COVER STORY, APRIL 2009

KC’S ANIMAL INSTINCT
Kansas City mixes public, private investment to stake its claim as nation’s leading Animal Health Corridor.
Jon Ross

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is going to be developed in Manhattan, Kansas, after the Federal government selected Kansas City’s Animal Health Corridor from among six contenders at the conclusion of its nationwide site search.

Kansas City’s Animal Health corridor — concentrated patches of animal health providers spread throughout the Kansas City metropolitan region and as far north as Columbia, Missouri — is home to a wealth of private-industry companies. From equipment and product manufacturers to animal nutrition firms, major players in the animal health industry congregate in the area, which is also home to Kansas State University, The University of Kansas and other research institutions. Next July, the federal government will break ground in Manhattan, Kansas, on the corridor’s first public development, the 520,000-square-foot National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). Delivery of the facility is slated for the first quarter of 2015.

The $650 million NBAF project will concentrate the country’s research on foreign animal disease in one place. Employees will focus on creating vaccines for diseases like swine fever, African fever and foot and mouth disease, illnesses that can wreak havoc on the nation’s agriculture.

The same research was being conducted at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York, which will close as soon as the Manhattan site is up and running. The NBAF will encompass five buildings, including a central utility plant equipped with redundant power, chilled water and other emergency measures. Inside, the space will include offices, special showers at the entrance to lab areas and a large amount of HVAC equipment. When dealing with research of this nature, intense security measures are paramount. “These facilities are essentially very large scientific instruments,” says Tom Thornton, president of the Kansas Bioscience Authority. “They’re the effective construction equivalent of a bank vault in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean.”

Announced in January, the project has generated private and public investment interest in the corridor. The Arthropod Borne Animal Disease Research Laboratory, currently located in Laramie, Wyoming, is getting too big for its current site, and federal officials are considering the Kansas City area as a new location for the facility. Private companies will also be drawn into the area because of the NBAF’s research facilities and the overall specialized capabilities found in the corridor, Thornton says. “This kind of research results in partnership facilities, facilities where other academic institutions, federal agencies or companies build labs or office space in close proximity to the lab with the purpose of getting access to or partnering with the lab,” he says. “These labs have a way of creating a gravitational pull of public and private investment.”

In the past 4 months, Lynn Parman, vice president of life sciences and technology at the Kansas City Area Development Council, has helped start eight corridor projects for animal health firms. These plans are still in the early stages and aren’t currently being announced. One upcoming development is the St. Joseph, Missouri-based vaccine manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica’s $150 million expansion to its Elwood, Kansas, property. The additional facilities under construction include research and development and production spaces and a new administration building, generating work for an additional 124 employees. The equine therapeutic company ANOxA will also soon move into space it leased from an existing office user in Lawrence, Kansas.

Parman says animal health firms are drawn to the corridor because of the area’s workers and the number of research companies already operating in the area. “They can find a specialized workforce here; they can find their service providers here. The overall business climate understands animal health and wants there to be more animal health companies here,” Parman says. “Everyone likes to go where everyone knows their name. In Kansas City, everyone knows the animal health industry.”

As companies in a broad array of sectors are buckling under the weight of the recession, which is affecting everything from commercial real estate starts to retail sales, Parman says her job has flowered. Though there was some slowdown at the end of last year — she calls it “a little bit of cautiousness” by corporate users — business is now holding strong. Parman is currently trying to find space in the animal health corridor for 18 companies. “I’m busier than I’ve ever been,” she says. The volume of activity is welcome, but it certainly isn’t a surprise. “When the economy is down, you still vaccinate your pets, you still need to protect their food supply and you still want to make sure your dogs and cats are eating the food that they need to make them healthy,” she says. “Although [animal health companies] are certainly affected by the economy, they don’t feel the ups and downs that other industries feel.” The recession hasn’t threatened funding for the NBAF, either, because money for the project is tied to President Barack Obama’s budget.

Even with the corridor’s wealth of research firms, the Manhattan site of the NBAF was up against stiff competition. More than 29 spots across the country were initially highlighted as potential locations for the facility. Manhattan won out because of its proximity to resources, qualified workers and public support for the project. Additionally, employees in Kansas could begin researching vaccines immediately. “We can use our existing research facilities to get started on NBAF-related research right now. We shouldn’t have to wait until 2015 to do this research,” Thornton says. “Our argument was that there’s no better place in the world to put this than in the middle of what is effectively the largest animal health research region in the world.”

The NBAF is the first step in creating a public presence in what has historically been a research corridor fueled by private industry. Through the work of the Kansas City Area Development Council, the Kansas Bioscience Authority and the area universities, Kansas City’s Animal Health Corridor will keep growing even in the depths of the recession. “The city and the universities are already actively taking a look at development plans to create a campus-like concept out there,” Thornton says. “We expect that there will be an extraordinary demand for the research labs and research space by industry and other institutions.”

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