By John Sharp
Work has now begun on the first new building that will be part of a massive planned expansion of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) campus on Botts Rd. north of 150 Highway in south Kansas City expected to bring about 2,000 high paying new jobs to the campus over the next 10 to 15 years plus up to about 1,000 construction jobs.
NNSA and its contractor, Honeywell Manufacturing & Technologies, currently employ about 7,000 persons, many with very high paying jobs, at its 1.75 million square foot campus on the west side of Botts Rd. that manufactures the non-nuclear components of the nation’s nuclear weapons.
The expansion of the campus on a 245-acre site on the east side of Botts Rd. is expected to be even larger with 2.5 million square feet of buildings and is expected to cost nearly $2.5 billion to construct.
The site is owned by Promontory 150 LLC, a private developer headquartered in KCMO that had planned to develop it as an industrial park with warehouses and distribution centers and had already begun grading on the site when it was approached by NNSA about expansion of its campus that does engineering work and high-tech manufacturing, according to Kevin Breslin, a spokesperson for the firm.
Breslin said the first building on the expansion site will be a 154,000 square foot 3-story building expected to employ about 620 persons that Promontory signed a contract to construct with NNSA in May. Pier work for the building is already underway, and foundation work is expected to begin in a few weeks with vertical construction starting this fall and an expected completion date in the spring of 2026.
The NNSA campus expansion will be constructed using a turn-key “build-to-suit” model which is thought to often be faster than traditional government construction contracting methods. Under this model NNSA will specify its exact needs for each building, and Promontory will design, finance and construct each building and site improvements according to those specifications for a fixed price and convey them and the site they are on to NNSA as they are completed.
Breslin said starting next year Promontory hopes to start work on a new building on the expansion site every year. Since major new buildings typically take two years to construct, that would allow work to be progressing on two buildings at a time with a building being completed annually.
Under traditional government-run construction contracting, building materials and other items used in the construction are exempt from state and local sales tax under Missouri law.
To level the playing field, Senate Bill 1388 that Governor Mike Parson signed into law July 8 at the expansion site, exempts purchases of all building materials, equipment, fixtures, machinery, manufactured goods, parts and personal property used for constructing any part of the NNSA expansion from state or local sales tax through August 28, 2034.
At the bill signing, Parson said besides helping to keep our country safe, the NNSA expansion will bring thousands of good paying jobs to the area that will have a positive impact on the local economy for years and provide future career opportunities for area children.
Ealy, whose legislative district includes the current NNSA campus and the expansion site, said the thousands of new high-paying jobs created by the NNSA expansion will have a positive ripple effect on the economies of Grandview, south Kansas City and northern Cass County.
“These are not just jobs, but opportunities for stable, well-paying employment that will empower individuals and families, lifting our entire community,” Ealy said.