Panasonic Electric Vehicle Battery Plant (Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project')

[GRID]

If it is JoCo, I hope it’s the Sunflower site. That could make for a great kickstart and a good story to tell.

The rumblings have definitely pointed to sunflower

Isn't that still a brownfield in need of a major cleanup? This could be a great way to take care of that and bring new economic activity to the metro.

I spent a good month of my life helping make the plans for a developer that was going to put the World of OZ theme park there. I still think that would have been a pretty amazing project if would have happened.

That was around the same time KC was a serious contender for a full blown Legoland theme park in Lee's Summit. Not the little Lego Discovery places like Crown Center, but a full blown theme park like they have in CA and FL. Imagine if KC had three major theme parks. Probably not likely due to the climate, but the plans got pretty far. Actually, Legoland built the park in NY state, so I guess climate was not an issue.

I just thought the theming of the OZ park would have been incredible.

[alejandro46]

If it is JoCo, I hope it’s the Sunflower site. That could make for a great kickstart and a good story to tell.

The rumblings have definitely pointed to sunflower

Isn't that still a brownfield in need of a major cleanup? This could be a great way to take care of that and bring new economic activity to the metro.

I spent a good month of my life helping make the plans for a developer that was going to put the World of OZ theme park there. I still think that would have been a pretty amazing project if would have happened.

That was around the same time KC was a serious contender for a full blown Legoland theme park in Lee's Summit. Not the little Lego Discovery places like Crown Center, but a full blown theme park like they have in CA and FL. Imagine if KC had three major theme parks. Probably not likely due to the climate, but the plans got pretty far. Actually, Legoland built the park in NY state, so I guess climate was not an issue.

I just thought the theming of the OZ park would have been incredible.

The TIF district will be broken down into four project areas. The first area of the development would involve 1,000 acres in the northeastern portions of the site to be developed for manufacturing and warehouse uses.

The remaining 5,000 acres still need remediation work to be done before it will be ready to develop.

$200M to finish remediation. It's all annexed into De Soto now, and TIF is approved.
https://fox4kc.com/news/tax-incentives- ... ion-plant/

https://fox4kc.com/news/de-soto-approve ... ion-plant/

Also, Flint Development was already approved to build 3.5M sqft in spec warehouses on a 350 ac of the already remediated land. There's enough additional acerage already remediated for a 3M sqft plant.

https://fox4kc.com/business/developer-p ... o-de-soto/

On Dec. 2, the De Soto City Council voted 3-1 to approve a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Flint Development for the development of roughly 350 acres near Edgerton Road and 103rd Street.

The MOU outlines the city’s intent to incentivize development on the property through a 10-year, 85% tax abatement. In return, the developer commits to fund upgrades to public streets, water and sewer infrastructure.

[KCPowercat]

If that's the site it's just gonna generate sprawl all the way out to Lawrence.

I got a hot take that’s probably gonna piss off most of this board…

…but I’ve been wanting to connect Lawrence into this metro for a really long time. I want that connection, it’s a really fun, popular town. I see Lawrence providing value.

The more we get Lawrence connected, the more graduates will come to KC. Also, we can offer it as a nice little getaway. It’s a cool town. I want a similar dynamic of how Boulder and Denver are connected.

They used to fight being part of our CMSA, I doubt that's changed.

[AlkaliAxel]

If that's the site it's just gonna generate sprawl all the way out to Lawrence.

I got a hot take that’s probably gonna piss off most of this board…

…but I’ve been wanting to connect Lawrence into this metro for a really long time. I want that connection, it’s a really fun, popular town. I see Lawrence providing value.

The more we get Lawrence connected, the more graduates will come to KC. Also, we can offer it as a nice little getaway. It’s a cool town. I want a similar dynamic of how Boulder and Denver are connected.

They used to fight being part of our CMSA, I doubt that's changed.

They're alot more useful for us than against us. We should want them included.

[AlkaliAxel]

I just thought the theming of the OZ park would have been incredible.

What's the World of Oz park?

[KCPowercat]

I didn't say we shouldn't. I said they fought to be included into our metro.

[AlkaliAxel]

I didn't say we shouldn't. I said they fought to be included into our metro.

Wonder if KCMO agrees with them or not on that point

[normalthings]

I didn't say we shouldn't. I said they fought to be included into our metro.

Wonder if KCMO agrees with them or not on that point

iirc, its because Lawrence doesn't have to comply with certain federal laws that the KC metro does. Think Clean Water/Air and the like.

[GRID]

I just thought the theming of the OZ park would have been incredible.

What's the World of Oz park?

Big theme park proposed for that site in Desoto.

[dukuboy1]

IMO, I consider them part of the metro. They are on the fringe but from a practicality standpoint they are within the Metro. I mean if the Metro extends out to Bonner Springs & Tonganoxie I think Lawrence is doable. It's only like 25miles to Lawrence from DeSoto.

I would love to include it more into the metro, especially having a 2nd major university in the area after UMKC. No real down side for KC Metro to look at ways to include it more through mass transit, etc. But I think within the next 20 yrs you'll see more of an uninterrupted tract of housing & development from DeSoto to Lawrence within the K10 corridor. Along I70 might take longer, as there is not much town wise West past Bonner Springs until you hit Lawence. Towns North and South of 170 but nothing right in the path so to speak.

[CorneliusFB]

I didn't say we shouldn't. I said they fought to be included into our metro.

Wonder if KCMO agrees with them or not on that point

iirc, its because Lawrence doesn't have to comply with certain federal laws that the KC metro does. Think Clean Water/Air and the like.

This is correct. It doesn’t mean as much today because there isn’t as much of a difference (if any), but Lawrence wanted to be judged based on its own air quality and not lumped in with Kansas City’s.

[AlkaliAxel]

IMO, I consider them part of the metro. They are on the fringe but from a practicality standpoint they are within the Metro. I mean if the Metro extends out to Bonner Springs & Tonganoxie I think Lawrence is doable. It's only like 25miles to Lawrence from DeSoto.

I would love to include it more into the metro, especially having a 2nd major university in the area after UMKC. No real down side for KC Metro to look at ways to include it more through mass transit, etc. But I think within the next 20 yrs you'll see more of an uninterrupted tract of housing & development from DeSoto to Lawrence within the K10 corridor. Along I70 might take longer, as there is not much town wise West past Bonner Springs until you hit Lawence. Towns North and South of 170 but nothing right in the path so to speak.

I agree. First of all, our KC metro high schools are in the same division as Lawrence & Lawrence Free State, but yet we're not the same metro?

And it's kinda bullshit that we are shown as a "2.2 mil metro population" the same as Cincy or Columbus, etc. but in reality we have Lawrence, Topeka, St. Joseph all straddling right outside the metro that makes like an extra 380k(!!) people. So we're shown smaller than reality. And I know, that's part of the CSA, but..yeah. Add Lawrence.

Let's say we add Douglas County, KS (Lawrence) to the metro. That puts us at 2,311,000. That makes Austin & Sacramento our closest peer cities instead of Columbus and Cincinnati.

[FangKC]

The Amazon2 headquarters was probably unrealistic.

Glimpses of where Kansas missed out on 11 megaprojects

...
From 2017 onward, Kansas competed for and then lost out on a cumulative $63.4 billion in megaprojects. The projects would have totaled at least 58,600 jobs throughout seven industry sectors, a state spreadsheet shows.
...
Among the 11 failed bids was Kansas' attempt to court Amazon.com Inc. as a prospect for its HQ2 campus four years ago. It was one of 238 cities and regions throughout North America to submit proposals.

Amazon initially heralded its HQ2 campus as a $5 billion, 50,000-job investment. Kansas marked down an unsuccessful attempt for a $1 billion, 25,000-job distribution facility around the time the e-commerce giant in late 2018 shared plans to split the campus between Queens, New York, and Arlington, Virginia, a Commerce Department spokesperson said. Amazon nixed the New York plans in early 2019.
...
Figures for the largest megaproject missed in Kansas — a $20 billion, 3,000-job project for a technology company — mirror those given in late January by Intel Corp., which announced it will build a pair of semiconductor factories in New Albany, Ohio. It will be the largest single private-sector company investment in that state's history.

A $1.6 billion, 4,000-job automobile megaproject appears to be a vehicle assembly plant announced in 2017 for Huntsville, Alabama, by a joint venture of Toyota and Mazda. El Dorado, Kansas, was among the top four contenders for a Toyota Mazda plant a couple years ago, the Wichita Business Journal reported this month.
...
Numbers for a third megaproject sought by Kansas — a $17 billion electronics company site — align with those given for a Samsung semiconductor factory announced in November for Taylor, Texas.

And a fourth — an $11 billion, 10,800-job automobile location — is not far off from an $11.4 billion, nearly 11,000-job trifecta of electric vehicle and battery factories revealed in September by a partnership of Ford and SK Innovation for west Tennessee and central Kentucky.
...

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... 2022-02-11

[AlkaliAxel]

Is there a reason why Kansas is always bidding for these and not Missouri?

[FangKC]

I'm not certain Missouri hasn't bid on some of them. I'm sure they did on the Amazon2 project. There just isn't a story about it.

[Cratedigger]

After some half assed internet research I found evidence they bid at least a billion on Amazon, the Tesla gigafactory and a Boeing project. Of course, those are just the public ones. So Missouri is certainly bidding as well, just not successfully

[AlkaliAxel]

If they’re not going for our specific city/area in the state, then…

Hot take: maybe that’s a good thing Missouri is failing at these bids

If Missouri goes for a bid and wins, it’s probably going to somewhere other than KC. Could be STL, Springfield, etc.

But if Kansas wins, we’re very likely always gonna be the beneficiary here in the KC area. We can count on Kansas to bring jobs in our area alot more than Missouri.

[Cratedigger]

Kansas does seem to put a lot of these bids near Wichita.

But I think we can all agree that MO has been more focused on STL, those MO projects I mentioned were all STL area except for the Tesla one which was Joplin.

[normalthings]

I'm not certain Missouri hasn't bid on some of them. I'm sure they did on the Amazon2 project. There just isn't a story about it.

KC and STL both bid on Amazon HQ2. STL has a big existing Boeing presence and iirc the 777X wings will be built there.

MO side does seem to be doing better in terms of data centers. Multiple large players have approached the MO-side of the KC region. The group doing Golden Plans project wrote a piece on why Missouri is suddenly attractive for data centers.

[FangKC]

If they’re not going for our specific city/area in the state, then…

Hot take: maybe that’s a good thing Missouri is failing at these bids

If Missouri goes for a bid and wins, it’s probably going to somewhere other than KC. Could be STL, Springfield, etc.

But if Kansas wins, we’re very likely always gonna be the beneficiary here in the KC area. We can count on Kansas to bring jobs in our area alot more than Missouri.

It depends on what the project is. If it's automotive, then Kansas City would more likely be the location since Kansas City has a bigger vehicle manufacturing segment than St. Louis. The Kansas City metro produces a lot more vehicles than the St. Louis Metro.