressed on whether RIZER could still build in Blair without tax increment financing, Rooks said, “I’m not saying that they are out, but I am saying you are definitely wrong about TIF.”

Scott Reif said at a meeting he expected RIZER to be turning dirt by April. Asked what Gateway took from the project, Rooks said, “Well, again, I’m not the developer. But if everything would have gone through city council, they would have been turning dirt by then.”

“Every project’s different. That’s the main thing,” he said. “And, you know, when sometimes you don’t have a full city council, that hurts. … I wouldn’t say there’s anything we’ve learned.”

“We do everything the exact same. We teach, we talk to city council, we talk to the city, we talk to the mayor,” Rooks said. “And if city council does not want to move forward, then we have to figure out another way to look at it. And that’s kind of where they’re at right now.”

“But looking at the overall capital stack, I honestly believe that without TIF, it doesn’t pencil out,” he said. “So why would they do it?”

Rooks defined a capital stack as financing. “It’s the loans, it’s the funding mechanisms to build projects,” he said. “Any project, they don’t just have $50 million sitting in the bank and they go. It’s loans, it’s incentives, it’s all those things to make it pencil out. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

“And that’s not from Gateway’s perspective, that would be from the developer’s perspective,” Rooks said. “So you look at SIDs, CIDs, TIF, LB 840, Imagine Nebraska, all those help fill in those gaps that might be there. I’m not saying everyone has the gaps, but a lot of projects do.”

Blair is also without a city administrator. “It’s different right now,” Rooks said. “But I will say that David, CJ and Aaron are doing a fantastic job.”

“When Phil was here, we had our weekly Tuesday meetings to keep everyone just informed of what’s happening,” he said. “I’m still having those with the deputy city administrators. And I’m also keeping the mayor informed about things that are happening.”

“Everyone has their own perspective on, well, just growth and development in general,” Rooks said. “So I am very intrigued and excited to see who that new city administrator might be.”

“Once I know more on some of these projects that we just had site visits for and some closings, we can definitely put some embargoes in place and we can get those into the paper,” he said. “Those companies have not given me the green light to do that yet.”