New Turner Diagonal interchange bodes well for NorthPoint’s industrial work

A public-private partnership's construction of a pivotal interchange will be the harbinger for significant industrial development in Kansas City, Kan.

Local and state officials on Wednesday celebrated completion of the new Turner Diagonal interchange on Interstate 70, opening up access to NorthPoint Development's Turner Logistics Center, which sits adjacent to the northwest and northeast.

Fully built out, the Riverside-based developer's industrial park is expected to support more than 1,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in what could be as much as 3 million square feet of industrial space spread across 300 acres.

The $30 million interchange project kicked off on Jan. 31, with support from NorthPoint, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/ Kansas City, Kan., the Kansas Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Transportation, which in December 2018 awarded the initiative a $13.8 million Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant.

Other project partners included the Kansas Turnpike Authority and design-build contractor Clarkson Construction Co.

The interchange announcement dovetails with recent progress at the burgeoning Turner Logistics Center, where NorthPoint is on the precipice of delivering the park's first Class A cross-dock industrial building, at 6700 Orville Ave.

The majority of the industrial building — 298,905 of its 407,964 square feet — has been preleased to an unidentified national credit tenant expected to take occupancy in December, said Brent Miles, chief marketing officer and a founding partner of NorthPoint.

Two more industrial buildings at 543,554 and 375,536 square feet, respectively, also are under construction, with deliveries scheduled for the summer of 2021, he said. About 130,326 square feet have been preleased in the third building.

In terms of inquiries, Miles said, Turner Logistics Center has proved to be one of NorthPoint's most attractive and active industrial developments in its nationwide portfolio to date.

Joe Accurso, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield and broker for the industrial buildings alongside Miles, expects the park to develop with a relatively even split of new-to-market tenants and those looking to expand or upgrade from existing local facilities.

Beyond the new Turner Diagonal interchange, Accurso said, NorthPoint's professional reputation in the tenant and brokerage communities will be a boon in getting the remainder of the park leased.

"The way they treat brokers, tenants and people in general is what turns a home run park into one that will lease, instead of in eight to 10 years, in four to five years," he said.

Thomas Friestad. "New Turner Diagonal interchange bodes well for NorthPoint's industrial work." Kansas City Business Journal, October 28, 2020, https://bit.ly/31VJyaN.