Something economically important to note about that blood bank

I wish I could say I glossed over this when I wrote about the postponement of a conditional use permit for BioLife Plasma Services during Tuesday’s Planning & Zoning Commission hearing. The truth is I really ignored it.

During the discussion about why the blood bank, proposed to be constructed across Seton Parkway from where the Goodwill Industries center is under construction, required a comparatively high number of parking places, the facility’s architect Doug Elsbury said, among other things, that center will employ 90 persons.

That’s 90 new jobs for Kyle, folks! And I’m betting most, if not all, of these positions will be considerably more lucrative than minimum wage jobs. As far as I’m concerned, this project can’t move through the municipal pipeline quickly enough.

For an area zoned RS, which is the zoning for this particular site, the maximum number of allowable parking spaces is 101. BioLife wants 170. Why? Elsbury addressed that very question at Tuesday’s P&Z meeting:

Doug Elsbury

"We get that question a lot because it’s like ‘Seriously, guys, this is not even 17,000 square feet and you’re asking for 170 parking spaces. What are you doing in there?’ It’s amazing how many people donate. It’s a cool thing. You get money for donating as well as it’s medicine. Immune deficiencies is the main thing. So you have 72 beds. They typically have that thing at least half full of beds. And that front door is busy. And they have 90 employees. So the math adds up. We have factual evidence from the 80 centers that we’ve done that we need those (parking) stalls."

As you can see. Elsbury figuratively buried the 90 employees number (no pun intended) in his explanation so I am going to try to exonerate myself with that. But, later, I got to thinking about what he said. In the back of my mind I kept thinking "He said 90 employees, meaning 90 new jobs, at a medical facility. In my book, that seems significant and I didn’t even mention that in my original story.."

So, today, I reviewed my recording of the meeting and, sure enough, that’s what he said, albeit, as you can read for yourself above, somewhat off-handedly.

The Board of Adjustments will consider BioLife’s request at its Oct. 3 meeting. A public notice of that meeting appeared in this week’s Hays Free Press. That notice said "All interested persons are encouraged to attend the public hearing and express their opinion on the variance request." The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and personally I hope the city council chambers is crammed with supporters who want to see Kyle become a more economically viable community. Remember: this is not about parking, it’s about 90 new above minimum wage jobs in a medical facility.

And, hopefuly, once the Board of Adjustments grants the variance, the Planning & Zoning Commission will quickly approve the conditional use permit at its Oct. 11 meeting so that earth can start to be moved to create 90 new, much-better-than-minimum-wage, jobs in the heart of Kyle.

Earlier today, I had a telephone conversation with Elsbury about these new jobs.

"Not only are you creating decent-paying jobs, you’re infusing money into the area because you get money when you donate," Elsbury told me. "I think it’s around $40. So there’s quite a bit of spending money that would just come from that, let alone the jobs."

I told Elsbury during today’s telephone conversation that the overwhelming majority of new jobs in Kyle of late have been minimum wage retail positions and that I was assuming the BioLife jobs would be of a more professional, thus higher paying, variety.

"I don’t know exactly what their pay scale is," he said, "but these are jobs that require education, a degree. There’s phlebotomists — they’re the people that are on the donors’ floor. You have to be educated for that. That’s more than minimum wage."

So there you have it.