Ingram's May 2023

IN THE NEWS

Tidbits of Business News from Around the Region

PLATTE COUNTY If You Build It …

LEAVENWORTH COUNTY Tonganoxie Scores Again

municipal utilities and other clients restore power after emergencies, which B&V has defined as a potential growth line. CrossFirst Enters Arizona The region’s fastest-growing bank over the past decade figures to get even bigger with CrossFirst Bank’s April acquisition of a Tucson bank that provides entry into the Arizona market. CrossFirst Bankshares, the parent, has struck a deal to buy Canyon Community Bank in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $15.1 million. With deposits of $169 million, Canyon is a fraction of its new parent’s $5.8 billion, but the strategic addition opens up another potential high growth market for the Leawood Bank. ProPharma HQ Exits KC ProPharma Group, a five-time Corporate Report 100 honoree and one of the region’s fastest-growing companies, is relocating its headquarters from Overland Park to North Carolina. The research consulting organization has leased space in Raleigh, N.C., closer to the life-sciences hub known as Research Triangle. ProPharma made Ingram’s fast-growth list each year from 2012-16, topping out at No. 22 in its debut year. Panasonic Lands Customer A Norwegian company is the first anno- unced buyer for Panasonic Energy’s electric vehicle battery plant in DeSoto, expected to begin operations in 2025. Hexagon Purus Systems USA has secured a multiyear sup- ply of the plant’s lithium-ion battery cells. The agreement calls for $43 million in initial pay ments as the plant is ramping up production. Mission Gateway Finale? A series of city extensions and accom modations for the long-delayed Mission Gateway redevelopment may be at its end: A New York ban, Metropolitan Commercial, has sued a subsidiary of the firm that owns the site in Mission, claiming developers are more than $1 million behind on their mortgage payments. The former Mission Mall site was acquired in 2005 with plans for a high-end transformation, but since then has been through a series of fits and starts that have left it in construction limbo.

A sparkling new terminal at Kansas City International Airport has produced some sparkling statistics on usage: More than 944,000 passengers arrived and departed through the $1.5 billion terminal in March, a healthy year-over-year increase of 21.3 percent. KCI hadn’t seen that level of volume since December 2019, and it was the airport’s fourth-busiest March since 2008. KCI’s biggest carrier, Southwest Airlines, said it recorded a 30 percent increase in passengers boarding outbound flights for the month. Data Center Incentives The Kansas City Council has unani 0mously signed off on a development plan and bond request that could be worth $8.2 billion in incentives by 2060 for the massive Golden Plains Technology Park. Black & Veatch subsidiary Diode Ventures and Velvet Tech Services project that the development could generate nearly $104 billion—with a “b”—over the span of the buildout. The plan calls for 16 data center buildings, with 5.5 million square feet of space, on an 882-acre site along U.S. 169 in Clay and Platte counties. KANSAS JEFFERSON COUNTY $7.5 Million Settlement Jefferson County commissioners have agreed to a $7.5 million settlement in the case of a man imprisoned for 16 years in connect- ion with a murder he didn’t commit. DNA evidence cleared Floyd Bledsoe in the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl, leading to his 2015 release. The settlement will pay him $1.5 million upfront, with the rest over a decade.

Fresh off its success in securing a new production facility for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Tonganoxie has pulled in DSM, a global com- pany that will build a processing plant to produce a pet food premix ingredient. The company says it expects to begin construc tion in July, with roughly 28 employees when the plant goes online in the first half of 2025, producing nutritional supplements that will be sold to branded pet food lines worldwide. SHAWNEE COUNTY Washburn Tuition Break Effective this fall semester, Washburn University will roll out a pair of scholar ship programs, one of which will provide nearly tuition-free instruction for Shawnee County students from families with low to moderate incomes. The goal, officials say, is to help the area retain more talent from the ranks of the local students who account for the bulk of enrollment there. Officials from the Unified Government have paused on a plan to convert the former Cerner campus in Wyandotte County into a mixed-use development. Commissioners have delayed further deliberations for a month to answer questions on the proposal by principals Block & Co. Inc. and Genesis Realty & Development. The developers hope to turn one of the nine-story towers into apartments, leaving the other for office use and creating about 90,000 square feet of retail space. Reardon Redux Plan The former Reardon Center in Downtown Kansas City, Kan., would take on new life as apartments and retail under a proposal submitted by Willie Lanier Jr. of Lanier United. He wants to buy the site, then raze the former convention and meeting space in the 500 block of Minnesota Ave., where between 85 and 100 residential units would sit atop 7,000 square feet of first-floor retail with the same square footage for meeting space to accommodate up to 350. WYANDOTTE COUNTY Cerner Remake on Hold

JOHNSON COUNTY B&V Buys Texas Firm

Seeking to expand its reach in con struction and procurement services, as well as engineering, Black & Veatch has acquired Texas-based Bird Electric Enterprises and Bird Electric Properties, with more than 600 employees. Among the firm’s strengths is its work in helping

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May 2023

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