NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson and Reno County Chamber of Commerce CEO Debra Teufel sees a good likelihood that the speculative building that is being worked on will have a tenant in 2023.
"It gave us a product that we could show a client earlier this year," Teufel said. "They've been back twice. They are coming back again in January. I think we could be three to six months out from them actually signing the deal on the building, but the building won't be done until next fall. I think the timing could be just perfect."
The building will be approximately 57,000 square feet and finished initially as a basic warehouse, with potential for expansion to 100,000 square feet if needed and rail spur access. The building is on the southeast corner of Commerce Street and Enterprise Drive in the Kansas Enterprise Industrial Park. The hope is that this will be the first of many.
"They have always talked about what's next," Teufel said. "They have laid that site out perfectly that, you can scale this building and add on to it. You can take that 22 acre site and continue to just mirror that building time and again. We can add several hundred thousand square feet of industrial space on that site. If this proves out to be what we think it will be, we'll just keep doing that model."
One important piece of flexibility with the current spec building is the floor, or lack of one, so that a client that comes in, if they sign before it's done, can tell the builders where to put floor drains and that sort of thing.
"We can probably put three to four more buildings like it on that site," Teufel said. "We designed it in a way that we're trying to maximize that corner. It's kind of odd, because we have some of the drainage system that goes into the city's infrastructure out there on that back corner. What we're doing is building around it with this first building. Then we can put another, easily 300,000 square feet of space."
Because no final contracts have been signed, Teufel could not say who the business might be or what economic sector they are in.
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.