$20 million makeover is planned for Overland Park building

A prominent, 30-year-old building on the College Boulevard corridor will get a total update in 2016.

“We’ll gut, strip it, take it down to its bones,” said Buzz Willard, chief executive of Tower Properties, which has owned the building at 6601 College Blvd. for 20 years. “It’s a good building in a great location, and we expect the market will respond favorably.”

Black & Veatch has occupied the building for 20 years but will move out at the end of this year. The engineering company will relocate about 300 employees from the College Boulevard site to the Overland Park Xchange, formerly known as the Overland Park Trade Center.

Willard expects the $20 million renovation to make the six-story, 101,000-square-foot building workable for multiple tenants or a single user.

“We’re visiting with possible single-tenant users but are comfortable either way,” Willard said. “We think it will be an attractive property, ready for occupancy by the third quarter” of 2016.

The changes will include a new glass facade, new mechanical systems and new interior finishes.

“6601 College looks a little like a prison now, with its tiny vertical windows,” Willard said. “We’re going for a lot more light, a cleaner, modern look.”

Willard said Tower Properties has hired RMTA Architects and Jonkman Construction for the 6601 College job, partly because Tower Properties was impressed with their architectural and construction work underway on a B.A. Karbank & Co. property at Shawnee Mission Parkway and State Line Road.

SNS Engineering will modernize the mechanical systems. Colliers International will market the building, which is across the street from the Sheraton Overland Park Hotel at the Convention Center.

No public incentives are involved in the renovation.

This story was originally published August 18, 2015 at 10:08 AM.