Growth starts to pick up along Commerce Parkway

By JOSEPH GALANTE

Hays Daily News

Development at the Airport Industrial and Business Park started to pick up by the end of 2004, reversing what initially looked to be a dismal year for growth along south Commerce Parkway.

By mid-2004, two businesses in the industrial park had closed — just the opposite of the growth city officials had hoped for in the park.

The industrial park is ideal for manufacturing and service companies, but over the past few years the land along Commerce Parkway has been somewhat slow to develop.

But in 2004, local companies quickly snatched up the vacated space in the area. Within six months of the closings, the two empty buildings in the park were filled.

Additionally, a new company started construction on the first of two buildings.

When the dust from the moving vans and new construction had settled, the city was looking at a net growth in the park.

The city has around 75 acres of land on Commerce Parkway south of Old U.S. Highway 40 and another nearly 100 more acres north of the highway. Some of Hays' largest employers are located there.

A-1 Plank and Scaffold Manufacturing Inc., the 16th-largest employer in the county, quickly bought the Hays International Mailing Co. building when it folded in June 2004. The company expanded its manufacturing line to include a Tabla system, a concrete slab forming system designed for the construction of low-rise and high-rise buildings.

Nex-Tech Wireless, a new partnership between Nex-Tech of Hays and Golden Belt Telephone Association of Rush Center, started construction on a new switch facility just south of A-1 Plank and Scaffold.

The company plans to start construction on an administrative building on the same lot by May.

The company estimates it will create 30 new technology jobs as it expands wireless service to northwest Kansas its first year.

In October, N.E.W. moved into the former Sykes Enterprises building on the south end of Commerce Parkway, picking up an economy that had lost hundreds of jobs in the past five months.

The fourth company in the industrial park, formerly called Developmental Services of Northwest Kansas (DSNWK), is facing major transitional changes in the next few months. In February, the company changed its name to Employment Connections, a name it believes more accurately reflects its services.

The big change the company will be facing is the retirement of its president Jim Blume at the end of June. Blume has been part of DSNWK since its 1975 infancy and steered the company from an agency serving two towns to a network of service locations and offices serving 18 northwest Kansas counties.

Longtime DSNWK manager Jerry Michaud will take Blume's spot and is working closely with him to make the transition seamless.

The company faces pressure to maintain the quality of its services while facing shrinking state funding.

Employment Connections serves about 500 adults and children who are developmentally disabled.

The agency has a $15.5 million budget and employs over 500 people.

Reporter Joseph Galante can be reached at (785) 628-1081, ext. 139, or by e-mail at

jgalante@dailynews.net.