The identity of the tenant remains under wraps, but NorthPoint Development has started construction on an 842,000-square-foot build-to-suit facility in Kansas City, Kan.’s Fairfax Industrial District.
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kan., recently approved industrial revenue bond financing and a 75 percent property tax abatement for the huge project, which is 20,000-square-feet larger than the 822,014-square-foot building that Amazon.com has leased at Logistics Park Kansas City in Edgerton. NorthPoint also developed that facility — the area’s largest industrial building ever built on a speculative basis, meaning before tenants are secured.
“The project represents a significant investment in the Fairfax District, which has seen a boom in industrial and manufacturing development and job creation in recent years,” NorthPoint President and COO Chad Meyer said.
The new behemoth, which the undisclosed tenant will occupy under a long-term lease, will be the second structure developed by NorthPoint in its Central Industrial Park. In 2015, construction was completed for the first: a $10 million, 74,000-square-foot Inergy Automotive Systems plant that manufactures plastic fuel tank systems for the General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant. It is expected to employ 200.
The new building will employ about 500 and will represent a capital investment of about $55 million, George Brajkovic, the UG’s economic development director told the commissioners recently.
“The project represents a significant investment in the Fairfax District, which has seen a boom in industrial and manufacturing development and job creation in recent years,” NorthPoint President and COO Chad Meyer told the Kansas City Business Journal.
Central Industrial Park is being developed on a 74-acre Fairfax site that housed a General Motors assembly plant that closed in 1986. The site, which is located just west of the current GM plant, was placed in a federal trust after the automaker filed for government-assisted bankruptcy in 2009. Northpoint, which purchased the site from the trust, has invested more than $60 million there and two miles south at its Public Levee redevelopment site. There, near the southern entrance to the Fairfax district, NorthPoint two years ago launched a $20 million redevelopment project that included construction of a new 396,000-square-foot industrial building and demolition of eight old Public Levee buildings.
NorthPoint decided to invest in revitalization of the Fairfax district, in part, because of its superior location near the GM plant, with quick access to Interstates 70, 670, 635, 35 and 29.