Even before Panasonic Corp. makes its reported decision between Kansas and Oklahoma for a new electric vehicle battery plant, officials in De Soto have started making proactive incentive moves to facilitate not just one, but two potential $4 billion megaprojects.

At a five-minute special meeting Monday evening, the De Soto City Council agreed to a July 7 hearing date for two separate, but substantially similar, $4 billion project plans near the north entrance to the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, southeast of a Kansas Highway 10 bend.

The two project plans both outline advanced manufacturing facilities of at least 2.5 million square feet, as part of about 4 million square feet of total site work. The first 309-acre project site sits directly north the 296-acre second, at the southeast corner of 103rd Street and Dual Drive. The initial megaproject is expected to deliver as many as 4,000 new jobs.

Also approved was an expression of intent to issue as much as $100 million in industrial revenue bonds, a mechanism to give landowner Sunflower Redevelopment Group a sales tax exemption on construction materials used to make the first project site pad-ready with new infrastructure.

The plans and bond measure are part of “the City’s continued effort to make the De Soto site as attractive as possible for Project Ocean,” and “all … will accommodate the project contemplated by Project Ocean,” according to city materials.