NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce CEO Debra Teufel told Hutch Post that they are still searching for a tenant and pitching the idea of the industrial park south of South Hutchinson, even as the infrastructure is not ready to be built out yet.
"I think at this point, it would not be responsible to just start digging the line to that site," Teufel said. "Going under the river is incredibly expensive. And you want to make sure you're building the line, the water line in particular, to the size that your tenant is going to need, and so rather than getting the cart before the horse or putting water lines in the ground and then finding out that we didn't right size them, we will just wait, but have all of those studies done and the alignment study done so that we know exactly when a company is ready to go and how much volume of water they need, that there's a plan in place to deliver that."
Teufel met with engineers recently on the project.
"We're going to re-engage with the steering committee that included folks from both the city of Hutchinson and South Hutch, as well as Reno County, probably in late July or August to just give everyone a recap of where we are at currently with the master plan process and what are some dangling next steps," Teufel said. "There were a couple of things that just need cleaned up on the legal description on the annexation. It was annexed in December. So that was a big step because anybody that's gonna locate there is going to want to have assurance of where their utilities are going to come from. That was big. It is zoned for industry, but there are some things that still need to be studied about what also are the right improvements we need to make to the roadways. That too kind of is dependent on who will go in the site."
There's also some outside work being done outside of any of the government or the Chamber's control.
"I would say the one thing that's holding us back a little bit is Evergy is embarking on some studies right now around how much power they can deliver to projects across the state," Teufel said. "Until they figure out some of their own capacity constraints, they have been a great partner when we have pitched the site on projects, but there's also some work to be done just to make sure that we can give any end user the assurance that they can get the water and the power they need."
The bottom line is that it will likely be some months before we have real movement on the industrial park, unless the perfect project comes along.
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