Emporians recently have opened businesses in Ottawa, which has been in the midst of a steady economic boom since the Wal-Mart Distribution Center opened a warehouse there in 1996.
Bob Clements, who operates Coach’s restaurant here, bought a building in Ottawa and opened the Drivers Sports Cafe in February.
“It’s pretty similar to Coach’s,” Clements said.
Clements said that he looked at the building after hearing that extensive remodeling had been done to open a restaurant. The men who had done the work, however, never opened the business and the building set empty for a time.
Drivers is located at 222 East Logan, north of the downtown area and over the river. Highway 68 runs in front of the restaurant, Clements said.
Jerry McCalla, who owns the Collision Body Carstar company in Emporia, recently purchased an existing Carstar franchise in Ottawa.
McCalla saw the purchase as an opportunity.
“...(T)hat’s a going, good business in an area that’s growing,” McCalla said. “With everything that’s going in that community, that area will have to grow.
“So, it was just a matter of here we are losing people in Emporia and they’re gaining companies that are 300 and 500 people they’ll be bringing to town.”
McCalla said that the Intermodal shipping operation in Gardner is predicted to start with 2,200 trucks a day and later reach as many as 10,000 trucks a day. McCalla is not alone in finding Ottawa an attractive place to do business.
“There are a couple of other (Emporians) looking,” he said. “It is some sweet ground over there.”
The boom begins
There is no doubt that Ottawa is a busy place.
Its population has been growing steadily at about a 6 percent rate for the past five years since its growth spike in the late 1990s, according to Tom Weigand, president and chief executive officer of the Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce.
“We’ve been lucky,” he said with a laugh. “It’s good to be lucky.”
Then he defined “luck”: When work and opportunity come together.
Wal-Mart’s warehouse was only the beginning.
American Eagle came to Ottawa in about 2000 and, after a “little bit of conflict” over needing higher-paying jobs, the company purchased an existing building containing 320,000 square feet, then added another 100,000 square feet.
American Eagle then was a retailer of young adult clothing. The company added several other lines of clothing and recently introduced Eros, a line of ladies’ intimate apparel. The company also added e-commerce to its business plan.
“So, they decided to move all of that to Ottawa and they’re just completing a 541,000-square-foot warehouse,” Weigand said.
The company employs between 500 and 600 people, he said, “and we’re so pleased to have them.”
Ottawa’s easy access to Interstate 35 and its proximity to Kansas City have made it attractive to business.
“It’s kind of getting exciting,” Weigand said. “We always hang by our knuckles. If something bad happens, we could go the other way.”
So far, though, things are going Ottawa’s way.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad’s installation of an intermodal center in nearby Gardner gives manufacturers and warehouse easy access to fast freight that requires no actual handling. The cargo starts its journey in one container and never unloaded until it reaches its destination, no matter what mode of travel is required to get it there. The speed, efficiency and accuracy of intermodal shipping makes it increasingly attractive to shippers as well as receivers.
“Ottawa’s got a great location with the four-lane being built between us and Lawrence, and I-35, and 25 miles from Intermodal,” Weigand said. “Kansas City is billing, promoting itself as an inland port.”
Companies that want to receive and distribute from that “port” will find that Ottawa “can offer them a few more incentives than maybe Gardner will.”
Working together
Incentives are only a portion of the total effort to attract more industry.The Chamber has 330 members and is supported by dues. It receives no monies from either city or county governments. Chambers in cities like Emporia and Topeka are fortunate, he said, with their sales taxes and allocations from governments that give them the ability to buy land, as well as operate with larger staffs and budgets.
But Ottawa’s city and community leaders help.
“I’m a one-man shop but we work very closely with the city and the county, getting the materials all together, making a presentation,” Weigand said. “The past couple of weeks we’ve been just extremely busy.”
The boom has had a snowball effect on retail sales, sales tax receipts and construction.
A $30 million travel plaza is being built near Highway 68 and I-35, and tax incentives were used to encourage the developers. The 40 acres will house the travel plaza, plus a strip mall and a couple of restaurants, he said.
A developer from Lawrence has purchased about 120 acres of land and has approval to begin building houses, though construction has not yet begun. Some of the houses will be smaller “starter” houses and others will be executive homes, he said.
Not all the needed land is available, however. Weigand said that he is working now with a major manufacturer and having “a hard time finding land.” One owner of prime property does not want to sell at any price, so land may not be available until the highway to Lawrence is completed.
In the meantime, retail businesses continue to grow and prosper.
Two new restaurants have opened in downtown Ottawa and a pair of investors spent about $500,000 to renovate the theater to “beautiful condition,” Weigand said.
Business-to-vacancy rate hovers between 85 and 95 percent occupancy, according to P.J. Stephenson, current director of Ottawa Main Street and former administrative assistant for Emporia Main Street.
Stephenson said the downtown area has 115 service and retail businesses.
“I’ve been working really hard to get more retail in,” he said. Plans for a candle shop are underway, and Stephenson is talking with a potential owner-operator of an ice cream store.
“We’ve got some downtown (restaurants) that have just fantastic food,” Stephenson said.
A 12-building medical complex and an assisted living home are underway, too.
Sales tax receipts have spiked, in part because of a half-cent increase that pushed Ottawa’s sales tax rate to 7.9 percent. Wal-Mart’s incentives recently expired and that distribution center has been added to the county tax rolls. Franklin County decreased its mill levy 9 mills last year, Weigand said.
Voters also passed a bond issue — the first since 1951, he said — to construct a building that will house a broad variety of services.
“We’re putting together a community center partnership,” he said. “The library, community college, the Ottawa Recreation Commission, convention and visitors bureau and the YMCA are all going to be partners in a 90,000 square-foot facility, in the same building, so we can get what we all need and share space from time to time.”
The community college will bring technology, the library can manage it and the books; the recreation commission and YMCA will be in charge of athletics, swimming pools, basketball courts; the CVB can supply meeting rooms in the canteen and there’ll be a kitchen to bring in conventions.
“We’re just now getting to the stage where we have the partnership plans and kind of know the space needs,” Weigand said. Community-wide fundraising is just beginning.
“We really like that idea, working together,” he said. “That’s been well-received.”
Phil_Dillon (anonymous) says...
A prominent Emporian faulted me earlier this week as the candidate who "likes" to talk about our low incomes and 21st century jobs. He then went on to talk about shopping Emporia first.
He was wrong about a couple of things. He was wrong about my "liking" to talk about low incomes. I don't like doing it, but it's the only way we're going to ever begin to dig ourselves out of the hole we've dug for ourselves. Denial is no longer an option. We must change!
One of the implications of his statement was that I'm not the type of guy who shops Emporia first. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ask the folks as Sears, Hills Appliance, Guion's. My wife and I purchase appliances and furniture there. Ask the folks at Reeble's. Ask the folks at Flint Hills Music. Ask the folks at the Granada Theatre Alliance if I support downtown development.
The piece Bobbi wrote says a lot about what's going on here. Business people are willing to go as far as Ottawa to find customers. That's another sad fact of life here. Businesses are leaving, disposable income is heading up the highway and the city's current leadership is saying everything is okay. Well, it's not. We need change and I'm committed to that!
March 11, 2007 at 3:11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporia123 (anonymous) says...
Phil,
I listened to Steve Sauder's something to think about and I did not get the impression that he was singling you out as not shopping locally.
I thought the comments were more as a general encouragement to the public - that if we shop locally we all win.
But Phil you seem to throw out that number a lot. It probably needs to be investigated what makes up that number. We might find we have an issue like college workers that alters our comparison number.
Why not dig into what is actually behind the numbers.
March 12, 2007 at 9:12 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Phil_Dillon (anonymous) says...
Anonymous
I have dug into the numbers. Bureau of Labor and Census statistics show that Emporia has low median household incomes, which inhibits retail. I've said alll along that before we can think of more retail, we need to bring in more disposable incomes. That means 21st century jobs paying 21st century wages.
March 12, 2007 at 5:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )