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Getting ahead in economic development a requirement
Corporations must now move quickly, live by strict rules
Anyone who is in the development business knows how long it takes to get the necessary approvals from city government so developments can move forward.
It is a process that can test the patience of even the most patient men and women.
The process includes bringing proposed development plans to the Kansas City Planning and Development Department. From there, they go to the City Plan Commission, then to the city council’s Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee, and finally to the City Council. Then there is the permitting process to actually start dirt moving.
And so the process goes on like this, year after year.
But in the real world, times change; there is a heightened sense of urgency to move more quickly, most of it born out of necessity.
The Platte County Economic Development Council is trying to expedite the process for potential corporate tenants by getting a lot of the groundwork done in advance; that means things like site location work, marketing the property and its amenities and even getting the dirt moved so a corporation has to do little but come in and build.
Skyport Business Park near Kansas City International Airport is one example. The council, through its KCI Area Development Committee, is assisting in the effort to market 159 acres that will include completed grading, a soil erosion plan in place, marketing materials that explain incentives, and access to the airport, interstates and rail spurs, among other things.
The need to move quickly was triggered by the WorldCom and Enron scandals, to name just a couple.
In the aftermath of all that, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill that set in place a laundry list of corporate accountability requirements on how corporations spend their money, along with the strict accounting and auditing rules. The law covers the slippery moves in the past of both corporations and large accounting firms.
Now when corporations want to expand, or say build a large distribution center in Kansas City, they have to jump through a whole new set of hoops to secure the capital in the first place, and then spend it quickly or they are in trouble with some of the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley.
Speed is the key, often more important than any incentives a location might offer.
Now the trick is to get land “development ready,” and that can include grading, environmental impact studies, utilities, planning approval and permitting done before someone gets the call from some corporation wanting to set up shop.
“Corporations now look at a six-month time frame from the time they make the decision to move until they are up and running,” said Pete Fullerton, executive director of the Platte County Economic Development Council. “If we can’t accommodate the time frame, we lose them.”
The Harley-Davidson plant is in Platte County because things got done quickly. It took about 90 days from start to finish, and that was because there were some movers and shakers who stepped up and made it happen. Unfortunately, that was the exception rather than the rule.
The business of securing new businesses is to stay ahead of the development curve. It will be interesting to see how well and how soon the Skyport Business Park development will pay off.
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It is a process that can test the patience of even the most patient men and women.
The process includes bringing proposed development plans to the Kansas City Planning and Development Department. From there, they go to the City Plan Commission, then to the city council’s Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee, and finally to the City Council. Then there is the permitting process to actually start dirt moving.
And so the process goes on like this, year after year.
But in the real world, times change; there is a heightened sense of urgency to move more quickly, most of it born out of necessity.
The Platte County Economic Development Council is trying to expedite the process for potential corporate tenants by getting a lot of the groundwork done in advance; that means things like site location work, marketing the property and its amenities and even getting the dirt moved so a corporation has to do little but come in and build.
Skyport Business Park near Kansas City International Airport is one example. The council, through its KCI Area Development Committee, is assisting in the effort to market 159 acres that will include completed grading, a soil erosion plan in place, marketing materials that explain incentives, and access to the airport, interstates and rail spurs, among other things.
The need to move quickly was triggered by the WorldCom and Enron scandals, to name just a couple.
In the aftermath of all that, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill that set in place a laundry list of corporate accountability requirements on how corporations spend their money, along with the strict accounting and auditing rules. The law covers the slippery moves in the past of both corporations and large accounting firms.
Now when corporations want to expand, or say build a large distribution center in Kansas City, they have to jump through a whole new set of hoops to secure the capital in the first place, and then spend it quickly or they are in trouble with some of the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley.
Speed is the key, often more important than any incentives a location might offer.
Now the trick is to get land “development ready,” and that can include grading, environmental impact studies, utilities, planning approval and permitting done before someone gets the call from some corporation wanting to set up shop.
“Corporations now look at a six-month time frame from the time they make the decision to move until they are up and running,” said Pete Fullerton, executive director of the Platte County Economic Development Council. “If we can’t accommodate the time frame, we lose them.”
The Harley-Davidson plant is in Platte County because things got done quickly. It took about 90 days from start to finish, and that was because there were some movers and shakers who stepped up and made it happen. Unfortunately, that was the exception rather than the rule.
The business of securing new businesses is to stay ahead of the development curve. It will be interesting to see how well and how soon the Skyport Business Park development will pay off.