Shawnee County, Kan., commissioners on Monday approved issuing $150 million in industrial revenue bonds for a massive new Walmart distribution center to be built just south of Topeka.
The measure was approved 2-0 by commissioners Bill Riphahn and Aaron Mays. Commissioner Kevin Cook, who represents District 2, was absent from the meeting as he was on family vacation.
The meeting took place in the commission's chambers in the basement of the Shawnee County Courthouse, 200 S.E. 7th.
The distribution center, which will be the largest such Walmart facility in Kansas, is to be built on 200-plus acres of land west of the Mars Chocolate plant, which is located near S.W. Gary Ormsby Drive and Topeka Boulevard, just south of the Montara community.
The new Walmart distribution center, which will be in the Kanza Fire Commerce Park, will be 1,850,000 square feet, said county bond counsel Bob Perry.
The distribution center is slated to have 300 full-time employees.
The $150 million in taxable industrial revenue bonds will be part of a lease-purchase agreement with Walmart to finance the acquisition of property in Kanza Fire Commerce Park for the distribution center.
No one spoke at a public comment session before Mays and Riphahn voted in favor of issuing the industrial revenue bonds.
Plans for the distribution center were announced in December.
Greg Smith, executive vice president of Walmart's U.S. supply chain, said in December that Topeka's centralized location in the United States played a key role in it being picked for the new distribution center.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Ark., topped Fortune magazine's 2019 list of the 500 largest corporations by revenue globally.
Before the announcement was made in December, local elected officials who serve on the board of directors of the Joint Economic Development Organization voted 7-0 to provide Walmart cash incentives totaling as much as $1.87 million.
JEDO contracts with GO Topeka, a private organization, to promote economic development initiatives in Shawnee County and manage economic development revenue received through the countywide half-cent sales tax Shawnee County residents voted to extend in 2014.
The cash for the incentives Walmart is to receive came as revenue from the countywide half-cent sales tax.
At the time of the agreement, the JEDO board's voting members were Shawnee County commissioners Cook, Riphahn and Mays; Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla; and Topeka City Council members Sandra Clear, Mike Lesser and Tony Emerson.
Walmart already maintains more than 1.8 million square feet of space at the three other Kansas distribution centers in Ottawa, Edgerton and Kansas City, Kan.
