ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The Liberal City Commission and some members of the community got to hear about an exciting economic development opportunity making its way to Liberal from overseas.
Seward County Development Corporation Executive Director Eli Svaty gave an update to the commission at its most recent meeting last Tuesday evening.
“I actually first would like to apologize for it taking so long to get to this point, I feel like this announcement could have come many months ago – in fact, this was announced in Taiwan back in September,” Svaty began with a chuckle. “If you'll recall, we had a couple projects ready to go last spring, but then they fell apart, so forgive me for being slightly gun-shy with this project and making sure everything was actually in place. This project is a really unexpected opportunity for Liberal. For more than a year now, Scarlette [Diseker] and Jose [Lara] and I have been working with a company out of Taiwan, and in early conversations, we were sitting there thinking 'Why would THIS come to Liberal?' and then as time kept going and the visits kept happening, there was that sense of this project being a great opportunity for the community. In that part of the world, they manufacture pretty much everything, and right now, there's a big push in Taiwan to get some of that manufacturing out for a number of reasons. One reason is tariffs, and another reason is the threat of China, and another reason is that need to be made in the U.S. and a desire to access our markets. As it so happens, we came into contact with one of those companies a little more than a year ago, and we've since been working with them to make that a reality. What's really remarkable is one of the first visits the company's leadership team made was at Pancake Day, which was cold and cloudy and super windy – however, that did not deter them, and they've since made multiple visits when the weather's been much more agreeable.”
Svaty then gave more of the logistical information about where everything will be set up.
“1600 W. Pancake Blvd. is going to be the home of Apogee Power, and they are an advanced manufacturing company for batteries and energy storage systems. Liberal will be the company's first U.S.-based manufacturing of that, and things will happen in three different phases – a Hybrid Power Unit (HPU), a Ground Power Unit, and then the big-scale energy storage systems,” Svaty said. “The building at 1600 W. Pancake Blvd. will be the operations center where they'll do all the marketing, promotion/sales, warehousing and logistics, and the actual cell components will still be manufactured in Taiwan and then sent here, and then the manufacturing base will be where everything is compiled and assembled into the different units. Those operations will be run out of the building at 1600 W. Pancake Blvd. The building has some significant upgrades it will need to undergo like static-free floors and clean rooms and upgrades to the ventilation systems and all of that. I'm really excited to get that building filled and in use and provide them with the space they need.”
Apogee is also certainly no stranger to the energy world, Svaty continued.
“Apogee has been around a long time, and they have locations in Taiwan, Vietnam, and they have sales operations out of Japan, Cambodia, Indonesia, and multiple other parts of Asia. They supply batteries for agricultural equipment from Kubota and other machinery in Asia,” Svaty said. “This company has been contracting in the U.S. for more than 20 years, primarily with the Department of Defense, and because of the quality of their products, they have technology that helps keep them explosion-proof and fireproof, and they also work significantly with the mining industry. I greatly appreciate City of Liberal leadership from the past year, it's been a great opportunity because so much of this is built on that relationship. This is not a typical project for Southwest Kansas, and I know the state is excited because they've been trying to get something out of Taiwan for a while, and we're leading that charge. The initial plan is 20 to 30 jobs and expanding to around 70 within the first couple years, and those jobs will come from our base and bring in people from around the area. Their engineers will come over and train the people and bring everyone up to speed. This is a great way to start showing even somewhere like Liberal can have a global impact and work with companies from around the world. Even more exciting is from the beginning, they said they know of other companies who want to set up operations in the U.S. We are happy to provide that home for this company in Liberal – they need to move some of their manufacturing and need a protected place in the U.S., and we're very excited. We're excited to see this project come to life and see what else they could bring to the table.”
Others also praised the project.
“Liberal definitely has some helpful attributes, such as being centralized, and we've always discussed how we could sell that. This company really liked that, and we also have a bit of security from the coast, which they noticed,” Liberal Mayor Jose Lara said. “At the end of the day, we also get something from the eastern side of the state and the relationships we've fostered there. Having the building available was also very beneficial, and that could lead to other conversations with other potential businesses to set up.”
“There's one of the guys on the Taiwan team I've only met once, but you could really sense the strength of the relationship that was built, and all of this came together because of that relationship,” Commissioner Jeff Parsons added. “Also, we really seemed to be in just the right situation for everything to come together, and I think the strength of this relationship is what's going to help us with attracting other companies that might come after Apogee. It was also really gratifying to see the excitement they have about coming to this part of the world, so kudos to everyone involved with this and all the hard work it took to get everything going.”
“I really think this reinforces the spirit of Liberal and how this truly is the friendliest city in the U.S., and I also have to thank everyone involved for all of their hard work,” Commissioner Janeth Vazquez said.
In other new business, the commission approved a contract and changes with French Construction for the Doll Addition, and also approved Resolution No. 2447 concerning the adoption of the Kansas Homeland Security Region D Local Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The commission also approved minor updates to the Housing Grant Programs funded by the 1-Cent Sales Tax and updated 2026 Facade Grant guidelines, and concluded the meeting’s new business by approving utility billing waivers for Stepping Stone Shelter in the amount of $2,079.98.
