Friday, Mar. 14, 2008
K-10 corridor open for development
Jack Weinstein
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ReprintThe Kansas Highway 10 corridor has become one of the county's most fertile growth areas with miles of developable land.
Local government and business leaders expect that trend to increase in the coming years.
Dan Richardson, the chief executive of the future Kansas State University campus at the Kansas Bioscience Park in Olathe, told the K-10 Association Inc. at its monthly meeting that the park would spur development along the corridor.
"The K-10 corridor is wide open," he said. "This is just the catalyst to get it started."
The park is a collaboration among Olathe, the Kansas Bioscience Authority and Kansas State University. The 92-acre site at the corner of College Boulevard and Valley Road near K-10 and Kansas Highway 7 was sold for $10 by the city for the project.
K-State will occupy 38 acres at the site. Its research will focus on animal health and food safety and security and biofuels. The bioscience park will occupy the remaining 54 acres.
The KBA has announced two tenants. Fort Dodge Animal Health, a global manufacturer and marketer of animal health products will build a $40 million 150,000-square-foot facility on 30 acres and will be staffed by 200 employees.
XenoTech, an in-vitro research firm, will invest nearly $10 million to move its Lenexa-based headquarters to the park. It will build a 54,000-square-foot facility that could double their 100 employees by 2012.
Olathe Councilmember Kathleen Huttmann, the K-10 Association president, said the city was excited about the addition of the park to the community as a "regional asset." Richardson said nearly 40 percent of the global animal health industry was between Columbia, Mo., and Manhattan. With open area surrounding the park, he said, the park is not limited by boundaries, and there are future opportunities available.
His vision includes one day including residential development, maybe village-like communities that would attract international research scholars who can work at the park, Richardson said. They can take advantage of not only K-State's resources, but the regional resources available by the proximity of the park to the "strongest concentration of animal health companies in the industry," he said.
"We want the world to come look for resources in this area," Richardson said.
The park's development would be aided by an eighth-cent sales tax, which could go on the August ballot, to aid the Johnson County Education and Research Triangle. It includes the K-State campus, the University of Kansas Edwards campus in Overland Park and the proposed KU Cancer Center in the northeast part of the county.
The tax would generate $15 million a year, which would be split among the three campuses to aid in construction costs and infrastructure.
But it's not just bioscience development that's exploding along the corridor. Rob Heise, the K-10 Association vice president and a principal with Heise-Meyer Commercial Real Estate, and Josh Crow, president of American Heritage Holdings, told the group about the development of College Point.
The 300-acre mixed-use business and retail center southwest of the K-10 and K-7 intersection has seen fantastic activity, Heise said. He cited the ongoing construction of a 163,000-square-foot U.S. Bank data center on 36 acres at the site. When it's built out, the center will include more than 3 million square feet of retail and office space.
"With the north-south state highway, the east-west state highway and quick access to (Interstates 35 and 435), this is going to be an ongoing easily accessible site for corporate office and retail..." Heise said.
In addition to College Point, the Corporate Ridge Office Park includes offices for Farmers Insurance, Terracon Consultants, Garmin and the Olathe Chamber of Commerce.
The 131-acre park at K-10 and Ridgeview Road can accommodate up to 2 million square feet of retail and office space.
Tim McKee, the vice president for economic development for the Olathe Chamber of Commerce, said the K-10 corridor has become Olathe's long-term growth area.
He said the types of projects coming to the city in the last decade has evolved and the development of the bioscience park has piqued interest in the corridor.
"There's so much opportunity here in regard to how much land we have available for development, and it's kind of our time," McKee said. "This initiative with K-State and the bioscience park, when we look back on this, will probably be a point a time where we say that was a defining moment in the history of Olathe."