The Superior Express -

All signs are pointing toward another expansion of Superior’s Agrex elevator.

Monday evening representatives of the elevator company, Darin Koepke and Eric Krotzinger, met with members of the Superior City Council and reviewed the company plans.

If a favorable environmental quality report expected this week is received, the city agreed to sell the four eastern most lots in the Kottmeyer Business Park, which are currently owned by the city, to the elevator company. The company is also negotiating to purchase a fifth lot which had been sold many years ago but never developed.

If the purchase is completed, the company will use the lots to add 1.5 to 1.6 million bushels of grain storage. The ground storage facility will have its own scale and probe station. One additional employee will be added this fall and it is anticipated a second employee may be added in the future.

Contractors have contacted and work is to start as soon as title to the property is secured. While all work may not be done, the company would like to have the new facility ready to receive grain this fall. The lots in question are generally east of the drainage ditch that crosses the Kottmeyer Business Park.

Planning for the expansion began in late winter but because of the pandemic, company employees were not able to travel to Superior and finalize the plans.

While the grain will be piled on the ground, the storage facility will be designed so the entire pile can be covered with a tarp in about three hours. As grain is being removed, the tarp can be moved back and forth to keep the pile covered should a precipitation event be expected.

Trucks will enter and leave the facility via Canal Street from Highway 8. The company will improve the street by adding rock similar to the approach to the current elevator. Aeriation fans will be placed to direct the sound to the east and into a creek area.

The Agrex elevator is the first of three shuttle train loading elevators in Nuckolls County. It is served by both the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroads. Aurora Cooperative operates a shuttle loading elevator served by the Union Pacific railroad at Sedan, a former town along the Clay-Nuckolls county line in northeasten Nuckolls County. The cooperative also operates a shuttle loader located on the Burlington line east of Superior. Of the three, it is the only one to have a loop track.

The Agrex elevator, built about 40 years ago, was one of the first elevators in rural Nebraska to have shuttle train loading capabilities.