Absolute Natural Stones forced to move a second time for Kellogg expansion

Nazir and Ammar Jesri said they understood when they had to move their Absolute Natural Stones business last year to make way for the Kellogg expansion and that the city was fair to them.

It was a lot to move 1,000 pallets of rocks and stones – more than 1,133 tons – from just west of Greenwich on East Kellogg to just east of it by Lowe’s. But Nazir Jesri said he and his brother were excited to open at the new property on Nov. 7.

“We thought this was a good home to retire out of,” he said.

Four days later, he said, appraisers, real estate specialists and officials with the Kansas Turnpike Authority arrived at the business and said it would have to move again to make way for a turnpike ramp.

“Sorry about that, but the highway plans changed … and they’re going right here,” he quoted them as saying.

“I think I had some words I don’t normally use.”

State officials said the plan always was for the business to move. The Jesris said that’s not the case.

“We did not move in to move out,” Nazir Jesri said.

The bottom line is Absolute Natural Stones has to go. Again.

The question is, where, when and how much will the Jesris receive from the state to move?

Turnpike spokeswoman Rachel Bell said she thinks timing is what’s at issue.

“It’s not that the designs necessarily changed out there, it’s that we expedited the project,” she said.

“When they moved, we had not yet been brought into the project.”

Bell said that with the state’s involvement, the expansion will be completed all the way to K-96 in about the time it would have taken the city to expand only as far as Greenwich.

“It’s going to be a little bit better from the driver’s standpoint because we’re going to get all of the pain out of the way early,” she said.

Regardless of when the expansion happened, Bell said she thinks the Jesris would have been affected.

“Chances are, they would have had to move at some point in the future,” she said.

John Philbrick, the city’s real estate administrator, said the expansion plans did change and now call for a ramp through the Absolute Natural Stones building. He said it was always likely that the Jesris would be affected in some way, though.

“I think the real crux … is the change in timing,” he said.

Philbrick said that under previous plans, the Jesris would have lost a certain amount of acreage and also potentially would have been landlocked because of the loss of an access road, which would be eliminated with the expansion. He said the brothers could have acquired some secondary access.

“What we knew is what the city had planned,” Nazir Jesri said.

He said he and his brother knew they would have to probably give back as much as six acres of their land whenever the highway expanded, and they were OK with that.

Jesri said state officials know that the plan changed, and that it’s eating at him that some of them say he and his brother knew all along that they would have to move.

“They keep bringing it up,” Ammar Jesri said. “It’s a … misleading statement.”

Nazir Jesri isn’t as politic in how he puts it, though his brother cautions him to be.

“Someone is lying,” he said. “I call it as it is.”

‘Insulting’ offer

Regardless of who thought what, Absolute Natural Stones has to move.

When and where – or how much money the Jesris will receive to do so – is unclear.

Nazir Jesri said the state’s first offer for the property was “insulting.”

The second “was still a joke,” Ammar Jesri said.

The state and the Jesris are about $2 million apart on what they think the land is worth, Nazir Jesri said.

Not having the money or knowing the amount is another issue, Ammar Jesri said.

“They’re really putting a lot of financial stress on us,” he said. “How can we go shop for land?”

Nazir Jesri said he thinks it’s the government’s way of saving money. He said the attitude is that “we know you gotta take it or you’ll be dead.”

“We’re at the bullying stage right now,” he said.

On Monday, Jesri said the Sedgwick County District Court condemned the land and assigned three appraisers to value it. There are other business owners along Kellogg in the same position.

“There are a couple out there that we have not been able to agree upon a fair price,” KTA’s Bell said.

The Jesris are unique, though, in that this is their second time around, and they have so much product to move.

“And we just moved in,” Nazir Jesri said.

He said he and his brother are hopeful about the money, even though they say it likely still won’t be enough to cover the costs of the property, moving and lost business.

Once the money is settled, there’s still the matter of timing.

Nazir Jesri said he and his brother have been told to be gone by the end of the year at the latest, though he said they need at least a year to find land, plat and rezone it, build on it and then, once again, move the rocks.

Jesri said someone from the state suggested they store their inventory – he said the state pays for up to a year of storage – while they look for new space.

“You want me to pack this business and put it in storage for up to a year?” he said he asked.

“They don’t care if you stay in business or not,” Jesri said. “They just want you out of the way. … You just need to go.”

Let’s go

Chanda Jesri, Nazir Jesri’s wife, said their family should leave Kansas.

“Let’s just get up and go to a different state,” she’s said to her husband multiple times.

“You read about different states, how welcoming they are for small business,” Nazir Jesri said.

He has a list of headaches he has encountered doing business here, yet he said he wants to stay.

Chanda Jesri is a Wichita native – her great-grandfather Orie Johnson started Johnson’s Garden Centers – but Nazir and Ammar Jesri are from Syria.

The brothers came here to go to school. They abandoned plans to return to Syria after they married and became naturalized American citizens.

Nazir Jesri has seven children; Ammar Jesri has nine.

The brothers said they hoped to build new houses for all those kids but haven’t had the time, energy or money to do it with how much flux they’ve been in.

Nazir Jesri said their money is tied up in their business property. He said their attorney talked to an attorney with the state to see whether the brothers could receive an advance on at least part of their money so they could find new property for their business. He said he was told that it wasn’t possible because plans could change.

“So it’s OK for me to be in limbo, but not the state?” Jesri said. “So it’s OK for me to be waiting on you?”

He said his businesses – the stone company, True Value Rental, My RV Timeshare, Auction House, BidKansas.com and Remodeling Team – also have been in limbo.

“We planned on doing a lot more,” Jesri said of building a new 12,000-square-foot building and hiring about 10 employees.

With all the uncertainty, he said he and his brother decided not to do either.

“How can you?”

Ammar Jesri shook his head, then held it in disgust over the situation.

Nazir Jesri questioned what to do.

“We pack and go to another state? I don’t know.”

Mayor Jeff Longwell said no one has approached him about Absolute Natural Stones having to move twice. He said he only learned about the situation from The Eagle, but he said, “We deeply care about all of our businesses, especially many of our small businesses, and we work hard to treat people fairly.”

Nazir Jesri said he likes Wichita and doesn’t want to leave even though he’s frustrated with the state.

“This is home, home,” he said. “Syria is home by birth, but Wichita is home by choice.”

This story was originally published July 4, 2015 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Absolute Natural Stones forced to move a second time for Kellogg expansion."