At the monthly virtual presentation hosted by the CCIM Kansas City chapter last Friday, Corey Walker, senior vice president with Platform Ventures, offered insight about the I-49 Industrial Center.

Platform Ventures purchased approximately 180 acres of the development, located on the site of the former Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, from CenterPoint Properties in July 2019. The air force base was decommissioned and closed in 1999.

After the decommission, Kansas City Southern, Port KC and CenterPoint each acquired a portion of the property. CenterPoint commenced developing a business park in 2007 named CenterPoint Intermodal Center. CenterPoint, headquartered in Illinois, left the Kansas City market in 2019.

Walker said that at the time Platform Ventures acquired the development, CenterPoint had developed approximately one-third of the property and had leases with Walmart, Honeywell, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Sioux Chief Manufacturing and Niagara Bottling LLC.

Walker said Platform Ventures is in the process of adding approximately 60 acres of adjacent land to the industrial park.

Platform Ventures recently completed a rebranding of the site, renaming it I-49 Industrial Center. CBRE is assisting with marketing strategy.

“We thought it needed a fresh makeover,” Walker said.

“The remaining land has a potential for another 2 million SF of Class-A industrial warehouse space and that number could go north with a lot of the tenants that we’re seeing. They have a footprint that they’re now wanting mezzanine structures and potentially multi-floors within the facility which will add to the square footage,” said Walker.

Walker said Platform Ventures was attracted to the site because of the extensive infrastructure already in place, including roads, utilities and adjacent rail, as well as a great labor market.

“As part of our strategy with the multimodal concept, we really wanted to work with our neighbors, especially Kansas City Southern, so we’ve been working with them in concert now for really over a year to figure out ways to really maximize the opportunities for multimodal,” Walker said.

Platform Ventures currently is working on a 366,000-SF, spec building designed for up to four tenants.

“It’s tilt-up concrete, 36 foot clear height ceilings. We’re in the design and entitlement process on that. We’re pretty excited about some of the interest we’re starting to receive on just some of the initial discussions we’ve had,” Walker said.

Platform Ventures also is working with Kansas City Southern on a 300,000 SF bulk freight multimodal distribution facility on the site, with approximately 200,000 SF of outdoor space. The rail line actually goes into the building and into the storage yard.

“Semis and trucks come in the other side and take the product out to the region,” Walker said.

Walker said that Platform Ventures is working with a Fortune 500 company, and the facility is in the final entitlement stages and in design development.

“Both of these projects are moving forward but have a lot of wood to chop, but hopefully if things go well, maybe we’ll start moving dirt in Q1 of 2021,” said Walker.

Walker said activity has been very strong at the park. Platform Ventures has been proactive in pursuing large build-to-suit tenants, but they also want to have square footage available for smaller tenants and tenants requiring shorter build out time frames.

Walker said that Platform Ventures is “fairly bullish” going into 2021, particularly in light of the heavy demand for industrial space in the Kansas City area and the low vacancy rates for industrial space.

“There’s just not a lot of sites in town that can support 500 to 1 million SF industrial facilities so that bodes well for our project,” he said.