WSU Innovation Campus developer seeks up to $33 million in IRBs for new NetApp site

Six years after first announcing it would partner with Wichita State University and move onto its Innovation Campus, NetApp is finally doing it.

Innovation Campus developer MWCB LLC is seeking up to $33 million in industrial revenue bonds to build a 168,000-square-foot Wichita headquarters for the global data storage and cloud management company.

NetApp would move from its current location at 37th and Rock Road — which MWCB is buying with plans for redeveloping it — to the northwest corner of 17th and Oliver.

The Wichita City Council will consider the IRB request on Tuesday.

According to the city staff report in advance of the meeting, NetApp would lease the space from MWCB and plans to invest about $17 million in equipment and improvements to the building. The bonds won’t fund the equipment.

No one with NetApp could immediately be reached for comment, but the company reports to the city that it has 628 Wichita employees, 128 of whom are contract employees, and will hire at least 70 more in the next decade. At least 45 of those will come in the next five years. The average benefits package, including wages, for those employees is more than $100,000.

NetApp started in 1992 and is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

According to the city staff report, NetApp is moving to campus to foster a relationship with the engineering school through research and development.

In 2014, NetApp first announced its plans with WSU and was supposed to be the first tenant on the Innovation Campus. That didn’t happen, and several other businesses came first, including Airbus, Spirit AeroSystems and Dassault Systemes.

In a letter to the mayor and City Council, MWCB managing member Ivan Crossland Jr. wrote: “The Project will incorporate modern construction design and materials to accommodate the high technology use of the Project and to increase energy and workplace efficiencies.”

Look for more information as it’s available.

This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 10:51 AM.