OMAHA — After more than two years of study and often controversial neighborhood meetings, developers of a planned North Omaha area business park fueled by a $90 million state grant have announced a major pivot: No longer will they pursue the purchase of residential properties to make way for the project.

The possibility of homeowner dislocation ignited public backlash early on. Controversy calmed over time as public officials and developers assured property owners they would not be forced out and that any move would be voluntary and compensated.

But the development team led by the Omaha Economic Development Corp., which has been immersed this year in negotiations with residents of a preferred site, announced Friday that it is dropping the prospect of buying any homes for the purpose of clearing a site for the business park.

Instead, the team that also includes Burlington Capital and the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce said it will acquire vacant and abandoned sites to carry out its goal of creating shovel-ready land to attract jobs and industrial users to one of the more disinvested areas of the state. The OEDC-led group in January 2024 was awarded the business park grant from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. Before that, the team was awarded a smaller grant to assemble a planning document.

Multiple Sites Possible

George Achola of Burlington said the team is now focused on three site options. He said the end result could be one, two or even three spots.

The group has not ruled out developing a smaller chunk within the larger 160-acre tract that the team had eyed as its priority site, west of the Omaha airport and north of Carter Lake — the area in which many of the early opponents to the plan live. Any chunk would not include occupied residences, though, Achola said.

While some residents had expressed interest in voluntary relocation — and the compensation that would have accompanied it — the overriding thought was to respect the broader community’s desire for “stability and continuity,” a statement from the development team said.

“The decision reflects the voices of the community, many of whom shared a strong desire to remain in their homes,” said OEDC president and CEO Michael Maroney.

The announcement comes about nine months after the Omaha Inland Port Authority Board, which oversees the business park process, approved the release of nearly $7.4 million of the larger state grant so that the OEDC-led team could conduct pre-development research. Key to that was a deeper dive into whether the priority site was viable and that the developer could amass enough private property to make it work.

Garry Clark, executive director of the Omaha Inland Port Authority, commended the development team for “listening deeply and responding with integrity.”

“Prioritizing underutilized land not only respects the wishes of our residents, it also opens new pathways for innovation and investment,” Clark said. “It’s a thoughtful recalibration that keeps people at the center while driving forward the transformative potential of the Airport Business Park.”

Melissa Youngblood, who is on the port authority’s Community Advisory Board, said she doesn’t have a personal home in the priority site but grew up with some who do. She said many residents with deep roots there did not believe monetary compensation would be enough to start over in similar circumstances elsewhere in Omaha.

Plus, she said, many wondered why the developers didn’t set their sights on vacant or run down areas where people did not live.

In some cases, Youngblood said, “They would be taking away not just somebody’s home but their whole life.”

Developers ‘Relieved’

The business park project is an anchor of the port authority district that was formed to nurture growth across about 3,000 acres of the North Omaha area near Eppley Airfield, which has seen disproportionately higher rates of unemployment and disinvestment than most parts of the state.

State law recently changed to enlarge the area in which the business park could be developed, dropping an earlier requirement that the park be located within two miles of the airport and instead allowing it to be within the broader boundaries of Omaha’s inland port authority district. That opens up different opportunities and an area that stretches as far west as North 30th Street and Ames Avenue.

Achola declined to comment on the current frontrunner sites or possibilities, saying real estate prices could jump.

Earlier, a top site the OEDC team identified near 16th and Locust Streets was found to require costly environmental cleanup, but a port authority official said that area had not been ruled out.

The $90 million set aside for the business park was part of the Economic Recovery Act approved by the Legislature in 2022 and updated in 2023, built originally off of federal pandemic recovery funds. The OEDC-Burlington-Chamber team won the grant, saying it planned to use the funds to prepare a shovel-ready site and to market the area to businesses that would build a job-producing industrial hub.

The port authority board was established after the Economic Recovery Act laid out parameters for the business park.

Achola said the goal is still to have a site or sites pinpointed later this year and to see construction begin the early part of next year. He said chamber officials, meanwhile, continue to seek potential tenants for the park.

“It’s never a straight linear line,” Achola said of developing real estate projects in populated parts of a city. “We’re relieved things are starting to take more shape.”

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/09/26/shift-in-north-omaha-area-busine...