Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Projects Editor
Superstation Tres Amigas is more than a month past due paying Curry County its $35,000 annual franchise fee, according to County Manager Lance Pyle.
Pyle said he sent a letter Monday to Tres Amigas CEO David Stidham reminding him of the debt after the company failed to respond to an invoice sent in July. The fee was due July 15 under a contract negotiated last year.
Pyle said Wednesday he is still waiting to hear from anyone at Tres Amigas, whose corporate headquarters are in Santa Fe.
Stidham did not respond to a phone call from the CNJ requesting comment and an email to the corporate public affairs office wasn’t answered on Wednesday.
Tres Amigas has yet to break ground northeast of Clovis despite repeated promises and missed deadlines. Company officials initially said they expected a July 2012 groundbreaking. At the end of 2013, they predicted building would begin in March and again in June.
Stidham has blamed the missed deadlines on complications involved in financing the first phase of the $550 million superstation, designed to connect and serve as a distribution center for the nation’s three major electric power grids. Stidham said in early July the project had reached 75 percent financing and he would have “good news” by the end of the month with a press release containing a start date. No press release has been issued.
Negotiations with one of the three power grids — the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — also apparently haven’t progressed. ERCOT officials said last month they were conducting a liability study. Spokesperson Robbie Searcy said Wednesday that nothing has changed in the status of negotiations with Tres Amigas.
The Clovis city commission approved a $1.6 billion industrial revenue bond for Tres Amigas in June 2013. When the company draws on its bonds, a 30-year tax abatement, it will have 120 months to build all three phases of a power superstation.
To offset the tax abatement, the city negotiated about $44 million in payments in lieu of taxes from Tres Amigas. About a third of that money would be paid to area schools.
