Ingram’s February 2023

IN THE NEWS

Tidbits of Business News from Around the Region

MISSOURI BUCHANAN COUNTY St. Joseph Pot-Tax Vote

planned 13-story residential tower in the River Market area. The vote followed public comments that cited concerns about a lack of sufficient parking to support the 300 units in the planned $75 million project. Food Packer Building Here A collaboration between companies from Iowa and South Dakota is moving ahead with plans for a large food-processing center to make and ship sandwiches for sale at venues like convenience stores. West Liberty Foods of Iowa and Vertical Cold Storage of South Dakota say they are prepared to commit nearly $200 million to upgrade the 327,000 facility, which they say will

create more than 575 jobs and an annual payroll of nearly $40 million—an average of nearly $70,000 each.

LAFAYETTE COUNTY Oak Grove Bank Acquired

Residents of St. Joseph will vote in April on whether to impose a marijuana sales tax. The City Council passed an emergency ordinance in January, calling for a public vote to levy a 3 percent sales tax on all tangible personal property retail sales of marijuana. The council was prompted to act after assessing the response of nearly 60 other cities in Missouri that had done the same by creating ballot initiatives. Urban Outfitters, which made a $403 million splash in the region’s logistics pond by opening a large distribution center in Wyandotte County last fall, is back with plans for an encore that could create 750 jobs in Cass County by 2028. The parent company’s Nuuly clothing rental brand has unveiled plans to build a $60 million fulfillment/laundry opera tion at the Raymore Commerce Center. The 604,000-square-foot plant would be Nuuly’s second U.S. operation. A vital commuter leg of U.S. 169, from Charles Wheeler Downtown Airport across the Missouri River to Fifth Street in Downtown Kansas City, has closed for bridge replacement and will remain that way until the fall of 2024. Crews from the Missouri Department of Transportation will direct the construction of the new southbound bridge and ramps connecting to I-35. Northbound lanes will remain open during the $220 million project. Additional ramp closures will begin in March and run through year-end. JACKSON COUNTY Break in Apartment Momentum Not every large multifamily project is sailing through the planning process in Kansas City: The City Planning Commission has voted 4-3 against a CASS COUNTY URBN Back for More CLAY COUNTY U.S. 169: The Pain Begins

The Kansas City banking market, known for its atypically large number of institutions, became a tad less competitive with the recent acquisition of Commercial Bank of Oak Grove by the nearby Bank of Odessa last month. Bank of Odessa had nearly $313 million in deposits as of last year, roughly three times the size of the Oak Grove bank. Over the past 10 years, the number of banking institutions in the Kansas City MSA has fallen from 143 to 119 upon the completion of this merger.

Correspondent News Updates from the Capital cities

Washington | SBA: No Exception on Excess PPP Payments Businesses that made good-faith errors on applications for loans from the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020 will not be eligible for the program’s loan forgiveness provisions, the Small Business Administration has announced. Honest mistakes made during the frenzied application timeline in the early stages of the pandemic, in some cases, led to larger loans than those business owners were entitled to receive; they will be required to repay those excess amounts. The agency says more than 304,384 PPP loans generated excess distributions of nearly $3.8 billion, or $12,403 on average. Jefferson City | $30 Million Set for Hiring, Training Missouri’s Department of Economic Development will direct $30 million in federal funding designed to help companies address workforce shortages by recruiting and training thousands of new and current employees. Gov. Mike Parson, in announcing the move, said that the program would “go a long way in ensuring Missouri workers can meet the demands of the future.” The federal ARPA Workforce Training Grant Program, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, was launched in August 2022. It provided competitive grants to a diverse range of applicants and will train workers across multiple sectors, including child care, health care, broadband deployment, manufacturing, and more, by encouraging It worked to secure the $4 billion Panasonic Energy plant in 2022; now, Kansas is doubling down on large-scale incentives with more than $300 million for a new semiconductor factory in Wichita. Integra Technologies is behind a project that it says could bring 2,000 jobs to Wichita and help shore up the city’s aerospace sector. Lawmakers recently approved more than $1.8 billion in capital investments as part of the state’s APEX incentive program, enacted last year to provide incentives for Panasonic. The State Finance Council, which includes legislative leaders and Gov. Laura Kelly, unanimously approved the package, which calls for Integra to invest at least $1.5 billion by 2028 and maintain 1,600 full-time jobs through 2033. recipients to train at-risk and low-income populations. Topeka | State Mega-Project, Part II

I ng r am ’ s 7

Kansas City’s Business Media

February 2023