General Mills Blue Buffalo is eyeballing a new roughly 730,000-square-foot warehouse facility in southern Olathe.
The facility will be built in Olathe’s growing industrial corridor down south. The General Mills Blue Buffalo facility will be located near 159th Street and Old Highway 56, within Scannell Properties’ I-35 Logistics Park.
Earlier this week, the Olathe City Council voted 6-1 to approve an incentive package for the project, which includes roughly $71.5 million in industrial revenue bonds, a sales tax exemption and a 10-year, 50% property tax abatement. The actual issuance of the bonds will come down the line.
General Mills Blue Buffalo creating 100+ new jobs
- Over the next decade, the General Mills Blue Buffalo project is expected to bring with it an estimated 103 new jobs, according to city documents.
- The average anticipated starting salary is just over $51,000.
- By the tenth year, average salaries will be around $64,000.
Councilmembers were excited about the project
- The bulk of the councilmembers were thrilled General Mills Blue Buffalo intends to have a footprint in Olathe.
- Councilmember LeEtta Felter called it a “stellar brand” and said she sees this as a “worthy project.”
- “I think this will be a great addition to our community,” Felter said.
- Mayor John Bacon also noted the incentive application meets the city’s rules for industrial revenue bonds, scoring high in the cost-benefit ratio analysis.
One councilmember doubted incentives were necessary
- Councilmember Matt Schoonover cast the lone dissenting vote, doubting that the project needed incentives to be successful.
- Cameron Duff, a representative for the applicant Scannell Properties, said that without incentives, General Mills Blue Buffalo would go somewhere else. For instance, across the way, Johnson County’s New Century Commerce Center has lower property tax rates to contend with.
- Schoonover also questioned if, in this case, Olathe would be “incentivizing a Gardner project” since it sits so close to the city’s southern border.
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