Traffic, housing, sports: Six projects that will change life in Johnson County in 2022
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Changes ahead for Johnson County in 2022
Six major development projects in Johnson County are moving forward in 2022: Brookridge, Deer Creek, Bluhawk Sports Complex, U.S. 69, and New Trails in Gardner. For some, it means a booming local economy — an injection of millions of dollars and new jobs. For others, a fear that their communities are changing too fast in an uncertain time.
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Tina Tribble is surprised when she runs into other Overland Park residents who still do not know about U.S. 69.
Starting this year, the highway will undergo a $400 million expansion with two new electronic toll lanes. Sold to local officials as the only way to pay for more traffic capacity, Tribble and others argued the plan unfairly benefits those who can pay the extra toll for their commutes even though all taxpayers are funding the project.
It’s one of a half-dozen major developments set to change daily life in every corner of Johnson County. Also in the works are mixed-use projects, hundreds of apartments and new sports facilities.
For some, it means a booming local economy — an injection of millions of dollars and new jobs.
For others, a fear that their communities are changing too fast in an uncertain time.
The first work on developments like Brookridge and Bluhawk are reopening old wounds from the bitter fights that took place when they were first proposed. Residents who argued dense new construction would dramatically change their neighborhoods will soon find out whether their predictions will come to pass and critics of public tax incentives that made several of the developments possible will track the first pennies diverted for the projects.
Tribble, for example, spent the past year waving her banner — “highway robbery,” it read — in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to drum up enough opposition to halt the U.S. 69 expansion.
“In the 30 years I’ve been here, every bit of development they do the same way,” Tribble said. “Each little neighborhood says, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t want X, Y or Z to happen. Then they say, ‘Well, it’s going to happen and here’s why.’“
But the largest county in Kansas continues to grow, even after almost two crippling years of the COVID-19 pandemic. That so many major developments are finally beginning in earnest after years of planning shows that momentum is expected to continue into 2022 despite a third year of the pandemic looming.
The first steel beams rising from sites across the region will be the first physical proof, in many cases, that these projects are still kicking after those setbacks. And developers hope those signs of new growth will spark the next round of investment pouring into the entire region.
“The overriding amazement we’ve had over these last couple of disconcerting years is that the momentum we had before the pandemic really started has continued,” said Lenexa Chamber of Commerce President Blake Schreck. “These projects don’t just happen overnight and our pipeline has been full of these things for the last three or four years.
“We have had a couple of our best years ever from an economic development standpoint,” he continued. “It’s a testament to the momentum we’ve built.”
Brookridge
Overland Park neighbors will spot the first bulldozers and construction crews beginning work on the massive $2 billion Brookridge Golf Course redevelopment in 2022 after years of bitter fights about the plans.
Crews already have drained the several-acre pond near the northeast corner of the property that stretches along Antioch Road from 103rd Street to Interstate 435, which sets the stage for the full site preparation to begin early this year.
The work will kick off a years-long construction program to turn the 200-acre property into a new mixed-use town center with hundreds of luxury apartments, almost 2 million square feet of office space and shops with a new waterfront along Tomahawk Creek.
But the start of the work also caps a years-long fight from neighbors and even Overland Park officials who were sharply divided on Curtin Property Company’s plans and campaigned against the several versions of the proposal at a multitude of hours-long, late-night debates in city council chambers over five years until the deal was finally approved in December 2019.
A $200 million tax incentive deal approved for the project drew the ire of neighbors and even outspoken City Council members who slammed it as an unnecessary giveaway to private developers. Neighbors also feared the construction will exacerbate flooding in the area and will not provide affordable housing the state’s second largest city desperately needs.
The large apartment and office buildings will tower over the single family homes in the surrounding neighborhoods and the new concrete and buildings will simply cause more water runoff into Indian Creek, potentially exacerbating the perennial floods at 103rd and State Line, said Bob Miller, who lives near the project and spoke out against it over the years.
“By love of God, Kansas City, Missouri, already has bit one bullet and now they’re going to end up biting another because they bought the land and turned it into a park” along Indian Creek, Miller said. “Really, when you think about it, they should turn it into an aquarium because of all the stormwater that’s going to go there.”
Neighbors repeatedly cited concerns about traffic, density, years of construction and the incentives created for the project but ultimately fell short of convincing the city council to block it.
“Brookridge is in my eyes a perfect example of the detachment of the governing system from the will of the people, from what people want to see happen,” said Overland Park City Councilman Faris Farassati, who voted against the plan.
“We essentially not only allowed it to the disagreement of the people, but we also threw over $230 million at it,” he continued. “The status quo will tell you we haven’t given a penny yet. Yeah, you haven’t given a penny yet, because it hasn’t been built yet. As soon as it gets built you’ll start sugarcoating it with money from the taxpayers.”
The latest plans ultimately won approval despite those objections, however, and officials hope the site will eventually become a new economic engine for Overland Park, eventually bringing in millions of dollars in property taxes and new business to the city.
Once complete, the new Brookridge will include multiple hotels, apartment and condo buildings, office towers, a performing arts venue and a 45-acre park.
Neighbors will get the first glimpse of the project early this year when bulldozers and equipment begin the grading and utilities work in the dirt underneath the existing golf course fairways and greens, developer Grant Curtin said.
The first phase of vertical construction will follow later in the year near the 103rd Street and Antioch Road corner with the first mixed-use building, which will include 317 apartments, retail locations and restaurant space, he said. Final plans for the building have been approved but a building permit for that construction is still under review, according to the city.
Deer Creek
Overland Park residents along the Deer Creek Golf Club will continue waving their bright-red stop signs this year in a final bid to block a plan for hundreds of new luxury apartments on a corner of the course on Metcalf Avenue.
The $65 million plan has been pitched as the way to “save” the decades-old public course by building 220 new apartments on the site of the current clubhouse to help fund sorely needed capital improvements and erosion control along Tomahawk Creek, which runs throughout the course itself.
But dozens of nearby residents have lambasted the proposal, arguing promises to rehabilitate the golf facilities are a red herring for another attempt by developers to squeeze large — and lucrative — apartment buildings into a long-settled neighborhood that does not want them.
The rezoning and special use permits necessary for the project won the approval of the Planning Commission last week, despite hours of residents’ testimony against it, and now the plan goes to the full City Council for consideration next month. Should the council also sign off on the project, developers GreatLIFE Kansas City and EPC Real Estate Group plan to start construction this fall.
“This is a pretty high profile deal and that’s certainly an attainable schedule and candidly one we need to hit,” said Austin Bradley, vice president of ECP Real Estate Group. “It’s not sustainable in its current state. They either need to throw in the towel or … we really need to commence construction in 2022.”
The fight has proven to be a microcosm of recent years’ battles about what sized developments should fit where in the growing city, frequently pitting large investors against cadres of small but organized groups of nearby residents.
The plan for Deer Creek offers an extra twist for city officials — approve the new apartments, developers say, and the groups promise to spend up to $3 million improving the course itself and another $6 million rehabilitating Tomahawk Creek to shore up its eroding banks and reduce flooding in the neighborhood.
Residents scoffed at that proposed trade last week and told commissioners it’s not up to them to help a private business care for its own facility.
“As a homeowner, when I bought my fixer upper house in Deer Creek, no one came to me with ideas on what I should do with it or how I should fix it,” said Jill Schram, who has organized much of the opposition to the project. “When they bought this golf course, it was a fixer upper, they had deferred maintenance and not maintained it. Now we’re trying to figure out what to do with it? That doesn’t make sense to me.
“It’s inappropriate for us to be coming to them with options for what they should do to their run down golf course,” she continued. “And I also think they’re not willing to entertain anything because this is a land play that really just lines his pockets.”
City council members are not permitted to discuss their vote on the project ahead of the public hearing next month, but it will come with both the city staff and Planning Commission’s recommendation for approval. Schram and her neighbors will press the council to back out of the plan but concede the vote last week leaves the project poised for final approval.
Bluhawk Sports Park
Johnson County residents will see the future home of local and regional athletics coming to fruition in 2022 as the Bluhawk Sports Park finally breaks ground in Overland Park this spring after years of planning.
The first phase of the multi-sport arena will include an ice rink, hard courts, turf fields and 4,000 seats all under one roof in a massive 250,000 square foot facility that will begin to rise from the empty ground near 159th Street and U.S. 69 over the next four months.
“It’s a big year for us,” said Bart Lowen, vice president of development for Price Brothers Development Group. “A long time coming, but the sports facility is going to break ground this year … We’ve already ordered the steel for the building; it shows up in April.”
Once complete in late 2023, the first half of the facility will offer families a host of new recreational opportunities — hockey and skating lessons on the new ice rink, baseball and softball practice in new batting cages, seven vs. seven indoor soccer fields, and space for basketball, volleyball and even pickleball availability on four new hard courts.
But the facility also is expected to reach far beyond Johnson County, attracting large regional tournaments to the complex because of its combination of indoor playing space, 4,000 seats for spectators and central location to shopping, dining, planned hotels and even the new AdventHealth South hospital next door, Lowen said.
A second construction phase to add another ice rink, four more basketball courts and another 40,000 square feet of turf — all indoors — will effectively double the facility’s tournament-hosting capabilities and the fully built complex is estimated to draw more than 3 million people to the complex each year, officials have said.
The project has not been without controversy, however, and has undergone several major revisions over the years. Neighbors adamantly opposed a larger version of the sports arena concept and, in 2018, Price Brothers scaled back its vision for semi-pro facilities to focus strictly on amateur events.
The COVID-19 pandemic’s far-reaching impact further hobbled the project’s financing in 2020 and last year Price Brothers was awarded $71 million in state incentives for the project through the STAR bonds program, which was created to help fund projects that would draw tourists to Kansas. The developers and Overland Park secured the funding just days before new rules went into effect that put new safeguards and transparency rules in place for projects reaping the benefits of the incentives.
“Why do I need to finance it at that level?” said Overland Park City Councilman Faris Farassati, who repeatedly opposed the incentives for the project. “There was a conversation before that this is a regional or national attraction. No it isn’t. A bunch of basketball courts and restaurants; nobody’s going to come be mesmerized by a hockey rink or basketball courts. there’s nothing unique to it, it’s not the Smithsonian.”
Those STAR bonds will be issued in the first quarter of this year, Lowen said, and that funding will be paid back over 20 years with sales taxes generated by the project. Financing and construction on the second phase will depend on when the first phase is finished in late 2023 or early 2024 and as additional retailers join the complex, Lowen added.
A team of bulldozers will be the first action to spot at the site as grading work begins this month and steel for the actual building itself should begin to sprout this spring.
“We’ve been thinking about and working on this for a long time,” Lowen said. “We’re just excited to see it materialize.”
U.S. 69 expansion
The daily commute along U.S. 69 through Overland Park will continue to be a slog through 2022 for thousands of Johnson County residents, but it at least won’t get any worse when construction to expand begins at the end of this summer.
The $400 million project will add two electronically tolled express lanes to the highway — one in each direction — between 103rd and 151st Streets in a bid to improve traffic flow on the most congested stretch of four-lane highway in the entire state.
Construction will take more than two years to complete and will entail the disruptive lane closures and rerouting that accompany any large road project, just not yet, officials said.
“The good news is that there won’t be major impacts to traffic in 2022,” said Ann Melton, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Transportation. “We’re hoping to get the design/build (firm) under contract by Labor Day, so that doesn’t leave too many months before winter, so it will be mostly site prep work on the current lanes. Most of the construction impacts will be between 2023 to 2025.”
The plans also include reconfiguring the highway’s interchanges at Blue Valley Parkway, Interstate 435 and 167th Street and the construction of about a dozen new noise walls to block at least some of the sound from the expanded lanes.
Those new lanes will be tolled electronically when they’re finally complete in 2025, while the two lanes drivers currently use will remain free, in an attempt to ease congestion by incentivizing some drivers to pay up for a faster, smoother commute.
Tolls will vary based on traffic conditions and time of day, with prices highest during the heavily congested morning and evening commutes, but generally will fall between about 25 cents and 32 cents per mile. A trip in the northbound toll lane from 151st to 103rd during rush hour might cost $1.50, for example, while an off-peak trip would cost just 65 cents, according to state estimates.
Those tolls will be used to pay for Overland Park’s $30 million contribution to the construction costs and will be in place for about 20 years, during which state traffic engineers expect vehicle volume to double on the back of the extensive growth across southern Johnson County.
The project faced sharp criticism from residents and several local elected leaders last year but ultimately won approval last summer. Some opponents dubbed the idea “Lexus lanes” and argued it favors wealthy residents while others argued the state should have to pay for the entire project on its own without charging any tolls.
Instead, Johnson County residents will literally pay the price for the state and city’s unwillingness to listen to residents’ criticisms and the growing burden of all of these new developments in the area coming to fruition, said City Councilman Faris Farassati.
“The development of Overland Park has gotten way ahead of its transportation portfolio, of its logistic capacity,” he Farassati said. “U.S. 69’s problem was not created two months, it has been backing up and filling over the past 10 to 12 years. It goes back to over-development, over-congestion, the lack of a scientific approach to development.”
Tribble may not break out the “highway robbery” banner again in 2022, but she said she plans to help residents stay engaged with the final technical plans for the project ahead of construction this fall.
This month the Kansas Department of Transportation will host neighborhood meetings with homeowners and tenants like Tribble along the highway and they will be allowed to vote on whether large walls to reduce the highway’s noise should be included in the project. Plans call for eventually expanding the highway all the way south to 179th Street.
New Trails in Gardner
Gardner residents will see new neighborhoods and shops start to emerge along Interstate 35 and 175th Street to start this year as the New Trails mixed-use development begins to take shape in 2022.
The $200 million project will transform the 262-acre site into several suburban neighborhoods with a large retail center along 175th Street, effectively unlocking the next stage of the city’s growth as it spills over the interstate to the east.
The project will look and feel more like the walkable, suburban neighborhoods that have filled out much northern Johnson County and have proven to be so in demand as the area grows. But New Trails is also the first visible infrastructure in place east of I-35, which local leaders hope will prove the city is ready to tackle the 2,600 acres to its east and south.
“From a development standpoint it was a perfect fit,” Gardner City Administrator Jim Pruetting said. “Just getting on the other side of the highway and kind of planting our flag over there will help us and it’ll be a catalyst for us as we look at building out those 2,600 acres in the future, which would double the size of Gardner.”
A convenience store will be the first retail to rise from the empty patch of field later this year and although the development group has been mum about what stores have plans to move into the center, public announcements are expected as construction begins in earnest.
All told, the project will include almost 400 single family homes, more than 420 apartments, more than 655,500 square feet of retail space, three hotels and eight restaurants. Under a 2019 development agreement, the city agreed to kick in a 75% property tax abatement for 10 years on the apartments portion of the project and up to $11 million in reimbursement for infrastructure at the site to be collected from an extra 1% sales tax on the commercial portions of the development.
The arterial roads that will serve the new neighborhoods were finished in the fall and construction has already started on the first 35 homes in the Prairie Trace portions of the site, said Grata Development President Travis Schram, who is leading the project.
The first phase of the multi-family units, called Treadway Apartments, is underway on the southwest corner of the site. Construction is anticipated to last into 2024 but leasing should begin at the end of this year for those looking for a new place.
“They’re pushing dirt around and they’ll go vertical here in the first quarter,” Schram said.
Infrastructure for the remainder of the retail sites will develop throughout the year and Schram hopes to share what companies will be taking those spaces as leases and final terms come together while the construction crews work.
Gardner leaders hope other developers will take notice and see the potential for entire new exurbs filling in the furthest reaches of the sprawling metro area.
“You’ve got a blank canvas over there,” Pruetting said.
Lenexa Justice Center
A speeding ticket in Lenexa will soon take you to a gleaming new municipal courthouse and police headquarters in the center of the growing city, instead of the decades-old former city hall on the eastern edge of town.
Construction of the new $73 million Lenexa Justice Center is slated to begin this fall at the southwest corner of Britton Street and Prairie Star Parkway. It will be the latest addition to the city’s slate of new facilities opened over the past several years like the bustling City Center.
The new facility will include a new municipal court and police headquarters with a new communications center for dispatchers, enhanced security, new records and evidence storage capacity and space for mental health professionals to work alongside sworn law enforcement.
The project began in the summer of 2020 to address the space and programming needs of the court and police department as the city continues to grow and city officials settled on a plan to develop an entirely new campus in a more central location instead of attempting to renovate the current facilities at 87th Street Parkway and Monrovia. The location change is similar to other Johnson County towns that have moved their law enforcement buildings to more central locations as their cities have grown, like Leawood, Shawnee and Overland Park.
The most important impact of the new construction will be what is not affected: Police response times, officer training, courthouse operations and municipal information technology.
Officers are assigned patrol zones and respond from the road, not police headquarters, so they will continue to operate the same way throughout the construction, Pelham said. And because the city has chosen to build an entirely new campus, both police and court services will continue to run as normal from their current facilities without any of the disruptions that would have come with phased improvements to the 87th Street Parkway buildings.
“The second we turn on the lights at the new building, we’ll never turn the lights off for the next 50 years,” said Todd Pelham, deputy city manager and project lead. “It’s a 24/7 building that will be utilized every day for the next 50 years.”
The new police facilities are designed to be literally more transparent — more glass and less “fortress,” Pelham said — and with more comfortable spaces for those who do unfortunately need police services.
“It might not be a building they ever step into if they don’t end up in court or, god forbid, have something bad happen to their family where they have to interact with a detective ... but the spaces within the building will accommodate those special situations,” Pelham said. “There will be some privacy and ways to utilize the new building that allows people to be protected in that sense and a place for kids to feel like they’re not in trouble; not something scary and stale and hard.”
Initially estimated to cost $65 million, large spikes in construction costs over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic already have caused the total budget to increase by $8 million, city officials said. The City Council approved the budget increase and hired JE Dunn Construction to build the new center at its meeting in late December and final designs will be finished in the first half of this year.
Construction is slated to begin this fall and will be completed in late 2023 or early 2024, with court and police services continuing in the current public safety complex in the meantime.
The project comes on the heels of the $193 million new Johnson County Courthouse, which opened in Olathe a year ago.
This story was originally published January 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Traffic, housing, sports: Six projects that will change life in Johnson County in 2022."
