Webster County plans to take out a loan to pay for land near Cargill to prepare for future development.

The Webster County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing, and received two offers from banks for the planned $490,000 loan, during its regular meeting Tuesday.

No vote was taken Tuesday to authorize a loan. The board plans to vote on this next week.

Cargill would want to purchase nearby land in the ag park known as Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation, for future projects, but is unable to take possession of the land at this time, according to a resolution from the supervisors that hasn’t been approved yet.

This refers to land already purchased by the county, Supervisor Merrill Leffler said.

“The ground we purchased a while back out there — before it closes we’re going to borrow some of the money to pay for the purchase,” Leffler said. “When we originally purchased the property we thought we had adequate funds in our general fund to buy it when it closes. But we feel we don’t want to use all general fund money right now, so we are going to borrow for a short period of time until the next tax payments come in.”

Cargill will cover every cost, paying back the amount for the land and interest, the supervisors said.

“We have agreements with Cargill to purchase this property from us, and pay us interest,” Leffler said.

Various parcels of land were purchased at the ag park throughout this year, for the purpose of future development. Supervisors did not give more specific details at that time for any of the properties.

Two loan proposals were received Tuesday.

One from Availabank, offered a two-year fixed rate loan with a rate of 4.25 percent.

The other, from First State Bank, offered a two-year fixed rate loan with a 3.26 percent interest rate. If it is not qualified tax exempt financing, the interest rate would be 4.55 percent.