Wichita’s proposed $25.9 million Topgolf would get $10.2 million in state incentives
After a series of false starts over the last five years, northeast Wichita may finally get the multi-million-dollar golf entertainment complex that developers have agreed to build with the help of state incentives.
The Wichita City Council will now consider green-lighting a $25,874,000 Topgolf facility — $10.2 million of which would be funded by state incentives. Sales tax revenue bonds, or STAR bonds, are designed to be used for tourist attractions that draw new money into the state.
Construction on the Topgolf facility would begin in April 2022 and be completed by March 2023, according to the amended development proposal that the council will review on Tuesday. The proposal calls for “a minimum two-story, fifty-bay interactive golf and entertainment experience facility.”
The Kansas Department of Commerce has the ultimate say in whether the proposed Topgolf facility meets the requirement of the golf and entertainment experience that developers have promised.
Dallas-based Topgolf Entertainment Group announced in March 2020 that it would bring a scaled-down version of its interactive driving range concept to Wichita. Details were never finalized publicly, and developers blamed COVID-19 when construction didn’t begin last spring.
In the new proposal, Topgolf would partner with the Missouri developer behind BigShots, a similar golf entertainment company. BigShots developer Tim O’Reilly closed on several lots at the southeast corner of 29th and Greenwich last September.
“The golf amenity itself will be a Topgolf facility, but the BigShots development group will be involved with the rest of the 22-acre parcel,” Assistant City Manager Scot Rigby said Thursday.
Wichita Destination Development has already received $4 million in STAR bonds for land acquisition. The developers are now seeking roughly $6 million in state incentives that have already been earmarked for development around the golf facility.
“There was an allocation of STAR bonds. They just couldn’t access the full amount until they actually brought forth a golf amenity,” Rigby said. “Now they’re going after the final amount, which is the $6 million, to actually develop this site.”
Kansas Secretary of State documents filed in 2019 name Michael Boyd as president of Wichita Destination Developers.
Rigby said the golf facility will “further drive visitor activity” in the K-96 & Greenwich STAR Bond District, which already supports two multi-sport complexes: the Wichita Sports Forum & Aviate Extreme and the Stryker Sports Complex.
“It provides an opportunity for us to expose Wichita to individuals who may have never been to Wichita, or may have had a certain idea about Wichita,” Rigby said.
Last March, Topgolf Entertainment Group CEO Dolf Berle said the Wichita concept was “designed to connect the local community and create lasting memories.”
“Everything from the venue décor to the Americana-style menu items captures the Topgolf energy people know and love,” Berle said. “We look forward to having both golfers and non-golfers alike visit and enjoy the venue in their own way — whether it is listening to live music by the firepit, hitting golf balls into the outfield or simply having a great time socializing with friends and family.”
STAR bonds
According to an independent feasibility study commissioned by Wichita Destination Developers in 2016, the golf entertainment amenity would draw an estimated 210,000 visitors in its first year of operation, including 52,000 people from out of state.
It’s almost impossible to track whether STAR bond projects are successful in drawing in the level of tourist activity that they advertise. The state doesn’t require cities to keep those statistics, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Commerce told The Eagle in 2019.
In the past 20 years, Kansas has awarded more than half a billion dollars in STAR bonds. Riverfront Stadium, Wichita’s freshly opened Double-A ballpark, got $40 million in incentives.
The Kansas City Star’s 2019 analysis of STAR bonds found a pattern of overpromising and under-delivering on revenue and tourism. In the article, Kansas Sen. Molly Baumgardner (R-Louisburg) called STAR bonds “the ultimate pork project.”
After a STAR bond district is created, any sales tax generated by new development is pumped back into future development in the district. That sales tax money would have normally been collected by the state and used on programs and services, like schools, health care, prisons and higher education.
When the K-96 & Greenwich STAR Bond District was approved by the secretary of commerce in 2013, there was no base sales tax because the land was empty. That means every penny of sales tax generated by new development in the district is eligible to be diverted for the sake of future development.
But Rigby said this is a good deal for Wichita because it doesn’t involve the city giving any of its own incentives.
“These are state funds approved by the state,” he said.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 7:08 PM.