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Powder company still planning move to Tonganoxie-area site

By Caroline Trowbridge - | Dec 18, 2003

A Shawnee firm’s plans to construct a distribution center at a site about three miles east of Tonganoxie have been stalled for the past few months. But they should get back on track soon, a company official said.

About a year ago, the Leavenworth County Commission approved a 20-year permit for Hodgdon Powder Company to construct distribution center on a tract at the northeast corner of 198th Street and U.S. Highway 24-40.

Hodgdon distributes black powder and smokeless propellants for sport shooting.

And while company officials had hoped to be further along with its plans by this point, other business ventures have delayed work on the local project, according to Doug Delsemme, vice president and general counsel for Hodgdon.

“I’ve spent the last seven or eight months working on acquisition of another powder company that we concluded at the end of October,” Delsemme said. “That really has monopolized our time.”

Hodgdon purchased IMR Powder Company, a firm in New York.

Soon, Delsemme said, company officials will turn their sights back to the 24-40 project.

The company wants to construct about 39,000 square feet of buildings, including office/security, maintenance, a ballistic lab, a screen house and processing, packaging, bulk storage, black powder storage and shipping.

Company officials have said they want to move from their Shawnee property because residential development has grown to Hodgdon’s 160-acre site, making the tract too valuable to use as a distribution center. They also want to use the move to make their operations more efficient.

And Delsemme said that with the acquisition of IMR, the need for increased efficiency is even more important to Hodgdon.