Here’s what’s coming to the old Johnson County Kmart spot: new restaurant plans, more
A longtime Kmart was, in its prime, a bustling shopping spot in Merriam.
After it closed in 2013, the old Kmart building sat vacant between Shawnee Mission Parkway and Antioch Road for nearly a decade.
But redevelopment plans for the old shopping center are marching along since the city first gave the project a thumbs-up last year.
Merriam Grand Station, a $137 million mixed-use development with retail and residential space, is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
The site’s two apartment buildings, called the Grand Station Lofts, broke ground in June. The four-story buildings — a combined 572,000 square feet — will contain 361 apartments. The lofts are expected to open in the summer of 2025.
And the project’s developer, Overland Park-based Drake Development, just filed another application for two plots of land within the more than 12-acre development. Drake is requesting to build three restaurants (one stand-alone, the other two in a shared building) on the plots of land.
The application was submitted to the Merriam Planning Commission for its Dec. 6 meeting.
Last year, the city approved Drake’s overarching plans to level the old building and transform it into a mixed-use development with apartments, five or so restaurants and retail space.
Drake’s previous plan to build a grocery store at the site failed after the city concluded the project did not “strike an appropriate balance” between helping businesses thrive and protecting the financial interests of Merriam taxpayers.
“One of our focal points in any project is how we can bring something unique and desirable to the community,” Scott Miller, vice president of Drake said in a written statement sent to The Star. “There is an advantage to standing out, but we pay close attention to the surrounding properties and the history of the area as we design our buildings and the overall project to ensure we are delivering a premier product that fits within the community.”
Drake has gotten approval for every other plot within the space — all that’s left for the planning commission to discuss is Drake’s proposed 10,000 square-foot canopy-covered common area.
The developer submitted renderings of the restaurant buildings to the city to review last week, featuring Chiefs-centered murals on the outside of the buildings.
The tenants for the future restaurants have yet to be announced.
“We are in discussions with several exciting restaurant users that will be new to the area and plan to announce those users in the next few weeks,” Miller said.
This story was originally published December 14, 2023 at 10:45 AM.