NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Tuesday announced a $2 million BASE 2.0 grant award to help the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce with the industrial complex they want to build out south of South Hutchinson along K-96.
"The BASE grants are going to help us with infrastructure for a new development that we are putting together along the K-96 corridor," Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce CEO Debra Teufel said. "The project we applied for had matching support from Reno County, the City of Hutchinson and South Hutchinson, as well as Greater Hutch and our Growth Inc. division, all focused on creating a new industrial site that's going to help us grow Reno County in the future."
The public partners locally had already laid their dollars on the table before the state came in.
"Reno County has committed $1.2 million of ARPA funds to infrastructure for the park," Teufel said. "We also had some matching in kind infrastructure support from the City of Hutchinson, some economic development support from South Hutchinson and then some of our own internal dollars. So, we raised $1 million toward the purchase of the 154 acres. That is being allowed as match to the project, as well. We're leveraging lots of investment locally to be able to win this grant award."
Getting water to the site is one of the early challenges.
"A piece of it will be the water line," Teufel said. "I think, predating the water line is going to be some master planning and engineering work that needs to come along with that. Most certainly, a large portion of this will go to that water line."
The state grant money came in early enough to be able to impact the fact that the county was already going to have to get water from the City of Hutchinson south of Highway 50 anyway to help alleviate the nitrate problem in Yoder Water District 101.
"This is really the most responsible way to bring the water line to the industrial park, but then also serve some of the other needs along K-96 and help with that water issue at Yoder."
The amount of land already purchased is large, but it's only about half as large as the new Panasonic site in DeSoto was originally proposed, as an example.
"This would just be the first step of that," Teufel said. "154 acres probably doesn't get you on the radar for projects that need a megasite, but it does allow us to develop that first phase. I think we have to look at this as a long-term investment, but we certainly will be trying to compete for those types of projects with a site like this."
Hutchinson and Reno County would like to get into the megasite game, but that's not today's topic.
"In time, we do want to get to that point that we can develop an even larger site along the corridor," Teufel said. "I think 154 acres is a good start to that. There's definitely some adjacent acreage that could be interesting that we might try to option, without biting off, I guess, more than we can chew with this first phase."
This grant's funds have to be expended within two years, so work will have to start on getting the necessary approvals right away.
"This will put us on a fast track to starting the development of that line," Teufel said. "We have two years to do it. With the right things falling into place, we hope it moves even faster than that, but realistically, a development like this sometimes is years in the making. This grant is just very catalytic in helping us put it on the fast track."
Hutchinson city staff still needs to meet with state water staff regarding the long term future of its water rights. The hope is that meeting can happen in the next few months.
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