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Olathe OKs K-State campus proposal By Rob Roberts The Olathe City Council on Tuesday approved a development agreement for a proposed Kansas State University satellite campus and bioscience park on 91 acres near College Boulevard and Lone Elm Road. The city will sell the site to co-developers K-State and the Kansas Bioscience Authority for $10 “Think of us as generous if you want,” Olathe Mayor Michael Copeland said. “But this was purely a strategic business decision for us.” According to a city economic impact study, the project is expected to generate:
The project has been dubbed the Kansas State University-Olathe Innovation Campus and Kansas Bioscience Authority Science Park. The project was initiated by former KBA Chairman Clay Blair, an Olathe developer who years earlier donated the land for the University of Kansas Edward Campus in Overland Park. “Even though I’m a KU guy, I’ve always had it in my heart to bring K-State into the community too,” Blair said Tuesday. Ironically, Tuesday was Blair’s last day on the job with the KBA. He announced his resignation on Tuesday, effective Wednesday, after being criticized for directing planning contracts associated with the Olathe project toward a cousin, a brother-in-law and other contractors he’d worked closely with in his private development business. The Kansas Bioscience Authority is responsible for creating bioscience business and jobs. It is founded by tax revenue from bioscience companies in the state, an amount expected to exceed $580 million in the next 10 years. Despite the size of its mission, however, the authority did not hire an executive director until late last year, leaving Blair to put together the agency’s planning team himself, he said. “We created a budget, which the KBA approved and Kansas State approved, totaling about $75,000,” Blair said. “I said, ‘I’ve got four months to get this thing done and I don’t get paid, so I’m going to the people I know and trust.’…The key thing is, my board new about it. They were given a briefing periodically. And here’s the other thing: If I had to do it again, I’d do it the same way.” According to Tim Danneberg, a spokesperson for Olathe, the next step for the project will be for the city to create a benefit district to finance infrastructure. The city will get an estimated $7.6 million in infrastructure work done, and will pass the cost along to the developers. The development agreement calls for the first structure to be built in the Science Park within three years and the first K-State building to be completed within six years. K-State’s plans for the site, its first brick and mortar presence in the Kansas City are, call for a $30 million, 100,000-square-foot safety institute to be one of the first structures built. |
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