By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Debra Teufel with the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce talked to the Board of Reno County Commissioners this week about where industrial economic development needs to go next.
"We really do need to start working on certified sites that are larger in scope," Teufel told the commission. "We only have 118 acres left in our industrial park and it's configured in a way that there isn't any one parcel that you can achieve a 100 acre site."
A current prospect says they need 120 to 160 acres and the city's still going to try, but it will be a challenge.
"Sometimes prospects think they know what they need and then later, that need changes," Teufel said. "We're going to go ahead and submit the enterprise industrial park. A lot of the work that we're going to be doing with the communities over the next year is really identifying that next phase of where industrial park land is available in our community."
Teufel explained the landlocked nature of the current park.
"If you've been out to the Enterprise Industrial Park, you know that Cargill has land on the west, we have a borrow pit that was sold off for Highway 50 development on the east and Highway 50 on the south and then all of Siemens facility on the north, so it really is landlocked for projects that are larger in scope."
Teufel told the commission they would be working with their infrastructure partners on how to address the issue in the coming year.