Dick Johnson, owner of Kingston Printing Inc., is buying the former M-Pact Worldwide plant at the Intech Business Park in Eudora, above. Johnson plans to close the deal this morning and have all his company's equipment and jobs relocated to the site within six weeks.
Kelvin Heck assesses the market for local industrial real estate
Kelvin Heck, of Grubb & Ellis|The Winbury Group, assesses the market for industrial real estate in Lawrence and how M-Pact found the right fit by buying outside of town. Enlarge video
Dick Johnson speaks on his business relocation
Dick Johnson, owner of Kingston Printing Inc., describes the history of his business, its expectations in relocating to Eudora and plans for future growth. Enlarge video
Eudora — Dick Johnson's two-year search for a new building ends this morning, when the Lawrence printer closes the purchase of a vacant manufacturing plant at the eastern edge of Eudora.
Johnson, owner of Kingston Printing Inc., is buying the former manufacturing home of M-Pact Worldwide at 1310 Kistler Drive in the Intech Business Park along the north side of Kansas Highway 10.
The building, at 40,000 square feet, will be more than twice the size of Kingston's existing space now spread throughout three buildings along Delaware Street in southeast Lawrence.
All 24 Kingston employees already have consented to work eight miles down the road, sealing the deal that will give Johnson's space-starved operation plenty of room to expand through relocation.
"This gives us a chance to grow not only for what we need today, but gives us a chance to grow into the future," he said.
Kingston's sales ballooned by 34 percent last year, to nearly $4 million, as its commercial printing customers in Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas City continued to sign on for more work. Among the company's printing jobs: game-day programs and media guides for the Kansas City Chiefs, the annual chancellor's report for Kansas University and a variety of corporate publications for Hill's Pet Nutrition and other clients of Callahan Creek, a Lawrence-based marketing and advertising agency.
The rising workload had left Kingston without enough room to keep up, even with employees working two shifts a day, Johnson said. His search for expansion space in Lawrence - either by occupying an existing building or building a new one - failed to produce a workable plan.
Johnson's real estate broker, Kelvin Heck of Grubb & Ellis|The Winbury Group, said that Johnson's frustration was understandable considering that only 3 percent of Lawrence's industrial space was available for lease or purchase.
Building a smaller, 20,000-square-foot center in Lawrence would have cost Johnson $1.2 million to $1.3 million, Heck said. The asking price for the larger M-Pact site was $1.4 million, for a building twice as large and essentially ready to occupy.
"It's a perfect fit for them," Heck said.
Johnson did not disclose the purchase price, other than to say it was less than $1.4 million. Once the sale closes, he plans to start moving his presses, binders, folders and other equipment into the Eudora complex.
He anticipates hiring another seven or eight employees during the next year to work at the center, which has room to install two new six-color presses should the need arise.
The building became available once BSN Medical Inc., which purchased M-Pact last summer, shut down the last of the center's operations late last year. That move eliminated 67 jobs.
Alex Davies, BSN's vice president for finance operations, said that the company was pleased to be selling the property so soon, and to a buyer plenty excited about having room to grow.
"From our perspective, you don't want a building still empty for any apparent reason," Davies said. "It's nice to sell it and move on with life."
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bd (anonymous) says…
Domestic registry potential costs ,and other city "BS" lost another company!
cutny (anonymous) says…
Yeah BD, it's a real tragedy when civil and equal rights for taxpayers force a company to move 7 miles down the road. Try not to cry too hard.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
Yea, bd, a vacant building that its owners wanted to sell badly enough to offer it well below Lawrence real estate market rates had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Sigmund (anonymous) says…
The PLC and their Business Czar would like you to believe they can manage your economy and plan "smart growth." To do so they have to manage the shrinkage as well. So what have they done to prevent this loss or how have their smart growth plans taken into account this loss? The truth of the matter is that "planned economies" are almost never as vibrant nor able to adapt to unexpected change as freer ones.
The one dominant characteristic of modern economies is unexpected change. The complexity of even the smallest of economies, like Lawrence, is beyond their ability to do little more than guess, and they know it. Their smart growth rhetoric is little more than a pseudo-scientific cover for their deep seated hatred and prejudice against successful businesses. Their vision of Lawrence's future is of a time that has long since past. The longer they remain in positions of power in this town, able to impose their anti-business anti-growth policies, the more likely you should expect to see net job losses and not job gains.
kmat (anonymous) says…
I was unfortunately an M-PACT employee that was smart enough to get out years ago when they started going downhill (piss poor owner and management). They have been trying to sell the two buildings they had for years! BSN bought them out just to shut down a tiny little piece of their competition, which the owner was happy to do since he never cared one little bit about his employees or what would happen to them. He was happy to take the check and tell his employees to hit the road. I know a lot of good people still looking for work because of that jerk.
Kingston was smart and lucky because they got that building cheap. It will take them a long time to get all the plaster dust and chemical smells out. Hopefully they will grow enough to hire a few of the people from m-pact.
fyi for those whining about Lawrence losing some jobs because Kingston is moving - the majority of employees at M-PACT worked in Lawrence. The employees of Kingston are from Lawrence. Eudora is still in DG county. So, it's not like it's ruining Lawrence. Eudora is cheaper than Lawrence (if you spend any time there, you know why). Why wouldn't businesses want to move there?
Godot (anonymous) says…
What is happening with the Delaware buildings that Kingston is vacating?
budwhysir (anonymous) says…
Good old Eudora. This printer will have a big MPACT on the revenues generated in Eudora and also will MPACT the tax base of Lawrence