Garmin vows to take expansion plans to Olathe City Council

Garmin officials, disappointed that an expansion plan was rebuffed Monday night by the Olathe Planning Commission, said Tuesday they would pursue the same plan before the Olathe City Council.

“Garmin is a successful hometown company that needs to use the space that it owns,” the company said in a statement indicating intent to follow the same master plan that was rejected by a 4-3 vote of planning commissioners.

The council is scheduled to take up the matter Dec. 1.

Meanwhile, Tim McKee, CEO of the Olathe Chamber of Commerce, weighed in with support for the expansion, calling it “one of the most progressive and pivotal events in the community’s and region’s history.”

McKee said that “Garmin is an international corporation that could have chosen to expand anywhere in the world.” By expanding on its existing headquarters site, “it will create a ripple effect for the area and further strengthen our economy,” he said.

Garmin’s position is that its master plan provides traffic abatement and green spaces that would lessen the effect of building a proposed 712,842-square-foot warehouse and production facility on the northwest part of its property. But most of the neighbors who attended the commission meeting said the building would be too big and too near existing homes.

The plan as presented is necessary to provide the right kind of space and in the right location, Garmin officials said. A large natural gas line, running diagonally across the property from the northeast to the southwest, prevents the company from situating the proposed building anywhere other than its proposed location.

One opponent of expansion questioned whether the company would create 2,700 jobs at its headquarters. The plan indicates that the expansion would provide space for that many more workers. But Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner said that was a projection that could extend four years down the road, and it’s too far in the future to know how many jobs would be created.

The headquarters expansion is primarily designed to increase Garmin’s engineering, research and development staff. It might allow eventual relocation of about 300 existing employees from an offsite customer support center, but there is no commitment for that possibility yet, according to the company.

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 2:33 PM with the headline "Garmin vows to take expansion plans to Olathe City Council."