When Casey’s General Stores announced last November it would build a state-of-the-art warehouse and distribution facility in Joplin, city leaders celebrated the anticipated 125 new jobs and $50 million capital investment.

That project is now scheduled for a groundbreaking on April 2 and governor Mike Parson is expected to attend. Workers at the 300,000 square foot facility – Casey’s third distribution center – will earn more than $50,000 on average.

But that’s just one of many intriguing projects the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce and its president Toby Teeter are working on. Teeter gave the Joplin city council an overview of the chamber’s business attraction efforts during its meeting on Monday night and listed a dozen projects that could potentially employ more than 1,600.

Among the highlights:

-A Texas-based ammunition company is considering moving its manufacturing to Joplin. It would employ 50 to 100 people.

-A solar products manufacturer in Colorado is considering relocating to Joplin and would employ 30 to 60 people.

-An outdoor cooking products company that currently manufacturers products in China is considering moving operations to Joplin. That would create 470 to 540 new jobs following a capital investment of as much as $100 million.

-An Icelandic company that makes carbon fiber gravel bikes and carbon suspension forks for mountain bikes wants to build a North American headquarters for manufacturing, distribution and sales. The company was considering northwest Arkansas but is also intrigued by Joplin’s lower costs and highway access. Joplin is also positioned between Bentonville and Emporia, Kansas, which hosts the annual Dirty Kanza gravel race that attracted more than 3,400 riders last year.

-A steel finish manufacturer is exploring sites in the area for a 170,000 square foot facility that would employ 45 after an investment of $12 to $15 million.

The chamber is trying to lure several other companies, as well. It submitted multiple sites in the Crossroads Business Park and on the north side of Wildwood to an aerospace manufacturer looking to expand its operations and also submitted sites to a company looking to construct a 400,000 square foot facility for food solutions and research and development. It would employ 400 with a capital investment of $80 million.

The chamber also submitted a site to a manufacturer looking for up to 300 acres served by a rail line that would employ 350.

Tech companies could get involved in MSSU’s downtown campus

Missouri Southern officials have proposed turning the former Joplin Public Library building on Main Street into a facility for its computer science department.

The university reached an agreement in 2017 with the Joplin city council to acquire the building. MSSU has six years to raise the necessary funds for renovation, per the agreement.

Teeter is involved in the project, as well, and told the council on Monday there have been active discussions with tech companies to help with transforming the computer science department into a talent incubator.

“That’s a really exciting opportunity to really change the dynamics of our entire city,” he said.

His report said meetings with the Square and Twitter CEO’s are in the works, as are visits with Facebook, Google and LinkedIn executives. He told the council he was talking with a company in San Francisco that has an average starting salary of $190,000 and said the equivalent IT worker in Joplin would make $86,000.

“There is a very high ROI for a brand to actually fund a transformation of Missouri Southern’s CS department and give that company an opportunity to incubate talent across the Midwest through Joplin and keep it here after graduation,” he said.

New “Remote Joplin” initiative

The city of Joplin should be a destination for remote workers, according to Teeter.

“There’s an opportunity here to work for any employer in the world from Joplin and leverage our low cost of living,” he told the council. “There are other communities, other states that are spending tens of millions of dollars because the economic impact of a six figure worker that works remote is substantial.”

Teeter said Tulsa has a program that gives $10,000 cash to workers who move there.

Joplin’s effort to attract workers won’t be that aggressive but should pick up steam in 2020.

Data is lacking on the current number of remote workers here, but Teeter said he’s been approached by companies who employ anywhere from 20 to 40 people in Joplin. PNC Bank employs dozens in and around Joplin on a remote basis and maintains a manager in Joplin who sees the potential to employ 200 people here in the future.

“We would do a pretty big incentive package if somebody were to bring 200 jobs to Joplin,” Teeter said.

Council member Ryan Stanley, who works for Edward Jones, said the company employs 30 to 40 people in Joplin who work from home.

“The amount of overhead that’s eliminated when somebody is working from home is significant,” he said. “They just need to have high speed internet.”