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Bastrop City Council unanimously approved the City Council’s Economic Development Application on Tuesday to sell 26.5 acres of land in the Bastrop Business and Industrial Park to an Austin-based financial technology company for $ 900,000.
The company, MOCA Ventures Nebraska LLC, plans to build a modern, high-tech three-building complex that could serve as the company’s headquarters and house 700 employees in about five years.
Under the agreement, Bastrop Economic Development Corporation will reimburse MOCA Ventures for the $ 900,000 it will spend on the property if the company invests at least $ 10.7 million in building an office complex that is at least 40,000 square feet .
MOCA Ventures has until January 1, 2026 to complete the complex and receive a certificate of occupancy in order to receive a refund.
MOCA Ventures plans to start construction in about a month, said CEO John Burns. Construction of the overall project will be divided into three phases over five years, he said.
The first phase will be the construction of a facility for a research and development team and operations department for MOCA Financial Inc. This proposed 10,000 square foot building is expected to cost about $ 3 million, will take about a year to build, and will employ about 100 people, Burns said.
MOCA Financial Inc. processes debit, credit and prepaid cards for financial institutions. It is also working on switching customers and banks to virtual cards.
Around 30 of the 100 workers who will be housed in the first building are already working in Bastrop, Burns said. Once the facility is complete, the remaining staff from Austin and other states such as North Carolina, Nebraska, and Ohio will move in.
The next phase of the project will be the construction of the company’s customer service building, which will take about two years to complete and employ around 300 people, Burns said. The final stage will be the construction of a building to accommodate the company’s anticipated growth, which will take approximately three to four years to build and employing an additional 300 people.
The average salary for a MOCA Financial Inc. employee is around $ 100,000, Burns said.
“We will have very well-paying jobs,” he said. “Mainly engineers and operating staff. So, very, very talented people, because that’s a very, very important job. “
It’s also important that the campus be green, Burns said. All buildings are completely supplied with solar panels.
The campus will run through the property via cycling and hiking trails and will feature a park, a pond and an amphitheater. The buildings will also have multiple conference rooms so “customers can visit the facility and stay in local hotels”.
This is the third financial company Burns founded. His first was FundsExpress, which was one of the first to start online banking in the early 1990s.
The company looked at several other cities to build its headquarters, and Burns said it chose Bastrop because it’s far but not too far from Austin.
“We really wanted to be outside of Austin because we focused on community banks and credit unions,” he said.
“It was also about the culture of the area,” Burns continued. “The restaurants, Main Street, the arts center, the Lost Pines Center – there’s such a rich culture here in Bastrop. It’s a really fun and lively community. “
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