Wholesale meat distributor to relocate its headquarters across state line, back to KCK

Elected leaders on Monday advanced property tax incentives for an area meat distributor whose owners plan to build a new facility and move operations back across the state line to Wyandotte County.

Mies Family Foods, a wholesale distributor of beef, pork and poultry, is slated to relocate its headquarters and the local arm of its operations from North Kansas City to Kansas City, Kansas.

Under the drafted agreement a Unified Government committee greenlighted Monday, the company would receive a graduated property tax break over the course of 10 years.

Todd Fender, the Mies’ chief financial officer, told the committee the family-owned company has outgrown its current facility. The new building, to be located in an industrial park in the 6000 block of Speaker Road, would be roughly 78,000 square feet, more than triple the size of the current warehouse.

Coming with the new building are the company’s 37 employees. Mies’ owners want to add 15 more jobs over the next three years. The median annual wages paid is $58,000, according to documents submitted to the Unified Government.

Along with the property tax break, the committee approved up to $17.5 million in industrial revenue bonds. Those bonds allow the company to save on taxes paid toward building and material costs.

Kevin Wempe, a private attorney representing the Unified Government, said the property tax abatement in the aggregate is about 50% of the taxes paid over its lifespan.

The abatement is valued at roughly $1.2 million, according to a cost-benefit analysis conducted to study the impact on the tax rolls. The study determined the net benefit to the community would be about $8.4 million generated in taxes and fees.

Paul Mies, an owner whose parents founded the company, said his mother and father got started selling meat products out of their Bonner Springs home. The company later moved to a warehouse in Armourdale as well, Mies said.

“We never didn’t enjoy working in Wyandotte County,” Mies told the committee Monday. “It’s just an opportunity presented itself over there, we’re in the market and this piece of property works.”

The Economic Development and Finance Committee approved the tax incentive package by a vote of 5-1. Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, commissioners still have to give final approval.