Excavation work is underway at the site of a new warehouse project in Bondurant. Photo by Michael Crumb

A new warehouse is being built near the Amazon Fulfillment Center project in Bondurant, but local officials and developers are not saying who the operator of the new building will be.

Ryan Cos. purchased the property from GHolds LLC on Sept. 30 for $3.33 million, according to real estate records. The 72 acres of land, at 2300 Shiloh Rose Parkway S.W., is west of Northeast Hubbell Avenue, records show.

The Bondurant City Council approved the site plan for the project, labeled Project Omega, on Aug. 10. The city approved a grading permit on Sept. 15.

The Business Record obtained copies of the site plan, which show schematics for the development, and the grading permit.

According to the documents, a 278,000-square-foot warehouse will be built on the property, with a completion date of Aug. 1, 2021. The documents show the site will include parking for 265 employees, with enough parking spaces to accommodate 322 semitrailers.

Brian Clark, director of real estate development for Ryan Cos., said the overall cost of the project is nearly $55 million. He said it is being built for a specific client, but he declined to say who that client is.

He described the warehouse as an “outbound cross-dock facility,” where trucks would be unloaded on the north dock, where a team of employees would sort goods by ZIP code and then load them onto third-party trucks, such as Fed-Ex or UPS, that are parked on the south dock.

Architecture firm Mark Ford and Associates is designing the warehouse. Shive-Hattery is the civil engineer and landscape architect on the project, which encompasses 50 acres on Bondurant’s south edge, just west of Iowa Highway 330.

Clark said crews are working seven days a week to get as much work done as possible before it snows, but he anticipated that walls would be going up shortly after the first of the year.

According to Clark, the original property owner retained a small parcel of land to the east for possible future development. Shiloh Rose Parkway will be extended to the north, with Project Omega sitting to the west of the road, Clark said.

Clark said the city of Bondurant has been “good to work with,” which was a factor in the decision to locate the project there.

“The reason the project landed here is access to the interstate highways and the ease of government to get the project approved to meet the client’s schedule,” he said.

Bondurant City Administrator Marketa Oliver said the city was pleased that Ryan Cos. would choose to do business with Bondurant again.

“We’re just honored that they felt good enough about their experience with us that they would choose to do another project here,” Oliver said.

Ryan Cos. is also the developer of the nearby Amazon Fulfillment Center. That project, estimated at $295.5 million, is scheduled to be complete later this fall. Officials were also mum about the project before it was officially announced earlier this year.