This composite image from promotional materials shows a logo and rendering of Lawrence Venture Park.

It will be decided Tuesday whether Lawrence’s VenturePark will be the site of a Menard Inc. manufacturing campus, a $25 million project the company says it can’t construct without a requested public incentive package.

Proposed incentives, worth about $2.3 million, will go before the City Commission at its weekly meeting Tuesday. The package comprises a 10-year, 50 percent property tax abatement; a $549,350 grant from the city to be paid over 10 years; a $200,000 grant from Douglas County to be paid over 10 years; and providing at no cost a bulk warehouse at the site that’s valued at $285,963.

The funding would be used to help build the campus, which will comprise a distribution building, stone and block production facility, a facility to manufacture roof trusses, a wood recycling building and an industrial spur. Products from the facility would go to all stores in its home-improvement chain in Kansas and western Missouri.

Tuesday’s vote will come one week after city commissioners discussed possible changes to the city’s economic development incentives policies that could restrain the amount of money and the number of projects the city incentivizes.

Commissioners talked briefly about the Menard Inc. manufacturing facility at that study session Jan. 12, saying it was the type of development the city wants to attract with incentives.

“We’re fortunate to hear an application a week from tonight for VenturePark,” Mayor Mike Amyx said at the session. “I think those are the kind of deals we definitely want to be in. If I’m reading the commission right, we’re all supportive of public incentives when it comes to creation of primary jobs. That’s where we’re at.”

Menard representatives have said the campus would create 100 to 150 jobs, and starting wages would average $14.61 per hour. They will offer employees the option for health and dental insurance.

Amyx and Vice Mayor Leslie Soden were part of the eight-member Public Incentives Review Committee that voted unanimously in December to recommend the incentives be approved.

Commissioner Stuart Boley said Jan. 12 that, during his campaign last spring, “the message was crystal clear” from the community that it wanted incentives used primarily for job creation.

Tenant for VenturePark

Commissioner Matthew Herbert, who was most critical of the city’s incentives policies at the Jan. 12 study session, said in an interview Friday that his proposed changes to the policies were aimed more at decreasing what was given to projects such as hotels, not limiting industrial development.

Herbert said there was “vested interest at the city level” to see city-owned VenturePark succeed.

“The location of the Menard site will play a big factor in the use of incentives,” Herbert said. “If that were anywhere else, I think there would be a lot more hesitancy.”

The manufacturing campus will take up about 90 acres of the 200-acre VenturePark, and it would be the site’s first tenant.

Farmland Industries, a now-defunct fertilizer plant, was located at the site before the company went bankrupt in 2004. The city acquired the area in 2010.

Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard told members of the Public Incentives Review Committee that establishment of the Menard plant would create momentum in getting more businesses to VenturePark.

“It is oftentimes a challenge for communities to get that first anchor tenant in a park,” Stoddard said. “So for us to have a tenant with a great name like Menard … it provides us great forward momentum. We’re very excited about the opportunity, from a staff standpoint.”

Environmental questions

Menard Inc.’s previous environmental violations have been mentioned in the incentives process.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued multiple administrative orders against Menard Inc., according to an EPA database of facilities’ enforcement and compliance history.

In 2006, the agency issued an order against the company for damaging a stream in Sioux Falls, S.D., that acts as a tributary of the Big Sioux River.

A report of the incident states Menard Inc. filled 1,350 feet of the stream while constructing a stormwater management system on the site of a new retail location. The area was then paved over and made into a parking lot.

According to the EPA, Menard Inc. agreed to pay a civil penalty of $68,125 and restore 4,000 feet of another creek at a cost of more than $1 million.

Another order fined the company $3,250 for illegally dumping pesticides at a store in Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1997. Distributing unregistered antimicrobial toilet seats cost Menard Inc. nearly $350,000 in 2014, according to the EPA.

Britt Crum-Cano, the city’s economic development coordinator, told the Public Incentives Review Committee in December that she knew “environmental questions have come up in the past.”

She listed some of the steps Menard would be taking environmentally, including producing zero wastewater, reintroducing defective concrete blocks back into the production cycle and using Energy Star-certified roofing, doors and lighting fixtures.

Herbert said he plans to ask Tuesday about what authority the city would have to withdraw incentives if there are environmental issues.

“That’s been a tricky area with Menards in the past,” Herbert said. “There’s concern from the community with the disposal of waste. … Particularly given that it’s the Farmland site, where the city has devoted resources to cleaning up the area, we don’t want to turn around and flush it right back down the toilet again.”

Herbert was referring to the city’s environmental remediation at the site after a covered landfill was found at the location.

What’s next

Douglas County officials are also expected to weigh in Tuesday. On Jan. 13, county commissioners acknowledged receiving a letter inviting their comments at the public hearing.

County commissioners already gave preliminary approval for the county’s $200,000 grant that would go to Menard Inc. over 10 years.

Should the City Commission approve the incentive package, Menard Inc., the city and county will complete a three-way agreement nailing down such things as the number of jobs created and their wage rates. The County Commission must approve that agreement.

Construction on the production plant would start in summer 2016 and would likely be complete in late 2017, said Scott Nuttelman, a real estate representative with Menard, in December.