After rapidly growing its workforce, tiny JoCo town to finally get restaurants, hotels
There’s not much keeping Edgerton’s 4,500 workers around after shifts at its booming industrial park. But community leaders expect that to soon change.
In the past decade, the town — with a population of 1,700 at the southwest corner of Johnson County — has attracted industry giants like Amazon, UPS and Hostess to Logistics Park Kansas City, off of Interstate 35. Now thousands of employees flood in each day. But they have nowhere to eat, shop or sleep.
“You’ve got 5,000 people and no restaurants,” developer Johnny Brown said. “These companies bring in workers for training and they have nowhere to stay. They’re going to Olathe to stay in hotels now. But we hope to circumvent that. We’re going to have them stay in Edgerton.”
Even though Edgerton has attracted more than $1 billion in industrial development in recent years, the town has never drawn commercial business — other than a Dollar General store that opened last year to much enthusiasm. But this month, leaders are celebrating the announcement of the city’s first such project.
Brown has received early approval to build a $75 million complex including a travel plaza with restaurants and three hotels on nearly 60 acres at the northwest corner of Homestead Lane and Interstate 35. On the east side of Homestead Lane, TravelCenters of America will build the first truck stop — something greatly needed for the thousands of trucks that come in and out of the industrial park. Developer Moussa Sobaiti also plans to potentially add restaurants and hotels, said Kara Banks, a spokeswoman with the city of Edgerton. He could break ground in the spring.
“It’s been critical to get those anchor tenants to that intersection there, since there’s really no development there right now. You need users that can bring utilities to the site and build up the infrastructure,” said James Oltman, president of ElevateEdgerton!, a public-private partnership to attract development. “Nobody wants to be the first one. It’s easier to be the second one. So we’re hopeful we’ll continue to see dirt move out there and it’ll spur additional interest.”
Meanwhile, the community has watched as the neighboring city of Gardner, just up I-35, attracts the kind of commercial development Edgerton has been yearning for.
Gardner also has welcomed the construction of hundreds of new homes that are desperately needed for the industrial park’s employees. Earlier this month, Gardner snagged a $200 million development including three hotels, hundreds of single-family homes and apartments, restaurants, stores and offices — on the southeast corner of 175th Street and I-35.
Edgerton leaders aim to keep the city’s growing number of workers around and spending money after they clock out, rather than traveling elsewhere in Johnson County. Oltman hopes the industrial park’s first commercial projects are only the beginning.
“Obviously this will help get things going,” he said. “We still need restaurants. We need several options out there. And there’s a huge demand for hotels. Those are the things we’re targeting in the short term.”
Earlier this year, the Edgerton City Council created the city’s first-ever tax increment financing districts, along I-35 and Homestead Lane. City Administrator Beth Linn said the city hopes that more commercial developers will consider opening up shop at the industrial park, and that incentives will offset the cost of bringing utilities to undeveloped areas.
Brown said he cannot yet say what restaurants will open at the industrial park. But he expects two of the three hotels to be a Comfort Inn and Hilton Garden Inn. If he receives final City Council approval, he plans to break ground this spring.
Brown also donated five acres to Johnson County for the construction of a $10 million building to house the sheriff’s department, fire department and other emergency vehicles to serve the industrial park.
At Logistics Park, the 765,000-square-foot Hostess distribution center opened last month. And construction is underway on NorthPoint Development’s latest 950,000-square-foot warehouse.
Oltman called it “a really good year in Edgerton,” pointing to the 2.7 million square feet of new construction over the past year.
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
