The city of Tonganoxie and the Leavenworth County Port Authority currently are negotiating over the city’s financial stake in the project.

It’s likely the city will commit $50,000 of the 2004 city budget to help finance the building to be constructed northeast of U.S. Highway 24-40 and Laming Road.

The building will cost about $500,000, and the cost of land is about $40,000, according to Chris Donnelly, president of Leavenworth Area Development.

“The council would still have to approve that,” said City Administrator Shane Krull.

He said he’s still negotiating a draft agreement with the Leavenworth County Port Authority, which owns the business park.

The new 10,000-square-foot building is the same size of another “spec” building the port authority and Leavenworth Area Development built that now is home to Everlasting Specialties.

Donnelly, who is executive vice president at Tonganoxie’s First State Bank and Trust, said having a building available should prove beneficial.

“We’ve found that if there’s none available, the prospects will look elsewhere,” Donnelly said.

Donnelly said once an agreement is struck between the port authority and the city, construction could start immediately.

“If the negotiations with the city get done, surely it would be late spring,” Donnelly said.

The hope is that the building would be sold and the city, the port authority and LAD would be reimbursed.

“Then we can start over and do it again,” Donnelly said.