Panasonic battery project likely to create major demand for growth in Eudora, Lawrence, leaders say

photo by: Mike Yoder

The former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, south of Kansas Highway 10 at De Soto. The redevelopment includes more than 6,000 acres that ultimately can be redeveloped.

About a century ago, Wichita began to learn what being in on the ground floor of the aviation industry could do for an economy. Now, there are predictions Douglas County and the surrounding area may soon experience a similar boom by being an early player in the electric vehicle industry.

“I don’t think the idea of how much potential there is for growth is really understood by the public yet,” Eudora Mayor Tim Reazin said as Panasonic Corp. announced Wednesday that it plans to build a $4 billion battery plant for electric vehicles in De Soto, which is only about 5 miles from Eudora and the Douglas County line.

But Reazin thinks he knows a place that could help paint a picture — the popular video game Sim City, where cities experience boomtown growth all the time.

“Is this a Sim City situation?” Reazin said of the prospects of Eudora, an eastern Douglas County community of about 6,400 people currently. “What happens if we double in population? How do we work with the schools? How do we prepare infrastructure?”

The questions have much higher stakes than any video game at this point, following Wednesday’s long-awaited announcement. For months, it has been speculated that Panasonic was the mystery company behind a more than $1 billion incentive package that was approved by the Kansas Legislature for an unnamed company and its megaproject. At the same time, speculation continually grew that De Soto and the site of the former Sunflower Army Ammunition plant would house the new project.

Both pieces of speculation ended up being accurate, but the long-talked-about job figure for the project actually ended up being more than what has commonly been discussed. The project had long been described as a $4 billion project that would produce 4,000 jobs. But Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday highlighted that the project is expected to attract a host of suppliers that need to be near Panasonic, and those companies are likely to produce an additional 4,000 jobs.

Then, there are the construction jobs to build the $4 billion facility. The state is estimating that number at 16,500 jobs. That’s potentially a lot of new residents coming to the region, looking for places to live near their new worksite. Not all of them will end up in De Soto.

“All the way into east Lawrence,” Reazin said as he contemplated the future growth pattern. “I think there is potential for quite a bit of growth along K-10. The idea of Lawrence growing only to the west is going to change.”

Steve Kelly, vice president of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corporation of Lawrence and Douglas County, said the Douglas County area will have opportunities to land both businesses and new residential housing as part of the project.

A longtime executive with the Kansas Department of Commerce before serving Lawrence, Steve Kelly said the only other Kansas project that seems analogous to the Panasonic deal — the governor said it is the largest in the state’s history by dollar amount — is the development of Wichita as the Air Capital of the World.

“It is basically going to build a new industry,” Steve Kelly said.

That won’t come without its challenges. Housing affordability already has been an issue in Lawrence, as real estate agents have expressed concern that there is a woeful shortage of available homes, which is driving up prices.

“I do think this project pushes the whole discussion (of affordable housing) up another level in terms of importance and priority,” Steve Kelly said.

He said he expects the impact to stretch far beyond the eastern side of Lawrence. With the planned expansion of the South Lawrence Trafficway, he said western Lawrence and other parts of the county will be desirable locations for people employed by the plant. He said the Panasonic project could increase the urgency for the state to complete the expansion of the SLT to four lanes, a project which is in the design phase currently.

Reazin said Eudora has been monitoring the prospects for the Panasonic project for a while and made some early decisions. That includes purchasing property for a new water treatment plant that will allow for greater water capacity for homes in the community. The city already has a commercial development in the works on its main thoroughfare — Church Street — that has shovel-ready lots for new businesses.

In addition, Eudora leaders have been in discussion with residential developers about their interest in additional residential construction, which is strong. Johnson County-based Prime Development owns 100-plus acres on the west edge of Eudora that could accommodate a few hundred residential units. Lawrence developer Roger Johnson also has been an active residential developer in Eudora over the last several years.

But Reazin said there will be challenges as the community decides how it wants to expand. While the community has lots of undeveloped land around it, there may be mixed feelings on how it should develop.

“The challenge is we are still really a farming community around us,” he said.

Reazin said community members also are going to want to learn a lot more about the project that will be just down the road. That will include everything from its exact location on the huge Sunflower Army Ammunition site to hazmat response plans for the plant and the materials it uses to produce the batteries.

“They are going to want to know what is going on just a few miles from town,” Reazin said of the public.

Steve Kelly said Eudora and Lawrence also will want to be mindful of opportunities beyond residential construction. Lawrence has VenturePark with multiple industrial and warehouse sites available for development. Eudora also has a business park, and land that also could be developed for such uses.

Steve Kelly said the spinoff companies that likely will develop around the plant will be significant and could be great projects to attract. The University of Kansas also may benefit. Chancellor Douglas Girod spoke at the announcement in Topeka on Wednesday and vowed that KU would be a strong partner with Panasonic to produce a high-quality workforce for the facility.

Gov. Laura Kelly said the Panasonic project would produce high-quality jobs, with the overall project expected to add $500 million a year in income to the area.

How much change it will produce for the region is a metric that likely hasn’t been determined yet. But Reazin said residents in the area should start preparing for it.

“I think everybody needs to know that it is going to happen,” Reazin said of growth in the region. “We either get ahead of it, or we get way behind it.”

Steve Kelly said he thinks in Lawrence there are varying levels of knowledge among the public about the project. It has been discussed publicly many times — the governor told the Journal-World last week that she expected an announcement very soon on the megaproject. But still, the magnitude of the news likely has caught some by surprise.

“I think there are some people aware of it, but I think there are quite a few that probably don’t have a deep understanding of it,” Steve Kelly said. “I think they are going to learn a lot more about it pretty quickly.”

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