By Alex Smith
Heartland Health Monitor

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Cerner Corp., the Kansas City-based health care information technology giant, broke ground Wednesday on its massive Three Trails Campus in south Kansas City, Mo., a project that’s eventually expected to house as many as 16,000 workers.

Cerner officials, along with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Kansas City Mayor Sly James, took part in the ceremony at the site of the now-demolished Bannister Mall, once one of the area’s biggest shopping centers. The mall was torn down in 2009.

Cerner’s plans call for a 4.7 million-square-foot office complex consisting of 16 buildings on 290 acres to be built in 16 phases. The complex will dwarf the company’s current 1.4 million-square-foot headquarters in North Kansas City. By comparison, Sprint Corp.’s campus in Overland Park includes 3.9 million square feet.

Completion of the entire project could take up to a decade, although Cerner hopes to fill several thousand jobs there by 2017.

The company says the project, not far from the former Marion Labs complex that now serves as Cerner’s Innovation Campus, eventually will include shops, restaurants and a hotel.

The project is estimated to cost nearly $4.5 billion. About $1.75 billion, the largest public subsidy ever given to a private company in Kansas City, will come from local and state tax increment financing.

Cerner, one of the area’s fastest growing companies, says it expects to add 16,000 jobs at the campus between 2017 and 2025 with an average annual salary of $75,000.

The complex was initially approved by the Kansas City Council in October 2013.

Company officials anticipate the first Three Trails jobs will be filled in early 2017.

Alex Smith is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.