Hays microfactory to bring industrial opportunities to the area

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about  the Hays microfactory project. 

 

Transcript:

EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.

 

James Bell 

A spark grant from the state of Kansas is going to allow Grow Hays to move forward with their microfactory project. Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

It was an exciting week, the Kansas space grants were awarded on Monday, I believe it was. And the bass stands for building a stronger economy. I believe that this was $100 million, that the state of Kansas was putting out for grants to people who applied and fit their criteria. These are funds that came down from the ARPA, federal funds, post COVID infrastructure type bill. And so the Department of Revenue wrote some specifications for grants that they would be willing to do that they had, I believe it was 417, or over 400 applications totaling 1,000,800,000 1,800,000,000, for this 100 million. So clearly, there was a huge demand. But we were fortunate enough to get a, a grant for microfactory, which we've been working on for a while. And so that was terrific news.

 

James Bell 

Yeah, I want to back this up a little bit, because I do remember, we talked about it on this segment A little while back, but this is one of those projects that I think it was kind of flying under the radar. And I really I kind of want to ask this and not in a bad way. But I don't think this grant we we really didn't expect to get this great. Did we? Well, we always expect well, I know you want the you applied and you hope but

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

You know, we you just never know in these situations, you hope you put forth a good proposal, David Klingon, who is our new Director of Recruitment and retainment put together a great grant proposal explained it very well. And so but you never know, when you send them in, there were at least five grants submitted from Ellis County, we submitted a couple a couple other people submitted a couple. And I think there was one other one that I'm aware of. And this was the only one in Ellis County that was awarded. So we were we were happy about that. In looking at the criteria, it was it was very much economic development driven. And many, many of the applications were infrastructure related streets, roads, that kind of thing. And we put one in for infrastructure as well, and the Tallgrass edition. And it was clear by the awards that they didn't do a lot of infrastructure stuff, they they really narrowed down projects that were economic development related. And that's what this microfactory really is, is a long term economic development engine. We hope it's an incubator for manufacturers. And so I think that's why it received the attention it did and got the award.

 

James Bell 

You know, I want to talk about this kind of a facility in detail, the one that's proposed here, but, you know, this is really something I think that's kind of new to the industry, you run the brief space down there, that co working space and for office, kind of jobs. But, you know, I haven't really heard anything about this kind of a microfactory concept isn't relatively new.

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

It is at least as far as I know, I've not seen much of it out there. But it makes a lot of sense. Just like brief space makes a lot of sense. It's an incubator, in this case, and microfactory is an incubator for manufacturers, this, this building will be a 30,000 square foot structure built to the specifications that manufacturers need, you know, tall ceilings, large overhead doors, the opportunity maybe to put in a overhead crane of some sort, or what have you. And this 30,000 square feet will be sliced up in five or six areas of five to six to seven, you know, it might slice and dice a little differently depending on who goes in and what you need. But we will offer it to a small manufacturer or an existing manufacturer who has a new idea and need some space to develop that idea. A small, maybe an inventor who has an idea for an invention but just needs some space, as well as some assistance to bring this product to market. And then the hope is that they they go into this space at a considerably reduced rate of rent, they develop their product, build their business and outgrow it so that we can then build them another building and have them expand into that and then move the next guy in where they were and so that's the concept we're excited about it i think i think it's got good opportunity for the community and and I think it'll be really good.

 

James Bell 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think for Hey, specifically we've talked about this in the past Hays is primarily a white collar economy and this can help maybe drive some of that opportunity space that we're that we have here in the region.

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

Well absolutely Hays in our our three largest employers are the Medical Center, the University and USD 489 Was your primarily white collar office type jobs. We have some manufacturing obviously with inner sis and Hess and cross and size wise and and what Not but we don't have a lot of manufacturing. And this is an area of opportunity for us and an area that we believe we need to grow this part of our economy in an effort to kind of diversify things and have a broader range of of job options in our community. And so this will be a great opportunity to do that. And we need some more manufacturing here. And this, this should we hope, over time, provide that opportunity to grow some manufacturers.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. Now, I know, location, and a lot of the details have yet to be worked out because it really was kind of a conceptual plan when the grant was applied. And now you've got the money now, we have to actually make it go. But I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some of those specifics on this project that will be the people will see is it's kind of coming to fruition.

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

Sure. You know, as you say that the easy parts over now we have to actually execute and make it happen. But the proposed location is at the corner of ninth and commerce Parkway, which is just to the south of Glassman Corporation, that's an area owned by heart America development and has had seen some activity out there lately, there's been a couple of lots sell out there. And, and this is on one of those lots that they have available. It's about a five or six acre tract, which will house this structure nicely and would even add allow for some potential additional development of structure if need be. It's it's a great location from the standpoint that it's easily accessible to highway 40. Right down the street is on day 70. So it's a great spot for shipping things in and out and that kind of thing. And, and so we think it's a great spot for it. timeframe, this has to be done, doesn't have to be done. But the guidelines require about two years. So within two years, we need to be have this project completed. That's a bit of a challenge. Because right now as an example, there's about a 12 month lead time on metal buildings. So you know, the process, we've got to get some architectural drawings done. And then we've got to start the construction process bidding on the construction process and things, order the building, put the slab in and those kinds of things. So we'll be busy for the next couple years getting this done. But it's very doable in that timeframe, we just can't doddle on a lot of things.

 

James Bell 

Yeah, and, you know, I'm curious, like, what does that process gonna look like for air review even thought this far ahead. For those people that are interested, you know, like, you know, say, I've got an idea for a new broom, and I want to move out there, what do I do?

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

Well, you contact us to begin with that that's the good part of a two year lead time or a 1218 monthly time as well we're constructing the facility, we can be looking for prospective tenants, and they can be ramping up and figuring out how much space they would need. Because in a building like that, you can divide it really any way you want to divide it, it could be, theoretically, if you had the right opportunity, it could be one person could take half of it, I don't see that happening, I'd rather have more small spaces. But when you've got 30,000 square feet, if you've got five, you know, if you divide it up by five, that's 6000 square feet per tenant, which is a fair amount of square footage. So just depends on kind of what happens. But that's that's the as I said, the nice thing is, we'll be able to be looking for those tenants while we're constructing the facility. And really how you how you split it up inside is one of the last decisions you have to make. And you can even leave it open until you have somebody that needs a certain amount of space, and then you just put up a wall. So it's a pretty simple process at that point in time. But so if anybody out there has an idea or is a small manufacturer that needs some additional space and is looking to do some things, we'd love to hear from them, because we'd love to figure out how they might work into this space.

 

James Bell 

Excellent. You know, I'm curious to what about businesses that maybe are looking to relocate to this area? I think about there was a project over in Russell a couple years ago to bring a hemp processing manufacturing, they made the equipment and they were building it there in Russell, is that going to be helpful for those kinds of businesses to move into the region as well?

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

Well, certainly could be, you know, a lot of times those people looking to move and make that kind of a move are going to be larger. So they may need more space than what 6000 7000 Square feet might offer. But definitely somebody who's in a community or out in another location that that needs some space and would be willing to relocate. We'd love to talk to them as well.

 

James Bell 

Do you think to that folks might utilize this space as a way to kind of collaborate even like a no. And again, I think I think of that brief space model that co working space and it's such it's such a cool situation that's happening down there as you're seeing more and more businesses that are kind of firmly you know, using that spot, it's not a temporary space, it's their office space. So I wonder if that's gonna happen there as well,

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

I think it could I think you could get complementary businesses out there. You know, if you look at to Wichita, which is very heavy manufacturing community because of the aircraft industry and whatnot. There's a lot of small businesses that that make this particular widget for an airplane, and then it has to be attached to this next thing. And there may be two manufacturers side by side who, who work closely on a complementary product. So I could see that happening, for sure.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. And you know, and I think the last piece on this, so we didn't really talk about it's the the funding piece overall, because two and a half or 2.6, from the state that covers a giant portion of the overall cost, but you still got about what 800,000 to go right.

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

And we do. And that's going to be the challenge. But we've we're working on making sure we've got that covered, we obviously had to show that we had the funds to do this to cover our match to begin with. And so we've got a couple of sources for that. But we're also exploring other sources. So we've got it in place. But that's not to say that we aren't looking for alternative ways to fund that portion of the project. And, and I think we're, we've got a pretty good story to tell. So I think a couple of our other sources will be helpful to us and bridging that gap and making this happen.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. Well, we've got just about a minute left, Doug, any other last thoughts or anything else you think folks should know about this project? Is it starting to kick off?

 

Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams 

Well, just take watch, we'll keep people posted on our website on Facebook and that type of thing. And in terms of when we get started and where we are in the process. I don't think you'll see a lot of activity on the actual site for a while yet probably six months, maybe but maybe sooner, but just we'll try and keep everybody posted. And obviously if there are prospective tenants out there that are looking for space, and we'd like to utilize this opportunity. We'd love to talk to him.