Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson said last week the state would not expand its offer of $144.5 million of sales tax bonds and $85 million of tax incentives and credits to help finance a large office campus and soccer stadium in Wyandotte County.
Developers of the proposed $414 million project in the Kansas City suburbs asked for $155 million of STAR bonds but the governor said that would not be economically feasible.
A financial analysis of the proposal said the state would recover its investment in the office complex within nine years and its investments in the 18,500-seat soccer stadium in 20 years, according to Parkinson.
Any further incentives would extend the recovery period beyond two decades, which would not be in the state’s best interests, he said.
“We’re not willing to make an offer that is unfair or unreasonable to the taxpayers,” he said.
The Kansas City Wizards of the Major Soccer League would occupy the stadium.
Robb Heineman, chief executive officer of the company that owns the Wizards, OnGoal LLC, said last week that the state’s offer was “generous” but would require further study.
“We are in the process of having the stipulations reviewed by bond counsel and outside experts,” Heineman said. “We are hopeful that at the end of this review the state’s offer will yield enough funding to complete the project.”
The office campus would be the new home of Cerner Corp., a medical software provider that is currently located in Missouri.
A Republican lawmaker criticized the Democratic governor for not doing enough to lure Cerner and its high-paying employees to Kansas.
Kevin Yoder, chairman of the state House Appropriations Committee, said he did not understand Parkinson’s reluctance to sweeten the deal.
“We’re playing hard to get, as if jobs are falling out of the sky in this economy,” Yoder said.
Parkinson said if the developers turn down the state’s offer, it would not be because the offer was not good enough.
“It’ll simply be because it is a very complex situation that, within the current laws and current restraints that we have, we couldn’t make it work,” he said.
