photo by: Shawn F. Linenberger/Tonganoxie Mirror

Area residents look on during Monday’s Tonganoxie City Council meeting. The council approved an initial agreement with Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc., to build a 300,000 square-foot manufacturing site for wet pet food at Tonganoxie Business Park.

TONGANOXIE — A $250 million pet food facility billed as Leavenworth County’s largest capital manufacturing investment gained initial approval Monday in Tonganoxie.

The Hill’s Pet Nutrition plant is a proposed site of at least 300,000 square feet for manufacturing of wet pet food products.

Tonganoxie City Council members unanimously approved authorization of a development agreement with Hill’s that includes a 10-year 100% tax abatement and an elevated water tower. The city of Tonganoxie will cover the $2 million price tag of the water tower under the agreement.

In return, Hill’s will purchase an average minimum of 3 million gallons of water a month and will make its “best efforts to ensure that at least 20% of the workforce will be Tonganoxie residents.” The company is expected to generate 80 new jobs in the coming years, and the average salary for those jobs would be just more than $60,000. The minimum water purchase requirement also is expected to cover any debt service incurred for the tower.

Hill’s announced Friday its intent to invest $250 million in a new factory in Leavenworth County about 40 miles from its global headquarters in Topeka.

Additional steps will need to take place in the coming weeks for the project to come to fruition, including a preliminary development plan and a plat at the July 1 planning commission meeting. After that, the council will need to consider those plans and a final plat and hold a public hearing to consider an economic development exemptions tax abatement.

According to a release from Hill’s, the Kansas company chose the site based on location, access to workforce, a strong and welcoming community and proximity to distributors and suppliers.

Jesper Nordengaard, president of Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a division of the Colgate-Palmolive Company, gave a presentation during Monday’s council meeting.

He spoke of the company’s history dating back nearly 80 years and showed a company video highlighting the company’s products and its charitable and environmental sustainability efforts. Initial renderings of the project also gave more specific information about the project at Tonganoxie Business Park.

Steve Ashley, a former member of Tonganoxie Planning Commission, voiced concerns about the project, including that the news of the project was only announced a few days earlier. He said it was reminiscent of a plan that was announced a few years ago for Tyson Foods to build a poultry processing facility south of Tonganoxie. He also worried that many jobs would be well below the average salary that Hill’s officials cited.

City Manager George Brajkovic said the Tonganoxie school district and the state would still receive 20 mills and 1.5 mills annually during the 10-year tax abatement through hold-harmless provisions. Brajkovic estimated that would translate to $2 million in taxes for the school district during the coming decade, though he stressed that was just a projection.

In a news release Friday, Gov. Laura Kelly weighed in on the proposed plant and the importance of attracting animal health businesses to northeast Kansas. The area along I-70 from Manhattan to Columbia, Mo. is sometimes known as the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor, and it contains 300 companies that represent 56% of total worldwide animal health, diagnostics and pet food sales according to the corridor’s website.

“With our central location, talented workforce and reputation as a global leader in animal health and science, our partnership with Hill’s is a no-brainer,” Kelly said.

The factory would be the second tenant at the Tonganoxie Business Park, which spans 135 acres roughly 2.5 miles north of I-70.

Chicago-based Unilock, an outdoor landscaping company offering products such as pavers, outdoor fireplaces and grills, built a facility at the park after agreeing on a contract with the city in 2018. Unilock covers 34 acres at the business park. Though not part of the business park, a 31,600-square-foot Army Reserve Center stands to the west across U.S. Highway 24-40 on 19 acres. It was completed in 2018.

The project, if all steps are approved, is expected to begin later this year and be completed by 2023.

“This looks like a fantastic smart-growth project for our community,” Tonganoxie Mayor David Frese said. “It checks a bunch of the right boxes. A Kansas company; an environmentally up-to-date facility; a manageable influx of new neighbors; great jobs that pay well; high-tech opportunities for our young people; the possibility of attracting more business to Tonganoxie; and a boon to the city’s economy.”

Hill’s expects to have 80 employees at the facility by 2025.

The pet food company currently has manufacturing sites in Topeka and Emporia, as well as Bowling Green, Ky., and Richmond, Ind.

“We are thrilled to welcome a quality company like Hill’s Pet Nutrition to Tonganoxie,” said Steve Jack, executive director with the Leavenworth County Development Corporation. “This project will represent the largest capital investment ever made by a manufacturer in Leavenworth County.”

The announcement comes nearly four years after Tyson Foods and then-Gov. Sam Brownback announced plans for a $320 million poultry plant that was expected to employ 1,600 people. The Arkansas-based company eventually put the plant on hold amid backlash from local residents that grabbed national attention, and it finally announced that it would not be pursuing the project in Tonganoxie any further. Since then, the poultry company found a new site — the city of Humboldt in western Tennessee. That city has a population of about 8,000, and Tyson announced in April that it planned to build a $425 million poultry facility there.

• Shawn F. Linenberger is editor at The Mirror newspaper in Tonganoxie.