Not many will argue against attracting a new business to Emporia, but some will argue the issue of where that business should be located.
On Tuesday night, the Emporia-Lyon County Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will decide whether or not to modify the future land use map of the comprehensive plan to allow for rezoning of land north of 24th Avenue and Industrial Road. The change of that area from agricultural to commercial is necessary to move forward with plans for a development that will include a Lowe’s home improvement store and several other retailers.
The comprehensive plan in question was adopted by the city in March, after two years of discussion among the public and the city. The purpose of the plan is to provide a basic guide for growth by showing what land uses currently exist and where future growth might occur.
The question on the minds of many residents is whether or not the proposal fits the comprehensive plan the city spent so much time developing.
“As part of that two-year process there was considerable debate by the planning commission and by the city commission as to whether or not that node should be commercial,” City Manager Matt Zimmerman said. “... I think now that we have a specific proposal for a certain amount of acreage, that gives us something to react to. Now instead of having a blanket decision, we can ask — is that a reasonable extension? Can this work? And (the planning commission) will have to make that decision.”
“I don’t think they should go in there,” said Russ Schoenberger, who retired after serving for 33 years as the city’s director of planning and development. “It’s against the comprehensive plan. The plan has never shown that as anything except agricultural or residential.”
Ray Toso, who served on the city commission until April 2007, agreed.
“The biggest question I have is that in the past we’ve tried to plan for where the growth was going to be for retail development, and as far as I can determine we’ve invested at least $6 million just trying to prepare for growth in the western part of Emporia. Now are we going to just ignore that investment and then turn around and invest another $3 million or so in infrastructure to put it somewhere else? ... I don’t know that it makes a lot of sense to make those investments for growth to the west and then just ignore them. ...”
“That’s what Lowe’s has said, that they want to be right there,” Zimmerman said. “People have asked us, was it valuable spending that time and money going to the ICSC conference out in Las Vegas?” he said, referring to the gathering of the International Council of Shopping Centers he attended in May with Regional Development Association president Kent Heermann and Commissioners Jim Kessler and Jeff Longbine. “And it was valuable, not only because we had a chance to market our community but it was a wonderful opportunity to meet with developers who might be looking at a smaller market in a more central portion of Kansas.
“And every developer we talked to — we talked to six — all said that they either knew or were hearing from retailers they work with that Graphic Arts is too far west, the town hasn’t grown sufficiently out there to draw enough traffic. ...
“The developers we talked to told us that we need to fill in the Industrial Road corridor,” Zimmerman said. “In fact, one of the big conversations we had with developers was why we can’t develop at Industrial and 12th or 6th Avenue — the fairgrounds. We explained to them the history and the limitation by the deed and they said, ‘That’s too bad, because that’s the best location, right in the heart of the new commercial corridor.’ According to the developers we talked to, that corridor has to be filled in before people will make the next leap, to Graphic Arts Road.”
“I think the city would be better served if they looked at the area further west that’s already zoned for commercial,” Schoenberger said. “I think this is an inappropriate location due to the existing zoning and the comprehensive plan that’s been adopted by the city.”
“It really doesn’t make sense to me to jump 24th and have commercial uses up there,” Toso said, “... in the fact that 24th Avenue is such a screwy street when you get over there by Prairie Street. It’s just, there’s a lot of question marks.”
And Toso worries about the wasted money of earlier work.
“My main concern right now is just I guess if you want to call it the waste of money — everything you hear is that we don’t have money to do maintenance on buildings, we don’t have money to fix up the current infrastructure, we don’t have money to do this, we don’t have money to do that, yet we’ll make these investments and then let them sit idle. ... It just doesn’t make sense to make that investment in planning and then not utilize it.”
But Zimmerman said it’s time to decide on the tract at the north end of Industrial Road.
“Now that we have a specific proposal, we can ask — is 18 acres of commercial reasonable?” Zimmerman said. “So the planning commission will make a recommendation on that and on whether or not to rezone the property.”
Comments
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Posted by madpoet (anonymous) on September 20, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The thought of a business on 24th by Industrial is crazed. Look at the road! Look at the horrible congestion over there already with the schools and Walmart etc! It will be a disaster unless they want to build a new road and straighten 24th out. How are semi trucks going to get in and out of Lowes? Down Industrial. You see my point. It's just a bad idea, in my opinion.
Posted by USNretired (anonymous) on September 20, 2008 at 12:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Look south and west of Flying J's. That is a prime location for a large lumber yard. The city and county needs to look hard at putting a corridor out that direction. Plan for the future, not just next year!
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 20, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just keep on expanding all that infrastructure that we have to pay for... Zero emphasis on the east side of the city, zero emphasis on the 6th street cooridor and no mention of downtown. This is a recipie for property tax disaster.
Posted by LifeGoesOn (anonymous) on September 20, 2008 at 9:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
South of Flying J's? in the flood zone? good idea!
I will agree that some new business out east would be the way to go.
Posted by alfalfa (anonymous) on September 20, 2008 at 11:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why on earth doesn't Emporia try to fill some of the empty buildings and businesses rather than constantly moving west. Sometimes when I drive from the east side to the area Wal Mart is in, it seems I am in a town that should have a population of 100000. Use areas where there are already streets, and sewer, and water, electricity, and empty buildings.
Posted by create (anonymous) on September 21, 2008 at 9:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with the developers who believe the fairgrounds to be the best place because of its location. But since the deed will not allow that area to be developed, what can be done to make it at least look better?
How can we possibly want to develop newer areas while ignoring what the present ones look like? For example, whoever mows the fairgrounds never clips the grass that grows into the streets. Whenever it is mowed, large clumps of mown grass are just left all over the place. It looks so untidy, as if no one really cares what that lot looks like.
Some of the businesses along Industrial and on the 6th street retail corridor do a great job of mowing and cleaning up, but many do not. Some have flowers and plantings that are left to go to seed. Some of the stuff is dried up. Signs are faded. I realize that folks own the properties and can plant what they want, but I honestly believe that if all the property owners would first decide on a standard look, and then maintain it, it would look better. If not, just plain maintain what they have now instead of waiting until it looks so bad before they do anything.
We have empty buildings. Yes, I realize our economy is faltering and that we can't just wave a magic wand and have those businesses filled. I'm just saying that in general, the town looks bad with empty buildings and dirty streets. There's a brightness missing. While we can't fill the buildings, we can certainly clean the streets and maintain plantings.
We have a lot of truck traffic through town so that often introduces even more dirt. The gutters are always dirty. Okay, how can we clean that up? Wait for rain?
I watched a man in front of Muckenthaler's one morning and he was washing down the sidewalks in front of the building. Then he scooped up stuff in the gutter. Why isn't everyone doing that?
Sure, we want to see Emporia develop into a tempting buffet of places that will attract others to come here. But look at the buffet table? Some of the legs are broken, and it's dirty and grimy.
Posted by methusla (anonymous) on September 21, 2008 at 11:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Let me inject a little of my way of thinking , reasoning and questioning into this little fray. First of all, ask yourselves, does Emporia have the jobs and payroll to support more retail businesses ? Second, it is my belief that a large retail business will not even consider locating anywhere that does not have the job payroll to support its business venture without showing a substantial profit, case in point, Walmart came to Emporia in Emporias' hayday when there were plenty of jobs and worker payrolls to warrant Walmart establishing a retail store in Emporia, do you think if Walmart were not already in Emporia and they were looking at Emporia now as a place to establish a business that they would do so, I rather doubt it. Third I would like to know the reason for the big push to develope the land west near the turnpike exit, is it because it is the most feasable area or is it because of who owns that particular parcel of land, or is it possibly because the citizens who live on the Northeast, East, Southeast and South side of Emporia are considered second and third class citizens?
Finally, I would like to know what happened to the proposed use of the old Modine factory, as well as why the Bio-Diesel plant was put on hold and finally is Hill's pet food plant still proceeding with construction, how far along is it and if so, what is the projected completion date and when will they be hiring and when will production start ?
I seriously believe that Emporia should not be trying to attract anymore retail businesses at the present time or at least until there are more long term manufacturing or industrial jobs or at least until the worker payroll is sufficent to support more retail businesses, I believe that if jobs and the payroll that jobs create are here, retail business will want to locate here on that fact alone, after-all don't you think that large successful retail businesses have a way of keeping their finger on the pulse of where jobs and job payrolls are abundent !
I also believe the Gazette, etc. needs to report to the citizens of Emporia by way of finding out and publishing all the information it can on, why there is no further activity on the vacant Modine building, why the Bio-Diesel plant is on hold and what the progress is on the Hill's plant project.
Posted by methusla (anonymous) on September 21, 2008 at 11:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)
P.S. - Sorry for being so long winded !
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 9:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Methusla,
I agree with the majority of your comments above. I think we can try and encourage "start up" styles of businesses that meet a market need and keep money at home, but most of these large businesses being recruited will simply shift disposable income from one business (most likely closing them) to another. It makes no sense.
I think we need to: 1. Talk to existing, locally based industry and see what we need to put on the table to improve their stability and encourage expansion through verticle integration. 2. Talk to those same businesses and utilize their expertise to encourage a foray into new market models (horizontal integration). 3. Create industrial or technological cooperatives (maybe with the help of ESU or FHTC) so our industries can share marketing and IT resources, allowing an improved market share devlopment and technical expansion. 4. We need to develop industrial and technological incubators to allow businesses with growth potential to develop and expand within Emporia.
A gigantic lumber yard (when we already have some pretty darn good ones in Emporia) doesn't solve our problems. Its a distraction at a time that we can't afford distractions.
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 10:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'll simply add that agriculture is still the major industry in Kansas. How can we expect that industry to survive if we keep taking agricultural land and converting it to other uses? When Tyson shut down the slaughter side of operations, they cited a lack of cattle on feed in our area, wonder why? Thousands of acres over the last two decades were converted from agricultural to non-agricultural uses. You can't grow wheat in a Lowe's parking lot.
Lets reuse our existing infrastructure and encourage REdevelopment, not sprawl.
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 10:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Methusla--
Just a couple of things....first you said that you doubt Wal-Mart would come to Emporia now if there weren't one here already. That statement is completely false. If you know anything about Wal-Mart you know that they look for places of Emporia's size with lots of little towns near by. That is the Wal-Mart plan.
Secondly, the reason Lowe's wants to come to Emporia is because they have done a cost study and have found that Emporia and its' surrounding town already spend 20 some million dollars a year in the Topeka, Wichita and KC Lowes stores. It makes business sense for them and for Emporians. Also, on a side note....bringing in a Lowes does create jobs, it will bring in additional retail stores that will also bring jobs. No they aren't the highest paying jobs but they are jobs. Lowes would have some higher paying jobs at the management level however.
The reason for the push for the land near the turnpike exit is because it is by the turnpike exit. Businesses want to be able to get their products as easily as possible and want to attract people off of the turnpike. It is 2 fold.
I do agree that something needs to be done with Modine, the mall, Big Lots etc
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 10:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
slvrnblck,
Studies show that a Lowes type of business does NOT create jobs. Actually the net result of these types of businesses is 1.5-3 jobs lost for every job gained. AND, we will have a lot more empty buildings (like the ones you cited above) if this development comes to pass.
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 11:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You are right that Lowes may steal some jobs from Sutherlands but adding restaurants to that area will increase the job total in my opinion. I think Emporia has a need for more eating establishments and this development includes that. Plus, I would wager that Lowes is a more sound company than Sutherlands so job security for the new employees or former Sutherland employees will be better.
Posted by booker5m (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Slvmblck you say restaurants jobs would be added tell how that is such a great deal. We already have tons of places to eat.Emporia needs manufacturing jobs. !!
Posted by slipandslide (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 11:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
emporia needs to bring in the kinds of jobs that can support families and professional jobs that will encourage the college grads to stay in emporia. restaurants are nothing but low paying dead end jobs.
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 12:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't disagree that we need manufacturing jobs. But I think we have to look at what we can have. A bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush. We don't have a manufacturing company saying that they want to build here, we have a retail store that says that, and its a rather large one.
Also, it appears that we have 2 choices in this deal. One is to allow Lowes in along with a couple of other stores and restaurants that will bring in 20-30 million in sales a year that the city can make sales tax on. The other option is that that land on 24th and Industrial will be a residential development and we will earn property tax on.
Lets look at the #'s. 30 million is sales charged at the current sales tax is a little over 2 million. I know we don't get all of that and I can't remember how much we will get....someone help me out on that. For arguments sake lets say we get 25% of that so, 500k.
The flip side of that, lets say it is a real estate development and we put in 50 (might be a stretch), 200k homes. The property tax on each home is about 3300.00. So as a city we make $165,000.
So we are losing there a little bit. However, the other thing that we fail to realize is that if the residential development is done, then all of the burden falls on the homeowners, if we go the retail route the burden is spread out to anyone who shops or eats there. Which includes people from other surrounding towns, visitors and tourists.
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
slipandslide--
I agree that it would be great to keep alot of our college graduates but we are a small town in the scheme of things.....businesses that have these professional jobs are not here and won't come here.
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 12:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
slvrnblck,
If you look at the first of the three sales leakage studies done, it showed that for a city of our size (in comparison with other area cities of our size) we have a lot of restaurants (if I remember correctly, we were ranked 2nd in Qty). This will be the same as the Lowes situation. We will gain new restaurants, while loosing others. The ones we gain will most likely be chains (which send money out of town to their corporate headquarters), versus the independants (which keep a larger portion of their money at home). We will have more empty store fronts in areas that the city is essentially deeming as of little importance. This "strategy" (I don't know if that's the proper term in this case) will create more blight and force the city into a situation where they constantly build new infrastructure while letting old infrastructure deteriorate. From a capital investment standpoint, this strategy essentially abandons all retail and other service related businesses east of Industrial Road. This is the oposite of smart growth.
Posted by jayhawker (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 12:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
momus is absolutely correct in suggesting that we redevelop existing properties rather than sprawl. I am always amazed at those who worry about the future, but are quick to grab up ag land for commercial development. There isn't anymore ag land, so we best preserve what we have if we want our grandkids to eat.
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 2:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What this will do is create competition and the cream will rise to the top. Lowes will compete with Sutherlands and hopefully, Sutherlands will be forced to provide better service and pricing and all of Emporia benefits. If they don't then, yes, they could be forced to close. But why are we scared to provide competition to other businesses in town? Why wouldn't we want more, better restaurants than the ones we have? Why wouldn't we want good servive?
People always talk about shop Emporia first, well often time we receive poor service and higher prices if we do that. Competition is a good thing.
And once again, I am not at all opposed to developing a plan to help the mall out or to bring businesses in to Big Lots or Modine or giving a facelift to the downtown. But, the first question is how are we going to pay for it?
We have a company that wants to be here and will provide competition for others in town. We have a land owner in town that wants to do something with their land. Lowes wants that land and will generate sales tax income for the city. Our other option is property tax money from a residential development. This is not about the other vacant properties in town. In this case, there are 2 choices. Which one makes more sense for Emporia?
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 3:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
How about choice number 3: if developers want to develop a greenfield, they can pay for it themselves...
Enough with the corporate welfare already...
Posted by slvrnblck (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 3:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Momus--
Just because you don't like the choices doesn't mean you get to make another one up. The Peak's are going to do one of 2 things with their land. Which one is better for Emporia?
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 4:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Peaks have every right to sell their land to any developer they choose, and that developer can develop the land without tax favoratism (the opposite of the free market that people cite as a pro in this argument).
Posted by USNretired (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 4:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If you want development on the south and east, where is your access? And talk about flood plains! Growth around the turnpike and I-35 is natural and will eventually happen. Move traffic to Merchant and maybe Commercial can be revitalized IF enough parking can be found in lots rather than along the street.
Posted by netloafer (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 5:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There was a letter published today with a series of questions. One of those questions follows:
"You ask comments on the proposed development by D.J. Christie Inc. for the Peak property on 24th Avenue. I do have a number of questions.
"Is the application even legal?
The development plan submitted with the application shows land outside of the area of the application not owned by the applicant and now a part of the legal notice published for the hearing. The plan shows a 70-feet-wide strip of land, which they do not own being used for an extension of Industrial Road onto their property."
How does the question raised by the writer fit into this discussion. Is property other than that owned by the Peaks included in this proposal? If so, whose property is it? Is it private property? Is it owned by the city?
Posted by methusla (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 7:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am not totally against having a Lowes or any other new retail business locate in Emporia ! But from reading some of the comments I feel that most people have lost the sight of the reality of what is happening to the Nations economy and what has been happening on Wall Street these past few days, so let me bring you into reality. A number of large, some the largest and oldest investment banks on wall street have collapsed or nearly collapsed along with other various businesses. The Government has seen fit to bail out nearly all of these banks and businesses to the tune of $700,000,000,000 dollars ( thats right 9 zeros, billions), which means if these banks and businesses cannot pay back this tremendous amount it will end up costing each and every man, woman and child in the U.S. $3000.00 each. Now this will mean that each and every man, woman and child in Emporia will have $3000.00 less money to spend at a Lowes, Walmart, Sutherlands etc.
Also has everyone forgotten the mess that the IBC bakery has been in for the last several years, fighting for their very survival.
Also it has been reported on CNBC that some government economists predict that the National Dept will reach 11 trillion dollars within the next few years, what a wonderful thing to look forward to.
I just don't think that now is the time to push for more retail business, at least until the job and payroll base is more sound and able to support such ventures.
Posted by MrCmonkeeDo (anonymous) on September 22, 2008 at 10:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
slvrnblck said:
"Just because you don't like the choices doesn't mean you get to make another one up."
MrCmonkeeDo wonders:
Who says?
Posted by slipandslide (anonymous) on September 23, 2008 at 9:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
why dont they give these tax breaks to established emporia businesses that need to expand instead of giving it to a big box that can pay their own expansion bills.
Posted by momus (anonymous) on September 23, 2008 at 11:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Slipandslide,
That's a good question. If we look at how the city spends money, the infrastructure they prioritize and the tax incentives they endorse it's clear that they value the national chains that we DON’T have over the home grown businesses we DO have currently. I add the word "currently" because giving chains tax advantages equals another endorsement that will end up killing several small businesses, adding blight and increasing our property tax burden. If people read the reasoning behind smart growth planning, a significant percentage of communities involved found that once they started down the path we are taking, they constantly had to build more, sprawl more and project more debt into the future until their city public funding structure was on the brink of collapse. Our sprawl plan isn't natural, isn't sustainable and will end up costing tax payers.
The second part of the equation is the signal this action sends to businesses that have the opportunity to move. We have locally owned businesses that get recruited by other communities, and some of them are watching the city very closely to determine what they should do. While we extend tax breaks to national chains, some communities would be very happy to welcome some of our more niche style businesses. The community may have to actually take a "pay to stay" stance if they aren't careful. But, as enamored as some in leadership are with the chain concept, I doubt they will care until it's too late.
The third problem this causes is the signal it sends to potential entrepreneurs. We have people in this community that are on the fence as to whether or not to open a new Italian restaurant, clothing store, baby store, ect... These start ups can't afford to open up in a multi-million dollar development, but they need the traffic that results from full storefront retail or service areas. Essentially, this plan goes a long way towards making Emporia a hostile environment for entrepreneurs. Killing existing businesses, encouraging other businesses to move and discouraging new businesses from opening is kind of the trifecta of bad development strategy for a city of our size.
Posted by netloafer (anonymous) on September 23, 2008 at 12:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Last week there was a presentation done by a small company in Madison. The reason the company found Madison attractive was that there was a building available and also because the business property tax was lower. The company started out with 5 or 6 employees. It now has 44. It ships it's products (valves) ranging in price from $50 to as much as $125K per unit to customers all around the world. They now have 44 employees, with an average annual wage of about $50K. There is also a bonus package available for employees which averages around $3K per year per employee.
This, and other small companies, is the type of business that should find a city like Emporia very attractive. Unfortunately, the current incentive strategy/high taxes mitigates against these smaller companies that could as an aggregate provide enormous benefit to us. Thus, they locate elsewhere.
Emporia has a good workforce, hard working, smart, trainable. There is no reason these types of jobs can't become part of our culture other than a strategy employed that works against them.
What would this city look like if we took some of the big box incentive dollars and re-invested them in developing the types of skills or providing incentives for the small companies mentioned earlier? What would this city look like if we brought in the jobs that would raise median family incomes?
These are fair questions to ask, but they will never get answers given the current development strategy. Almost everything is working against the smaller, leaner, skills based companies and is tilting heavily in favor of the larger, low wage, low skills based companies.
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