Hunt Midwest breaks ground on KCI 29 Logistics Park
Ellen Cagle and Thomas Friestad – Kansas City Business Journal

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and developer Hunt Midwest celebrated the groundbreaking on Wednesday of KCI 29 Logistics Park, which is set to become the state’s largest project site under single ownership.

The park will spans up to 20 million square feet of warehouse and commercial office space across 2,136 acres of farmland northeast of Kansas City International Airport.

“Working together, we are providing improved infrastructure to support this significant economic investment which will attract national and international partnerships and bring opportunities to the region,” Parson said at the groundbreaking.

There’s already one taker waiting in the wings. In May, Port Authority of Kansas City commissioners approved an expression of intent to give an undisclosed international retail company a personal property tax exemption for “Project Gateway,” a large distribution center that would be northwest of Interstate 29’s interchange with Mexico City Avenue.

Officials have said the logistics park could create 9,000 direct jobs, generating $450 million in annual payroll, and support $2.5 billion in private investment once fully built out.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development this month awarded Port KC a $40 million grant of federal stimulus money provided through its Industrial Site Development Grant Program. Port KC had sought $49.4 million to cover a range of infrastructure costs at the KCI 29 Logistics Park — among them, more than five miles of new public streets, storm sewers and water mains, and upward of 2.5 miles of sanitary sewer main extension, the state application shows.

Hunt Midwest also was given a $2.5 million grant through the governor’s Transportation Cost-Share Program for improvements to the I-29/Mexico City Avenue interchange.

“The infrastructure investment by the State will leverage the new KCI airport terminal, KCI Air Cargo operations, and connectivity with the entire country via our vast interstate system,” Hunt Midwest CEO Ora Reynolds said Wednesday. “Hunt Midwest’s partnership with state and local entities provides us with a competitive advantage to attract ‘best-in-class’ manufacturing, logistics and technology users.”

Infrastructure improvements are underway now and are expected to be finished in the fall.