Ingram's November 2022

A New Energy in the Work Force

by Dennis Boone

How will the Panasonic Energy battery plant change the Kansas City region? Let us count the ways . . .

E conomic development czars and public officials from DeSoto City Hall to the governor’s mansion in Topeka exchanged wide smiles and high- fives earlier this month with the ground breaking for the Panasonic Energy bat- tery manufacturing plant that will bring 4,000 jobs and $4 billion in investment to western Johnson County by 2025. It will be, as Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly proudly declared, six days before voters narrowly awarded her a second term, the largest economic development project in the state’s history. The Kansas City region had seen that kind of bravado before, with the grand vision that was going to produce the largest development project in Missouri’s history: Plans by the former Cerner Corp. to build a southern campus that would eventually employ 25,000 people. But barely one-fourth of the way into that

$4.65 billion vision, construction came to a halt with a global pandemic in 2020, then the 2021 acquisition of the region’s entrepreneurial pride and joy by Houston- based Oracle Corp. The Panasonic Energy story, though, promises a different ending. For one, the Japanese conglomerate had nearly $66 billion in annual revenues in its most recent fiscal year—more than 10 times Cerner’s top line as the region’s largest public company last year. It would require a mighty big fish to dispirit this region through another acquisition. “A deal as large as Panasonic, bring ing 4,000 jobs, 6,500 indirect jobs and 16,500 construction jobs to De Soto, will undoubtedly ignite more business growth across the KC region,” said Tim Cowden, chief executive officer for the Kansas City Area Development Corp. The region’s diverse and robust in

dustry mix, Cowden said, coupled with a central location and talented work force, “shines a spotlight for other global brands like Panasonic to join our market’s business community. In addition, the opening of the new terminal at KCI within the relatively same time horizon, puts the KC region squarely in the center of more headquarters and professional services opportunities as well.” It is indeed hard to overstate the scope of change that is coming to the regional economy within both the bus iness and educational ecosystems. For the immediate area around DeSoto, sig nificant road construction and expansion will be needed to turn the Lexington Avenue/103rd Street corridor, now one lane in each direction, into a multi-lane thoroughfare that can handle thous- ands of vehicles moving through several times a day. Other new and expanded

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November 2022

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