New owners of the Overland Park Racquet Club plan expansion, remodeling

The new owners of the Overland Park Racquet Club have plans to update and expand the Johnson County sports facility starting next week.

JOCO Tennis LLC bought the center Thursday for an undisclosed price. Its investors include Kansas City area businessman Jim Stowers, formerly of American Century Investments, and real estate developer Ned O’Connor.

Kansas City United Tennis, co-owned by Elliott McDermed and Eric Rand, also is an owner of JOCO Tennis and was tapped to operate the facility and run its tennis programs.

The group’s plans include adding to the center’s eight outdoor tennis courts to complement its 14 indoor courts, swimming pool, restaurant and other facilities. A new roof, heating and cooling system, bleachers and covered outdoor deck also are part of the expected changes.

“A lot of this is Jim,” McDermed said of Stowers. “Jim has a great vision that he’ll be excited to share with the public.”

Drawings of the planned design are not yet available.

McDermed said the idea behind the changes is to duplicate the area’s growth in youth soccer tournaments and leagues.

“Our goal is to do that from a tennis side,” he said. “The way you do that is to have a world class facility.”

Work starts next week with landscaping and resurfacing of the parking lot.

The Overland Park Racquet Club has 350 members and is open to the public. It had been owned by a group of St. Louis investors led by Eugene Ellis, an owner since 1978 who also owns the Forest Lake Tennis Club in St. Louis.

This story was originally published June 20, 2014 at 3:29 PM.