Last June another Chicago area player, CenterPoint PropertiesTrust, completed its $10-million purchase of the shutteredRichard-Gebaur Memorial Airport, where it plans to develop a$200-million industrial, 970-acre intermodal industrial park inconcert with Kansas City Southern Railroad. The Oakbrook, IL-basedcompany intends to break ground in spring on phase one of more thanfive million sf of buildings. A local player, Kansas City-basedKessinger/Hunter & Co., already broke ground in October on theregion's first new-generation spec warehouse. The project, at 167thStreet and Lone Elm Road in Olathe, KS, will have 653,000 sf.

Until the past few years, buildings of that size were unknown inKansas City, but more recently companies such as Musician's Friend,Kimberly-Clark and Case New Holland have completed build-to-suitdeals for up to 700,000 sf. Kessinger/Hunter principal Dan Jensensays the time is ripe for spec options to be added.

David Hinchman, first vice president for the Kansas Cityindustrial group of CB Richard Ellis, agrees. "We've seen a shiftof the demand for space to be much larger increments," he says. "Inthe past we didn't have that available, so we had to build to suitanything in excess of about 200,000 sf. We lost a number ofcompanies to other cities because of this, even though they wouldhave preferred to be here."