| Both size and significance were involved in May when Burl-ington Northern Santa Fe Railway finalized their land purchase and pre-development agreements for an intermodal hub and logistics park near Gardner. Named Logistics Park–Kansas City, the facility will be BNSF’s third such operation. The company’s current, 45-acre facility in Kansas City, Kan., will be closed when the Gardner facility is complete. A San Diego-based industrial developer, the Allen Group, was given exclusive rights to buy and develop 579 acres of the 997-acre site. BNSF will retain the remaining 418 acres for its intermodal facility, planned for a 2009 opening. The Group will also build approximately seven million square feet of warehousing and distribution center space on the site. Over the next 20 years, Logistics Park– Kansas City is expected to attract a $1 billion investment and create 13,000 jobs. Its sales generation in that time is expected to be approximately $30 billion. In June, a somewhat parallel move occurred when the city of Kansas City and the Port Authority of Kansas City sold the former Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport to CenterPoint Properties of Chicago for $10 million. The move cleared the way for CenterPoint to turn the 1,400-acre site into a $200 million industrial park and transportation hub. The first buildings will be constructed in 2008. The site ultimately could generate more than 3,000 jobs. Local Impact Other deals with local impact were evident on several leves. In terms of sheer size, the most notable may be the pending Great Plains Energy Inc. purchase of Aquila Inc. for $1.7 billion. Shareholders for both companies voted approval of the transactions in October. The transaction was expected to be complete in early 2008. The complex contract called for Aquila to sell its electric operations in Colorado and gas utilities in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa to Black Hills Corp. of Rapid City, S.D., for $940 million in cash. Proceeds from that transaction will be used to finance a cash payment due to Aquila shareholders from the sale of the remainder of the company to Great Plains. The pancake chain IHOP Inc. in November completed its purchase of Applebee’s International Inc. The local restaurant chain was sold for approximately $2 billion. Applebee’s was scheduled to move into a new Lenexa headquarters early in 2008. Although that move was endorsed by the new owners, it appears that those taking up residence there will not include a dozen of Applebee’s former executives, who will leave the company once the transfer of ownership is complete. Late in 2007, Quintiles Transnational Corporation agreed to a $3 billion purchase from an investment group led by Bain Capital and TPG Capital. Based in Durham, N.C., Quintiles is the world’s largest provider of services to the pharmaceutical industry, with annual revenue in excess of $2 billion. The Kansas City area houses Quintiles’ second-largest U.S. operation. Located in Overland Park, the site is expected to employ 1,000 by early 2008. Construction Briarcliff’s Development Company solidified its role as one of the area’s most dramatic projects with an agreement to bring the area’s first Marriott Renaissance Hotel to the upscale North-land property. The effort is part of a $50 million plan that includes hotel and an office building. An even larger transaction involved an addition to the Bass Pro Shop development in Independence. Although the Bass Pro development had been under way for two years, the addition of a 5,800-seat arena to the mix raised the visibility of that development considerably and has turned that area into one of the metropolitan’s hottest retail corridors. Also involved is the adjacent, $117-million Stone Canyon development. A number of deals involved local companies making purchases outside the area. Kansas City-based Inergy LP in October completed three acquisitions, purchasing Arlington Storage Corporation and the propane assets of two other companies. Arlington owns two natural gas storage facilities in New York state. The other purchases involved DeCock Bottled Gas & Appliance Inc., based in Escanaba, Mich., and Riverside Gas & Oil Inc., based in Chestertown, N.Y. Garmin Ltd. completed several agreements that are projected to strengthen the Olathe-based technology company. Several of the agreements involved a string of acquisitions to boost Garmin’s presence in Europe, including purchases of former distributors in Denmark, Spain, Germany and France. Cerner’s success continued with a number of contracts and agreements in 2007, including a nine-year agreement for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The contract will allow the VA to utilize Cerner’s laboratory information system in more than 150 hospitals and 800 clinics in the VA system. Rockhill Holding Co. of Kansas City in December completed purchase of RTW Inc. for $67.6 million. Rockhill is a private insurance holding company, while RTW in Bloomington, Minn., pro- vides services to manage insurance and self-insured workers’ programs. RTW will retain its name. Finally, in the category of Not-Yet-a-Deal-But-Will-Be-Huge-When-it-is-a-Deal is the competition for a casino in Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas. Proposals have been submitted by Las Vegas Sands Corp.; Pinnacle Entertainment; Kansas Speedway and the Cordish Co.; and RED Development with partners Olympia Gaming and the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. Golden Gaming has proposed a casino in Edwardsville and Bonner Springs. AutoMotive Several auto-related developments occurred in 2007 as well. In December, Johnson Controls Seating Systems LLC announced that it will lease a 76,000-square-foot building in the Northland Business Park in Kansas City. The move allows Johnson to better supply seats for Ford’s F-150 trucks and could bring up to 180 jobs. Earlier, employees at Ford Motor Co.’s Claycomo plant ratified a new four-year local contract, supplementing the nation-al agreement that was approved in 2007. The plant has about 4,300 union workers. Ford also announced a $400 million paint shop expansion at the Claycomo plant, making it likely local workers will help build a new SUV in 2009 or 2010. These developments came on the heels of an announcement in late 2006 that General Motors would be investing $208 million in the Fairfax Assembly plant to prepare the facility for production of the all-new 2008 Chevrolet Malibu. Some deals of 2007 were essentially personnel moves, but their potential impact makes them worthy of note. Sprint Nextel named Dan Hesse as its chief executive officer, replacing Gary Forsee, who resigned as chairman and chief executive. In another, managers of Walton Construction Co. LLC agreed to buy the remaining interest of the company, the final step in a succession plan of founder and Chairman Greg Walton. The University of Kansas Hospital, the University of Kansas Medical Center and Kansas University Physicians Inc. reached a new agreement to give doctors and the medical center more support. It includes the hospital spending about $70 million on an office building for doctors and funding for 100 new residents. More traditionally, Black-well Sanders LLP and Husch & Eppenberger LLC merged in late 2007. The combined firm, which as yet has not been renamed, became Missouri’s second-largest law firm, with about 630 lawyers. Practice areas will focus on business services as well as litigation and dispute resolution. Offices are located in Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield and Jefferson City, Missouri; Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska; Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee; Peoria and Belleville, Illinois; Overland Park, Kansas; Washington, D.C.; and London, U.K. Financial Fusion A large number of 2007 agreements involved area banks. Commerce Bancshares was involved in several acquisitions. In March, the organization purchased South Tulsa Financial Corporation for an estimated $27.3 million. South Tulsa is the parent company of Bank South. The purchase gave Commerce an additional $129 mil-lion in assets and added two full-service banking centers to Commerce’s net-work, their first in Oklahoma. Columbian Financial Corp. of Over-land Park in March paid an estimated $15.5 million for The Bank in Weatherford, Texas. The financial group owns Columbian Bank and Trust Co., which is based in Topeka and has three locations in Johnson County and one in Lee’s Summit. In May, Central Bancompany Inc. of Jefferson City purchased Overland Park-based Metcalf Bank. In July, Commerce Bank completed purchase of Commerce Bank of Denver for $29.5 million. That purchase added $100.9 million in assets and is the first location in Colorado for Commerce. Commerce owns 260 Commerce Bank locations in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado. Earlier in the year, IronStone Bank of Florida announced plans to open Kansas City branches in Overland Park and Kansas City, on College Boulevard and the Country Club Plaza. With assets of more than $2 billion, IronStone emphasizes long-term services for business owners and professionals. Overland Park-based Hillcrest Bancshares in June purchased SunBridge Capital Inc., a heavy-equipment leasing company located in Mission. SunBridge finances commercial trucks, trailers and construction equipment throughout the United States. While not finalized, Overland Park-based 1st Financial Bank in December announced plans to open a branch in Columbus Park near Downtown. The move would help serve Downtown’s growing residential population as well as commuters and others traveling I-70, I-35 and Highway 9. The office would be the bank’s fourth branch and second in Missouri. Honorable Mention Though not business deals in the traditional sense, several developments should be noted because of their implications. One decision with far-reaching implications occurred when voters in Independence and Kansas City approved a change of school district boundaries. The vote effectively moved seven schools from the Kansas City to the Independence School District. Approved in the November election, the move is likely to impact everything from real estate values to the future of the Kansas City district. The $245 million, six-lane Paseo Bridge replacement is more than just significant in its impact on the local economy, inasmuch as it is a major gateway to and from the north parts of the region. Details including a squabble with the FAA over the height of the bridge have been resolved. The winning proposal is visually stunning which will also change the landscape of the northern gateway to downtown. A deal in reverse might be the description for Seaboard Corporation’s $30 million repurchase of a portion of its interest in Seaboard Foods LP from former owners. Seaboard also purchased Daily’s Foods for $45 million. Based in Merriam, Seaboard is an international agribusiness and transportation company. An agreement that didn’t appear in 2007 was the sale of City Center Square, which was marketed beginning in late 2006. The third-largest office structure in downtown Kansas City; Time Equities Inc. of New York purchased the building for $32 million in 2004. Finally, in a good illustration of how small the world has become, Overland Park-based YRC Worldwide Inc. announced a $75 million purchase of one of China’s largest trucking firms.
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