Shawnee council enters agreement to upgrade intersection

The Shawnee City Council came to a decision to enter a development agreement with Amazon and Airtex Inc. on Monday.

Included in the agreement are approved roadway improvement to an intersection located near the WestLink Business Center at Kansas Highway 7 and 43rd Street.

Under the agreement, the city will be reimbursed for $500,000 in roadway improvements east of the K-7 and 43rd Street intersection, where the online retailer plans to grow its footprint with an under-construction 170,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution building.

Workers plan to complete these upgrades alongside others planned separately west of the intersection, where engineering and construction firm Burns & McDonnell plans to build Heartland Logistics Park, a $90 million development that could support as much as 2 million square feet of Class A industrial space.

Those intersection improvements are to include new turn lanes, an acceleration lane on southbound K-7 and traffic signals, according to a March agreement among the city, Burns & McDonnell and the Kansas Department of Transportation.

Once complete, the improvements will accommodate increases in industrial traffic expected both at WestLink Business Center and Heartland Logistics Park, the latter of which was projected in June to support 1,500 to 2,000 new area jobs.