The drones are real. Amazon's Prime Air service went live out of the Papillion fulfillment center last Thursday, and plenty of you have already seen (and heard) them overhead. Tuesday brings a heavy City Council agenda, including a top-to-bottom rewrite of the city's zoning code, and Sunday shuts down downtown for bike races. Here's your week.
🏗️ Development & Business
Amazon's Prime Air drones are officially flying. After weeks of federal review, Amazon flipped the switch on drone delivery on Thursday, July 30, making Papillion the first Nebraska community in the program. Customers within 7.5 miles of the Highway 370 fulfillment center can order items weighing five pounds or less and get them in under two hours, sometimes in as little as 20 minutes. Prime members pay $2.99 per delivery and non-members $4.99, with orders over $50 delivered free for Prime members. The site runs 12 fully electric autonomous drones and is expected to add 30 jobs, and Amazon says no driver positions are being cut. Before releasing a package, each drone scans for obstacles and hovers at a set height to avoid people, pets, and vehicles, and Amazon says onboard camera footage is deleted after every flight. Papillion is the 11th Prime Air market in the country.
"Prime Air is all about getting customers what they need, when they need it," said Taylor Candage, a Prime Air operations coordinator, in the company's announcement. "Whether it's a last-minute household essential or a birthday gift, our team in Papillion is ready to deliver."
We covered the FAA comment period as it opened and closed over the past two issues. That window is shut, so there's no federal comment to file now. If the noise or the airspace is a problem where you live, the place to say so is the city: contact your representative through the City Council contact page, or speak during Comments from the Floor at any regular Tuesday council meeting. While the FAA regulates the air, we did find that the City of Papillion approved the zoning changes required to build the launch pads and will need to approve them again if they ever want to expand.
And we want a read on this ourselves.
Thoughts on the drones over your block:
Papio Fun Park's replacement has a start date, and the whole building is coming down. Jessica Whirrett and her husband, who own Omaha Sports & Games in Elkhorn, are bringing a second location to the Papio Fun Park site at 210 E. Lincoln St. Construction starts at the end of August. The City Council declared the land blighted, which means the existing building gets demolished entirely and the site now qualifies for TIF funding, a financing tool Papillion has used only once before.
"It was hard to adapt that building to a new use because the building had to get brought up to current floodplain standards," said Mark Sturmsa, Papillion's deputy city administrator. TIF dollars can go toward driveway access, infrastructure, and grading the site out of the floodplain. The new building keeps the same footprint but sits three feet higher off the ground.
The plan is a private event venue for weddings, graduation parties, and corporate retreats, with a catering kitchen, bridal and groom's suites, arcade games, a golf simulator, pool tables, and shuffleboard. Garage doors on the back will open onto pickleball courts where the batting cages were, and the shed out back becomes a bridal entrance with a 15-foot arch. The old mini golf area becomes a garden called Papio Gardens, a nod to the original name. The gazebo stays. The go-kart track becomes parking.
"We're excited to keep on the legacy that Margaret and Paul White started," Whirrett said. "We're honored to do that."
One correction to our July 20 issue: we reported an opening in March 2027 based on the venue's own website. Whirrett told KETV she's aiming for summer 2027. We're going with the more recent, on-the-record date. If you want a piece of the old park, Omaha Sports & Games is selling off go-karts, picnic tables, and possibly some games (email [email protected]). Construction updates will run on the Omaha Sports & Games and Papio Gardens social accounts and at PapioFunPark.com.
The old InfoGroup building is becoming a national-scale lab. Midwest Laboratories began demolition and renovation at the former InfoGroup site in April, converting it into a new Animal Nutrition Laboratory with chemistry and microbiology facilities. The company says it will be one of the largest animal nutrition labs in the country, with expanded capacity for food and pet food analysis, and expects it to be operational in 2027. CEO Brent Pohlman recently walked through the project on the city's podcast. It's the company's first move into Papillion after building out a 10-building campus across the metro.
🏛️ Local Politics & Civic News
The City Council votes Tuesday on a total rewrite of Papillion's zoning code. ORD. 2093 amends Chapter 205 of the municipal code in its entirety to fold in "Missing Middle" housing regulations. Missing Middle generally refers to housing types that sit between a single-family house and a large apartment building: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, cottage courts. The applicant is the City of Papillion itself, and Tuesday is the ordinance's second reading and public hearing. A change to the zoning code in its entirety is about as consequential as local government gets, because it sets what can be built, and where, for years.
Four more hearings the same night on a multifamily project near 72nd and Schram. Redwood USA, LLC is asking to rezone land southeast of 72nd Street and Schram Road from agricultural to multiple-family residential (ORD. 2094), and the Council will hold separate public hearings on a revised preliminary plat, a comprehensive plan amendment, and a large project special use permit for the same site, known as Ponderosa Place.
The Papio Bay Aquatic Center project is changing course. RES. R26-0153 would discontinue the construction manager at risk delivery system for the aquatic center's expansion and renovation, and terminate the CMAR contract with Sampson Construction. The resolution doesn't cancel the project, but it does mean the city intends to deliver it a different way.
Also on Tuesday's agenda: a $262,000 design and engineering contract with Shive-Hattery for the First Street Trail and Trailhead Project, a $41,975 amendment to add more permanent programmable LED lights downtown, a $1,804,394.98 final payment to McAnany Construction for the ultra-thin bonded asphalt program, a first reading of ORD. 2095 amending the city's animal care and keeping rules, and a third reading of the liquor license ordinance we covered two weeks ago.
Here's how to weigh in. The meeting is Tuesday, August 4 at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Papillion City Hall, 122 E. 3rd St. Public hearings mean you can speak at the podium on the Missing Middle rewrite and on each Ponderosa Place item. If you can't be there, written comment can be submitted ahead of time through the City Clerk, and there's a Comments from the Floor period near the end of the meeting for anything else. The full agenda is posted on the city's Agenda Center.
🌳 Around Papillion
Speed enforcement wraps up Sunday. The Papillion Police Department's stretch of extra speed patrols under the state's "Speeding Catches Up With You" campaign runs through August 9. "The Papillion Police Department frequently receives complaints from our citizens about speeding vehicles and our streets are busier than ever," Lt. Preston Maas said in the department's announcement. City release
Sump Memorial Library is closed Sunday for the bike races running through downtown. Everything else on the library calendar is on as scheduled. Library calendar
No baseball at Werner Park this week. The Storm Chasers are out on a road trip through the middle of the month. The next home game is August 10. Schedule
More restaurant picks keep coming in. Talus is still running away with it, but the replies since last week added The Beanery for coffee, plus Schezwan Bistro, Fovero, Ollie & Hobbs, Grace Pizza, Cafe Diem, Ming's, Golden Apple, Texas Roadhouse, and Olive Garden. A couple of readers nominated Summer Kitchen and Thai Orchids and then immediately flagged that both are probably just over the line into La Vista, which is the most Papillion thing that happened all week.
📅 This Week's Events (August 3 – 9)
🚔 National Night Out (family-friendly)
📍 Papillion City Park
🕕 Tue., Aug. 4, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
The police department's annual community night, with a police vehicle expo, food trucks, bounce houses, special guests and presentations, and a free foam party from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Police Department
🏛️ Papillion City Council Meeting
📍 Papillion City Hall, 122 E. 3rd St.
🕖 Tue., Aug. 4, 7:00 p.m.
Public hearings on the Missing Middle zoning rewrite and the Ponderosa Place rezoning package (see above). Open to the public. Agenda
🥕 Papillion Farmers Market & Storytime (family-friendly)
📍 Papillion City Park
🕔 Wed., Aug. 5, market 5:00–8:00 p.m., storytime 5:00–6:00 p.m.
The weekly market plus a library storytime set up right in the middle of it. Dogs welcome on a short leash. Market info · Storytime details
📚 Family Storytime (family-friendly)
📍 Sump Memorial Library, 222 N. Jefferson St. (outdoors)
🕙 Sat., Aug. 8, 10:00–10:30 a.m.
An outdoor morning storytime for kids and their grown-ups. Library calendar
🚴 Papillion Twilight Criterium (family-friendly)
📍 Downtown Papillion
🕙 Sun., Aug. 9, racing from 10:00 a.m. through the early evening
A full day of racing on a closed downtown course, with categories from beginner to pro. The Tiny Crit kids race (ages 5 to 14, bring a helmet) goes off around 1:30 p.m., and the pro fields race mid-afternoon. Free to watch. Race info & registration
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