Commission OK’s plan for hotel, green space in Overland Park’s Rosana Square

The Rosana Square shopping area in Overland Park is about to get a major change with the addition of a hotel and green space in the area now anchored by a Price Chopper grocery store.

The city planning commission OK’d a special-use permit and preliminary plan this week to allow a four-story Comfort Suites in the area behind the Taco Bell and McDonald’s on the northwest corner of 119th Street and Metcalf Avenue. The hotel replaces what some commission members called underutilized parking in the area. It would have 86 rooms and 105 parking spots.

The hotel would have landscaping and would replace a 3,840-square-foot fast-food restaurant that was originally proposed for the site. The developer, Privitera Realty Holdings LLC, also plans to put up a 16,000-square-foot office building on the western part of the shopping center.

The infill project will bring a business class hotel to an area that has restaurants and public transportation connections, developers said. Thomas Nolte, who spoke for the applicant, said the project fulfills the ideals of Vision Metcalf, the city’s planning guide for the Metcalf corridor. The hotel and office will add to the mixed-use, walkable and landscaped goals the city wants for that area, he said.

The commission’s recommendation for approval goes to the full city council Nov. 6.

Commissioners also gave a blessing to two other projects at the Monday meeting. It OK’d a final development plan for a major facelift for the Regency Park shopping area and approved a rezoning that would allow the developers of the BluHawk center to add apartments to the southern end of their development.

The Regency Park project is on the northwest corner of 93d Street and Metcalf Avenue and includes the Micro Center and Natural Grocers in the 9100 and 9200 block of Metcalf. The center was built in 1990 and was purchased in February by Mission Peak Capital, which has plans to modernize the building facades.

The developer also wants to add a new pad site with a 4,500-square-foot building. No tenant has yet been announced for that building, said P.J. Ventola, managing director of Mission Peak.

Overland Park officials are also working with the developer on public financing for the project. Mission Peak has applied for a community improvement district to raise about $6.5 million of the $30 million cost of buying and refurbishing the district. City documents show the cost to buy the 207,000-square-foot retail center was about $17 million. However the public financing does not cover the purchase price.

The developer has also asked for economic development revenue bonds that would save the company about $768,000 in sales tax on equipment and furnishing.

Final details of the CID and bonds are still being worked out. Pending approval, construction could start later this year or early 2018.

Planning commissioners also approved a request from BluHawk developers for a rezoning that would allow 200 apartments on 20 acres at 167th Street and Lowell Avenue.

The apartments would be in the southern part of BluHawk, which is being developed by Price Brothers Construction Inc.

Neighbors of the northern part of the same development have been unhappy in the past with a plan for a hockey arena that was later withdrawn. But residents near the proposed apartments also have expressed concerns.

Developer Doug Price told the commission that nearby homeowners had a “vibrant discussion” of about two hours recently, expressing concerns about property maintenance in the subdivision.

Three neighbors spoke of those concerns at the planning commission meeting. Amy Andersen and Shaun Williams both questioned the developer’s decision not to have a clubhouse or gym at the proposed complex. They worried that lack of amenities would send the apartment dwellers across the road to use homeowners’ facilities without paying.

Williams also questioned how the developers could get $2,000 a month per unit without the amenities.

But the developer and some on the commission said the location alongside U.S. Highway 69 makes the site a good locale for apartments. Price said the young professionals who would be tenants will probably already have their own gym memberships elsewhere.

This story was originally published October 11, 2017 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Commission OK’s plan for hotel, green space in Overland Park’s Rosana Square."