Economic development group promotes industrial site by Wichita Mid-Continent Airport

Economic development leaders have a new property to market – 600 acres of land adjacent to Wichita Mid-Continent Airport – at the world’s largest business aviation show in Orlando this week.

It’s called Skyway Industrial Park.

The large company or companies that land there will have runway access.

The Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition bought an option for about 460 acres west of the airport next to land already owned by the Wichita Airport Authority.

The coalition is promoting the idea of a mega-industrial site to potential prospects during this week’s National Business Aviation Association’s annual convention.

The large site can be developed in stages.

A suitable user of property that large, however, comes along infrequently, said coalition president Tim Chase.

“We usually get some kind of wind of something like that once a year,” Chase said. “Like any of our projects, you have to answer a large number of questions, and you have to answer them in a matter of days.”

One of those questions is who controls the site and whether it’s for sale.

“In the past, we’ve had to scramble in an attempt to answer that question,” Chase said. “Now, we can not only answer the question when we are asked, but we can be proactive and go out and offer up the idea to prospective large-scale users.”

The coalition won’t develop the land ahead of getting a user for it, he said. But it can be developed for a large, single user or several users.

With a site of that size, “we haven’t had folks clamoring to knock down our door,” Chase said. “It’s going to take a very remarkable project to come along. It’s more about getting ready in anticipation of that than it is you’ve got a high demand with a bunch of customers clamoring for it.”

The coalition’s option for the acreage, now owned by John Dugan, expires at the end of the year, Chase said.

It’s too soon to say whether that will be extended.

Those that need smaller sites have ample choices around the region, he said. And one that the coalition is also promoting is Sunflower Commerce Park in Bel Aire. It’s a well-developed site and soon will have rail access, officials said.

Maize recently entered into an agreement with a company to buy a large parcel of land with the intention of developing the infrastructure for the business and to possibly develop a business park as well.

Other nearby communities also have industrial or business parks, and there are several developers with parcels that are good for industrial use all around Wichita, he said.

Coalition officials are meeting with a variety of aviation companies during this week’s show. Many are Wichita-area companies.

They said they have had more meetings than they had expected. Some, they said, were scheduled, but others were impromptu.

This story was originally published October 22, 2014 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Economic development group promotes industrial site by Wichita Mid-Continent Airport."