By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
Since the announcement was made late last year, the transition of DP Electronic Recycling’s national headquarters from Elkhorn to Whitewater was all but official.
With a legal document signed off by the Common Council on March 15, the agreement is official.
City Attorney Wally McDonell has been working with the city’s Community Development Authority (CDA) and DP executives in drafting a resolution that consummates the sale of an 11-acre lot within the Whitewater University Technology Park.
Speaking to the document that was approved by the council, McDonell said, “The title company is requesting a resolution from the council authorizing the sale of the property.”
He added, “This simply puts in writing the authorization by the council to have staff sign the documents.”
In the immediate aftermath of the consummated agreement with all legal documents in place, DP executives began circulating renderings for the new headquarters, which is expected to encompass 153,000 square feet of space within the technology park.
According to the widely circulated email from the company, plans call for groundbreaking on the new Whitewater facility to begin this spring and be fully operational within 18 months of the first dig into the dirt.
Described as “state of the art” in company literature, the planned facility in Whitewater will be able to handle a number of monumental tasks, including recycling 53 million pounds of glass a year.
The company also has plans of embarking on a unique initiative involving an item commonly found at the recycling center: cathode-ray tubes that were once a hallmark of old TVs and computer monitors.
At the new Whitewater facility, the company plans to transform those old cathode-ray tubes into usable ceramic products, including floor tiles.
