Industrial parks serve communities in varied ways

It’s a definition that lends itself to many interpretations and many goals. In southwest Missouri, there are as many different types of industrial parks – and reasons for having them – as there are companies to fill them.

Joint efforts

Springfield’s Partnership Industrial Center and its sister park, PIC West, were a joint project of the city, Greene County, City Utilities, the Springfield Business and Development Corp. and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

The two parks are different from the standard industrial park in several ways.

The infrastructure of the park is put in place before tenants move in, and land is sold to tenants at a set price, which makes the parks more marketable to companies looking for a site that is move-in ready.

The program seems to be working: The 360 acres of the original center, between Interstate 44 and Kearney Street east of LeCompte Road, are completely full, while the 440-acre PIC West has five tenants, including Gold Mechanical Inc., whose new facility is under construction, and Stamina Products, which is preparing to expand its existing 80,000-square-foot facility.

Partnership Industrial Center was born of necessity, designed to be a tool to combat the loss of Springfield’s Zenith plant in 1990. City Utilities bought the land that would become PIC in 1992; the administrative council was formed in 1993.

When Zenith decided to move its local operations to Mexico, “the economic development program woke up and said, ‘We really can’t, as a community, afford for this to happen again,’” according to Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Director Greg Williams.

PIC West came on board in 2001, as the original PIC was nearing capacity.

Williams said the two PIC facilities have restrictions for which companies can build there, in order to make sure to draw the kind of companies the organizers want.

“We protect the integrity of the site with manufacturers only,” Williams said. “We don’t allow distribution, warehousing, service or commercial types of firms. The private sector does a wonderful job in southwest Missouri of providing facilities and sites for those types of users.”

An alternative

Some industrial parks aren’t even for manufacturing companies. Take the 100-acre North Creek Business Park on East Kearney.

The park was developed by real estate agent Tom Rankin and O’Reilly Automotive executive Charlie O’Reilly in 2000 as alternative for companies, according to Rankin.

“Unless somebody wants to own two or three acres out somewhere by themselves, they’re probably going to have to be in a business park setting,” Rankin said. “Our park is close to Partnership Industrial Center, but at PIC you have to be a manufacturer to be in that park, and they don’t allow distribution. We thought our park would be a nice complement to that.”

The park seems to be doing well – all but three of the 12 lots in the 52-acre first phase are occupied, and Rankin said work will begin soon on the 48-acre second phase. Tenants include Primesource Building Products and American Tire Distributors.

An investment

Also in the private arena, brothers Joe and Eric Roberts have developed Roberts Industrial Park and Westgate Industrial Center in Springfield.

The Roberts are now working on a third park just east of Strafford in Webster County. That park, Interstate 44 Industrial Park, has one tenant: Overland Park, Kan.-based propane distributor Ferrellgas.

Eric Roberts said the parks are investment tools. Rather than developing the infrastructure and then selling the land to businesses, the Roberts build to suit and lease the property to tenants.

“We wanted to have property that offered cash flow to us as an investor,” he said. “It’s not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage – it’s just the way we wanted to do it, to build our own investments.”

The goal is different for Partnership Industrial Center, the chamber of commerce’s Williams said.

“The partnership is comprised of five parties, and we all have our own selfish motivation for being involved in industrial park development,” he said. “The utilities want to add load to the system, and heavy users with good demand keep rates competitive for us. For the city (and county), it’s the tax revenue – it’s the multiplier effect of spending, bank deposits and the opportunity for people to spend money. For the chamber and the development corporation, it’s all about capital investment to support the growing region.”

A tool for growth

For some communities, industrial parks aren’t so much designed to support growth as they are to encourage it.

The 60-acre Sparta Industrial Park is progressing. Asphalt work on the main road through the site in the small southwest Missouri community was completed in mid-July.

Dan Leyland, a member of the industrial board that has worked to collect grant money for Sparta Industrial Park, said Sparta is looking to use the industrial park concept to meet a basic need.

“We’re trying to get jobs into our community,” said Leyland, who also is an environmental specialist with Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ southwest regional office.

“If we can get more people in there, it’ll be a boost for the residential housing market.”

Sparta, like many other small communities looking to use industrial parks for community benefit, received help from state and federal agencies, Leyland said, including grant funds from the Missouri Departments of Economic Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development agency.

“We’ve already got a grocery store, hardware store, a bank in the community,” Leyland said. “This park will help the people who already live there.”