Proposal submitted for three new office buildings at I-435 and Nall in Overland Park

VanTrust Real Estate has submitted plans to the Overland Park Planning Commission to build a major office development on land now occupied by the former CenturyLink building.

The plans call for three office buildings, each between four and five stories in height and all amounting to 348,000 square feet of new office development.

VanTrust, the prolific Kansas City real estate development firm, owns 14 acres at the southeast corner of Interstate 435 and Nall Avenue.

“We do not yet have any tenants and are currently working up pricing for the project,” Rich Muller, executive vice president VanTrust, said in an email.

Kristy Stallings, deputy city manager for Overland Park, said VanTrust has applied for economic development revenue bonds for a sales tax exemption on construction-related materials for the project.

VanTrust’s plans amount to a significant new office construction project in the Kansas City area. It is also in the Kansas City area’s strongest office real estate market.

South Johnson County has an office vacancy rate of 11.7 percent, the lowest for any market in Kansas City and below the metro area’s average of 17.1 percent. That’s according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield, a global real estate firm with offices in Kansas City. That same report indicates the average rent per square foot in south Johnson County is $27.76, above the city’s average of $22.67.

VanTrust’s plans appear to replace the 10-story CenturyLink building at I-435 and Nall and a smaller building nearby. In their place would be one building that’s 134,000 square feet and two others that are each 107,000 square feet. The development plans call for a four-story parking garage with 460 spaces, as well as surface parking around the three buildings.

CenturyLink sold the buildings to VanTrust after it moved its employees in Overland Park in 2014 to offices in New Century. The building previously was occupied by Embarq, a local phone division of Sprint until it spun the business off in 2006. Embarq was then purchased by CenturyTel in 2009, which then became CenturyLink.

This story was originally published November 4, 2016 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Proposal submitted for three new office buildings at I-435 and Nall in Overland Park."