Oak Street development across from UMKC is on schedule

The apartment, Whole Foods and student health center complex at 51st and Oak streets appears to be on schedule, and road interruptions on 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard are expected to end by Aug. 15.

Developer VanTrust Real Estate said Wednesday that sidewalk and parking lot work adjacent to the 51st Street Colonial Shops will continue in July. All shops are open during the construction and pedestrian paths to the stores will be kept clear, according to project directors.

The block-long construction project between Oak Street and Brookside Boulevard, announced in 2012, took several years to work through discussions with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, Central United Methodist Church, City Hall, neighbors and Kansas City Young Matrons before it broke ground in June 2015.

The project, which still doesn’t have an official name, is now expected to be completed in late summer 2017.

Construction required moving the Young Matrons clubhouse from 51st and Oak to a new location at 52nd and Cherry streets, about 2 1/2 blocks away from the original site. The relocated and expanded clubhouse is now open.

Leah FitzGerald, development services director at VanTrust, said that renderings of the project are being shown to neighborhood groups and that the developer expects to announce a project name “very soon.”

The complex includes a Whole Foods grocery, a 170-unit apartment structure, a student health center and a parking garage on the 2.84-acre site. When completed, UMKC will relocate its current student health center from 4825 Troost Ave. to the new location.

The complex is designed to include six levels of apartments, a mix of studios, one- and two-bedroom units, and a six-level parking garage with 445 spaces.

This story was originally published June 29, 2016 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Oak Street development across from UMKC is on schedule."