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

Find out what's going on in the Sunflower State's portions of the Metro here.
earthling
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by earthling »

Commuter rail on existing freight rail lines has been pursued locally off and on for decades but the rail companies don't seem too willing to play along given KC region has among highest rail traffic. Also requires some kind of 'passenger grade' upgrades for rail crossings or something like that (where Amtrak isn't already running). Dave has posted about it before.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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Reno, Nevada’s lessons for De Soto’s Panasonic plant

https://fox4kc.com/news/reno-nevadas-le ... nic-plant/\\
DE SOTO, Kan. — Panasonic’s planned battery plant in De Soto, Kansas is going to be the biggest private investment project in Kansas history, but the state can look west to get a glimpse at what could be coming.

A decade ago, Tesla picked Reno, Nevada to build a $5 billion Gigafactory that also created thousands of new jobs. Rising rent and rising home prices followed, sparking a trend that researchers there say continues today.

The one thing you have to eat in Missouri, Kansas, according to Food & Wine
The same outcome isn’t guaranteed in De Soto or the greater Kansas City area, but Reno’s experience is giving Kansas leaders something to think about.

“The biggest effect will be on the lower-end homes that are right now, staring at $300,000, minimum,” said real estate agent Rob Lang.

The people Lang shows homes to already know they’re trying to buy in a tough market, but workers looking to move to Johnson County, Kansas once the plant is close to completion won’t help.

Even with Panasonic’s estimate that workers will make an average of $50,000 a year, Lang’s math says that worker’s price range for a home would be about $180,000 to $300,000, which doesn’t buy a lot of house right now.

“That’s kind of where the market starts so it could be a challenge to find houses in that sub-$300,000 range,” Lang said.

When prices shot up in Reno, leaders created incentive programs trying to build more houses as quickly as possible.

“We could approach this with the tact taht we need to build 4,000 homes and we need to cram them in wherever we possibly can, but I don’t think anyone would agree that’s the right approach,” said De Soto City Administrator Mike Brungardt.

He says there is plenty of land to build homes on and the infrastructure upgrades for the new plant will make it easier to put homes in places that were previously too far out of town. But he also says the city has already been talking to Johnson County, neighboring cities, and regional transit organizations about making it easier for people who work at the plant to live somewhere else.

“The entire Kansas City area is the labor shed [Panasonic was] looking for,” Brungardt said. “A lot of these people already live in this area that are going to work here.”

There’s some historical precedent for that. Brungardt points out that the remnants of a bus stop remain just inside the main gate of the old Sunflower Ammunition Plant where the U.S. Army used to drop off workers when the plant was operational. He said at its peak, there were about 20,000 people working around the plant, creating housing challenges nearly a century ago.

“The Census was pretty hard, I’m sure, because there were people living in tents and trailers and chicken coops,” Brungardt said. “There are stories from the 1940’s of the influx of workers and the stories of them being housed while the plant was being constructed.”

No one knows how many new workers will have to relocate to De Soto, but for the ones that do, the city is also talking about updating zoning laws, potentially relaxing regulations to make it easier to develop.

“There’s a significant amount of pent-up innovation with the homebuilding space,” said Homebuilders Association of Kansas City Executive Vice President Will Ruder.

He says rules and regulations sometimes prevent cheaper and more creative homes from being built, so a city that’s willing to allow more options has a chance to try to keep the prices of new homes low.

“Something on smaller lots, higher-density, single-family development, a mixture of multifamily, some mixed-use neighborhoods,” Ruder said.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by beautyfromashes »

This will be the final piece needed to fulling connect Johnson County to Lawrence.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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^Though uncertain if Lawrence eventually becomes part of KC MSA. Seems Douglass Co doesn't want that but not sure if they'll have a choice depending on how the Feds see things. I think after a certain % of the outer county works in the larger nearby MSA counties, then they are joined, not sure. Anyone have those details?
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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earthling wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:21 pm ^Though uncertain if Lawrence eventually becomes part of KC MSA. Seems Douglass Co doesn't want that but not sure if they'll have a choice depending on how the Feds see things. I think after a certain % of the outer county works in the larger nearby MSA counties, then they are joined, not sure. Anyone have those details?
If the KC metro’s 3rd largest employer is feeding workers from Lawrence then yeah they should be added
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by brewcrew1000 »

alejandro46 wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 2:09 pm Reno, Nevada’s lessons for De Soto’s Panasonic plant
Reno is a completely different market and it would fall more in line with the interior west of Boise. salt Lake real estate boom
Reno is 200 miles from the bay area.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by Cratedigger »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 9:05 pm
earthling wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:21 pm ^Though uncertain if Lawrence eventually becomes part of KC MSA. Seems Douglass Co doesn't want that but not sure if they'll have a choice depending on how the Feds see things. I think after a certain % of the outer county works in the larger nearby MSA counties, then they are joined, not sure. Anyone have those details?
If the KC metro’s 3rd largest employer is feeding workers from Lawrence then yeah they should be added
I don’t see why not. Lawrence, KS > KCMO is only 40 miles
Additional counties qualify to be included by meeting a specified level of commuting to the counties containing the population concentration and by meeting certain other requirements of metropolitan character, such as a specified minimum population density or percentage of the population that is urban.
https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/refer ... 13GARM.pdf
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by AlkaliAxel »

Cratedigger wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 12:51 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 9:05 pm
earthling wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:21 pm ^Though uncertain if Lawrence eventually becomes part of KC MSA. Seems Douglass Co doesn't want that but not sure if they'll have a choice depending on how the Feds see things. I think after a certain % of the outer county works in the larger nearby MSA counties, then they are joined, not sure. Anyone have those details?
If the KC metro’s 3rd largest employer is feeding workers from Lawrence then yeah they should be added
I don’t see why not. Lawrence, KS > KCMO is only 40 miles
Additional counties qualify to be included by meeting a specified level of commuting to the counties containing the population concentration and by meeting certain other requirements of metropolitan character, such as a specified minimum population density or percentage of the population that is urban.
https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/refer ... 13GARM.pdf
Never knew about that criteria before. If that’s the criteria, then I think that should probably put them in when the plant is fully running.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by GRID »

Super impressive that Kansas landed this. This is great for the entire metro. All these decades of KS going after KCMO companies when they could have been doing this instead...
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by Highlander »

GRID wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:26 am Super impressive that Kansas landed this. This is great for the entire metro. All these decades of KS going after KCMO companies when they could have been doing this instead...
Had the communities in the metro been joining resources all that time to attract out of town companies, KC would be much further ahead and all areas of the metro would have benefitted. A stronger KC urban core also benefits Olathe and Overland Park. Unfortunately, politicians are only interested in making the headline that they did something for the state and have taken the course of least resistance to achieve that.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by joshmv »

GRID wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:26 am All these decades of KS going after KCMO companies
:lol: Almost thought we weren't going to get a true GRID post

The border war was incredibly stupid and harmful from both sides. Having a sane Governor seems to be helping KS although it still has a long way to go. Hopefully this will help her reelection campaign.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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joshmv wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:37 am
GRID wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:26 am All these decades of KS going after KCMO companies
:lol: Almost thought we weren't going to get a true GRID post

The border war was incredibly stupid and harmful from both sides. Having a sane Governor seems to be helping KS although it still has a long way to go. Hopefully this will help her reelection campaign.
I still don't buy the "both sides" stuff. It was a one way street from MO to KS for 20 plus years. The MO side started fighting back after most of the damage was already done and after many attempts to get the KS side to stop poaching from within the metro. Then the second the MO side started to see more success than the KS side, the KS side immediately called for a truce.

KCMO is far from a perfect city, but Kansas really has fucked over the city and it likely will never come close to recovering from it. So much of KC's corporate economy and wealth attributed to that has migrated to KS and it will be nearly impossible to reverse that or really even close the gap much.

There. Now you have a true "GRID" post!
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by normalthings »

GRID wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:04 am
joshmv wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:37 am
GRID wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:26 am All these decades of KS going after KCMO companies
:lol: Almost thought we weren't going to get a true GRID post

The border war was incredibly stupid and harmful from both sides. Having a sane Governor seems to be helping KS although it still has a long way to go. Hopefully this will help her reelection campaign.
I still don't buy the "both sides" stuff. It was a one way street from MO to KS for 20 plus years. The MO side started fighting back after most of the damage was already done and after many attempts to get the KS side to stop poaching from within the metro. Then the second the MO side started to see more success than the KS side, the KS side immediately called for a truce.

KCMO is far from a perfect city, but Kansas really has fucked over the city and it likely will never come close to recovering from it. So much of KC's corporate economy and wealth attributed to that has migrated to KS and it will be nearly impossible to reverse that or really even close the gap much.

There. Now you have a true "GRID" post!
Agree
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by earthling »

^Disagree. KCMO made some big mistakes over 8+ decades (handling of school system, annexing broader than it can take care of, perception/reality of city corruption, etc) and JoCo took advantage of it. And other incidentals not directly in KCMO control like the shutdown of streetcar system and KC embracing car culture, which favored the fresh start in KS. Other cities had this occur too but KCMO lost out more partly due to KCMO actions.

Ignoring the changing conditions KCMO had (poor decisions or incidental) and blaming it all on KS is a one-sided bias but also can't ignore that JoCo played some cards that exploited the situation. It goes both ways but understandable that those who grew up seeing the losses will maintain such a one-sided perception.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by earthling »

Back to the topic, will be interesting to see the manufacturing materials/processes they use for the plant (how hazardous). Appears they've selected this site because it already has a history of contamination. There are some cleaner battery manufacturing methods but unclear what they'll do here.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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Come on earthling. I know you have some empathy for the KS side, but get real. Lots of cities have the same problems as KCMO does and they were not totally abandoned by their their home grown companies and wealthy citizens and few cities have had to deal with the type of fierce competition from a "state" that is literally blocks away.

It all started long before the border war of luring companies over in the 80's and 90's. It started with the first wave of 1940's and 50's sprawl and that white flight and fear mongering that created most of the problems you are referring to which were a direct result of blackisting of much of KCMO. To some degree this was also benefiting MO side sprawl, but even that would be nearly stopped for the same reasons. JoCo realtors were playing hard ball with the rumor that places like Raytown (which was booming at the time) and even places like Blue Springs and Lee's Summit would have to eventually be integrated with KCMO while this would never be an issue in KS.

Realtors in Kansas still acted like it was 1945 right up to the 1980's and some probably still do today. I'm talking about where they pull people to the KS side by telling them the horror stories of the MO side's schools and blacks etc.

And I have many blacks in family (mixed relationships etc) as well as back friends in KC and they will all tell you that they were NOT welcome in JoCo at least into the 90's. That's why they have migrated to places like Lee's Summit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98-oHmcYwFg

Johnson County has been nothing but a leach on KCMO since its beginnings and even today most people there don't realize it and look down on the city and all its problems that JoCo played a massive role in creating.

The economic border war was just the final thing that literally broke KCMO and KS tried to take everything it could. It would have taken KCI, the Zoo, the convention center, the sports teams etc if it could. And I think they still would if they could.

But yeah, nice of Kansas to actually bring in something on their own for once. It will only create more sprawl, but at least it wasn't taken from KCMO.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

Post by normalthings »

Kansas will 100% try to do convention center at village west or expand OP if KC does not make needed investments in the next 15 years.

Bartle needs a major renovation. Missing a 5 star hotel. Missing an event plaza (BAP). Missing convention hotels on the level of peers like IND. kansas is 100% willing to do this
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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normalthings wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:22 am Kansas will 100% try to do convention center at village west or expand OP if KC does not make needed investments in the next 15 years.

Bartle needs a major renovation. Missing a 5 star hotel. Missing an event plaza (BAP). Missing convention hotels on the level of peers like IND. kansas is 100% willing to do this
And before somebody says. "see, it's KCMO's fault for not keeping up with other cities". But the primary reason KCMO can't do these things as well as other cities is because it does not have the critical mass of urban core companies etc it takes to sustain things like five star hotels which would not just benefit the convention center, but the overall downtown community. Once again, too much of KC's private and corporate wealth is now in Kansas and most do not give a single shit about downtown KC. Nashville or Denver and even Indy can build these types of hotels.

KC just does not have the type of focused business community on downtown and the convention business alone just can't support it. It's a big reason to get a stadium downtown. KC needs other reasons to have more hotels etc. But then you have the cultural problem that KC is suburban culturally, that most people do not want a downtown stadium now. It's a terrible cycle that KC has itself in.

When Stan Durwood died and AMC of all companies left downtown for KS, that was the nail in the coffin. Hopefully things start to turn around with the new owners of the Royals etc, but the damage done is so deep that KC's downtown and entire urban core will always struggle. It's just a fact.
Last edited by GRID on Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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The two peas in a pod^
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Re: Mystery Kansas 'Mega Project'

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AlkaliAxel wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:47 am The two peas in a pod^
And you sound like a Trumpter who just ignores the facts honestly. It would really help if more people were honest with KC's problems and how they developed. It would make fixing or reversing those problems much easier.

There is a reason Downtown KC lacks modern hotels for example. It's really not that hard to understand. It can be fixed, but ignoring why the problems exist in the first place is not going make things any easier.
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