Ingram's December 2022

2022 NEWSMAKERS

23 Liberty asserts it place in the region’s booming logistics space as officials announce that it has landed Amazon and Walgreens distribution facilities for the new Liberty Commerce Center. At build-out, the seven-building campus will sprawl across 3.6 million square feet and will account for roughly 3,000 jobs. MARCH 31 Three years after groundbreaking and with one year to go before sched uled completion, work on the new, $1.5 billion Kansas City International Airport terminal yields an update on the impact that project has had in the region: 235 area firms have been project partners, with 129 of those being minority- or women-owned firms; 617 workers on site daily (a figure that’s been considerably higher during ear lier stages), and 13 joint-venture or mentor-protégé arrangements set in place. The single-terminal design is slated to open just before the NFL draft here in April. APRIL 26 Platinum Real Estate, long one of the region’s fastest-growing real estate firms, announced that it will merge with United Real Estate Group, parent of Kan sas City’s United Country Real Estate. That thrusts Platinum into an operation with almost 20,000 real estate agents, nationwide, and extends its reach beyond Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma. United operates in 30 states with 110 offices and more than 16,000 agents, and amassed more than $21.5 billion in national sales volume in 2021, compared to $2.26 billion for Platinum. MAY 17 Years in the making, and with few signs of slowing down, the Garmin expansion continues as the Olathe City Council signs off on annexation of 175 acres that the company had acquired in 2021. Garmin has been expanding its world headquarters in phases, starting with the October 2018 completion of a 748,000-square-foot, $102 million warehouse. The next phase, valued at nearly $100 million, is expected to create work spaces for thousands of new employees. JUNE 7 Oracle Corp. announces that a majority of outstanding shares had been tendered for its $28.3 billion acquisition of Cerner Corp. From its inception in as a health-care IT company in 1979, Cerner emerged as the region’s biggest entrepre neurial success story of the past 40 years. For the second time in three years, the Kansas City area lost the brand of its biggest private-sector employer. First was Sprint, absorbed by T-Mobile in 2020. Cerner peaked at 13,500 employees locally and 28,000 worldwide. 21 The Kansas City Planning Commission approves plans for a dramatic re build of the West Bottoms industrial site, starting with nearly 29 acres acquired by developer SomeraRoad throughout the previous year. It will replace those build ings with up to 1,238 apartments, hotels, office and retail space through 2035. 26 One of Kansas City’s fastest-growing financial institutions, Lead Bank, an nounces that will sell to California tech billionaire Jacqueline Reses. By focusing on business lending, the one-time community bank in Jackson County remade it self and boasted a loan portfolio growing faster than all but two other banks by 2022. Reses, who made her fortune with Square and Yahoo, indicates that the bank’s innovation in fintech development piqued her interest. JULY 7 A journey that began nearly 20 years earlier culminates with The University of Kansas Cancer Center securing “Comprehensive” cancer center designation by the

A Mega/Meta Blowout Deal

Developments in the Kansas City earn the “big deal” designation when they get north of $1 billion. So how does one characterize a potential develop ment impact of $103 billion ? “Big” hardly suffices. But that’s the estimate dollar footprint for Golden Plains Technology Park, which received Kansas City approval in March for the first tranche of what’s expected to be $8.2 billion in incentives over the next four decades. The massive data center is being spear- headed by Diode Ventures, a Black & Veatch subsidiary, and Velvet Tech Services; those involved say the data center complex could produce a monster local investment of $103.8 billion during the project’s life span. Golden Plains will be built on nearly 883 acres formerly zoned for agricultural in Platte and Clay counties. When completed, it will encompass 5.5 million square feet of space across 16 data-center buildings totaling 5.5 million square feet of construction, which is expected to start in 2023. Two weeks before the city signed off on that financing plan, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, conf irmed that it would be the first Golden Plains tenant with a data center of nearly 1 million square feet. That investment by itself is projected at $800 million, and should launch operations in 2024. Why Kansas City for the world’s top social-media company? "It stands out with so much to offer — good access to infrastructure and fiber, a strong pool of talent for both construction and operations, and more than anything, great community partners,” said Darcy Nothnagle, Meta’s director of community and economic development.

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I n g r a m ’ s

December 2022