Edgerton gains 4,500 employees. But tiny JoCo town has almost nowhere to eat or live
At the start of each day, the city of Edgerton’s population nearly triples.
Around 4,500 employees travel to the community at the southwest corner of Johnson County each day — jumping off of Interstate 35 or driving along green farm fields and waiting for trains to pass — on their way to one of the fastest growing business parks in the country. Along with a new workforce, in the past six years Logistics Park Kansas City has attracted $1.1 billion in private investment, from industry giants such as Amazon, UPS and Hostess.
But community leaders say there’s not much keeping those thousands of employees around after they clock out.
No one expected Logistics Park to grow this quickly, said James Oltman, president of ElevateEdgerton!, a public-private partnership. But now that it has, he said the town desperately needs restaurants, shops, hotels and housing.
“Everything has blown up so fast, that now we’re really scrambling to get these things,” Oltman said. “When we talk to employers out here, restaurants are still the No. 1 requested thing. Basically within a four-mile radius of Logistics Park, there’s like one quick-service restaurant. And when you’re talking about a large number of employees out here with 30-minute lunch breaks, that gets difficult.”
To attract commercial development, last week the City Council approved two tax-increment financing redevelopment districts — the first ever created in Edgerton, said Beth Linn, city administrator.
“This is really about bringing commercial retail services to those employees or truck drivers who want to eat, grab a drink and do all of the things that normal folks do on their way to and from work,” she said.
“It exceeded everybody’s expectations”
What was once sprawling farmland here is now a burgeoning mecca for some of the top global distributors.
Logistics Park dates back to 2009, when the city of Edgerton agreed to annex BNSF Railway’s land. That allowed BNSF to construct a $250 million, 400-acre cargo facility for trains and trucks, which opened in 2013 and became the anchor of the distribution hub.
Unknown to city officials at the time, that vote would be a catalyst — leading to the sleepy town of Edgerton attracting some of the most well-known and hard-to-get businesses in the world.
With the BNSF land, Edgerton quickly doubled in size, and Logsitics Park grew from 1,000 acres to 1,700 within a few years. Plans took off with the help of Riverside-based NorthPoint, a nationwide industrial developer. And soon after, Jet.com, Amazon, Spectrum Brands and UPS found homes in the park, bringing with them thousands of jobs.
As of last year, Edgerton, Johnson County and the state of Kansas had invested nearly $100 million in infrastructure for the park.
The area’s growth isn’t welcomed by everyone. Farmers and longtime residents long to maintain their traditional way of life.
But Linn said the region is benefiting, raking in millions of dollars each year for schools, parks and infrastructure. And Edgerton Mayor Don Roberts has personally profited, as the council last year raised his salary from $1,000 to $90,000 for leading the more than $1 billion project, which continues to expand.
Last week, stakeholders celebrated the grand opening of Kubota Tractor Corp.’s 2-million-square-foot distribution warehouse. Hostess Brands is constructing 765,000 square feet of warehouse space — to replace a Chicago facility — that should open by the end of the year. Cold Point Logistics is wrapping up the final phase of its expansion on a soon-to-be 600,000-square-foot facility, Oltman said.
The town of 1,700 expects the workforce at Logistics Park to grow to 4,500 by the end of the year. And that doesn’t count the hundreds of construction and contracted employees building or expanding warehouses and distribution centers.
“It’s been an incredible development. It’s a huge success,” Oltman said. “At this point, it’s exceeded everybody’s expectations.”
Now, Oltman said, he’s “hoping to keep that momentum going.” To do that, he said Logistics Park needs amenities and services to keep employees around and businesses excited to move to Edgerton.
“A huge need”
Last spring, dozens of Edgerton residents gathered to cut a ribbon on the town’s first new retail construction in decades: a Dollar General store.
“In the actual city limits of Edgerton, we don’t really have anything as far as restaurants, hotels or even retail,” Oltman said. “Obviously with the growth of Logistics Park Kansas City, it’s really been to the point where the park out here has grown so fast in such a short amount of time, all of those amenities have not had a chance to grow organically with it.”
With few options for food or essentials nearby — and thousands of hungry workers in the area each day — the city and stakeholder groups are ramping up their efforts to attract commercial development to the park.
In nearby Gardner to the north, at 175th Street and Waverly Road, the Bristol Groupe is building more than 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, as well as 144 apartments, said developer Greg DiVilbiss.
And in an effort to attract more commercial development to the area, last Thursday, the City Council approved the creation of two redevelopment districts, an early step in offering tax incentives for commercial developers willing to consider opening up shop in Edgerton.
Plans are still preliminary, and a finance agreement has not yet been discussed, Linn said. One TIF district, on the northwest corner of 191st Street and Waverly Road, is on a 100-year floodplain. The other, at the northeast and northwest corners of Interstate 35 and Homestead Lane, includes several vacant, deteriorating buildings.
On the northeast corner, KBS Constructors is looking to start building a truck maintenance facility later this year, according to city documents. The project also could include four restaurants and two hotels. Other plans have yet to be disclosed, but city leaders say they are in talks with developers looking to add more services and amenities, with restaurants being the top priority.
Oltman hopes the first project will convince other developers to consider Logistics Park.
“Once (KBS) starts construction and starts moving dirt, and once utilities get to the site, we fully expect you’re going to see a bunch of commercial development,” he said. “The new redevelopment districts give us a new tool to help spur development here.”
But Edgerton has another major barrier for supporting thousands of new employees: housing. On the east side of Gardner, DiVilbiss is working on building The Shoppes at Waverly Plaza and The Residences at Waverly Plaza, at West Sante Fe Street and Waverly Road, with plans to build around 350 homes, he said. And he has more plans for the future.
But Oltman said attracting developers to Edgerton has been one of the biggest challenges, especially with the city lacking many small parcels of land with connected utilities, and with the need for more housing growing.
“Housing is a huge need. We get interest from developers that want to break into the market. And they ask, ‘Do you have 10 acres we can come put 25 to 30 houses on,’” he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t. And on that same subject, 30 houses is great. But we don’t need 30 houses. We need 300 houses.”
Oltman said he’s been trying to find the first housing developer willing to take a chance on Edgerton. He said the area needs everything from apartments to single-family homes.
For now, though, Edgerton is banking on the first commercial developments sparking new growth in the near future.
“We’re hoping to see additional commercial and retail services pick up, which just helps the entire development grow,” he said. “Once you start having those support services, there’s less of a concern as far as how fast Logistics Park can grow.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
