Historic school to become apartments, townhomes as Johnson County downtown grows

After sitting empty for five years, a former museum and elementary school could be transformed into townhomes and apartments — filling a long vacant space in downtown Shawnee.

On Monday night, the Shawnee Planning Commission approved a proposal to build 14, two-story townhome units on 5700 King Street. The proposal is the second of a two-phased project — with the first approved by the planning commission in December to build 40 apartments.

The site has received two proposals for housing projects in the past, with at least one that faced community opposition, but they didn’t make it over the finish line.

While the Planning Commission acts independently of city politicians, the approval comes at a time when Shawnee residents elected a slate of local officials more open to multi-family housing options and the downtown area is experiencing a wave of energy and revitalization.

“In a word, I’m very excited about this project,” said Alex Welch Blattner, a Shawnee resident who founded Say Yes Shawnee — a community group dedicated to advancing attainable housing, among other priorities. “I would say on principle we are in support of a project that adds housing people can afford and different types of housing for different types of people.”

The site for the multi-phased project was formerly Flint Elementary School, which was built in the early 1950s and remained in use until merging with Blue Jacket Elementary in 1996. The building was later purchased for the Wonderscope Children’s Museum — which operated at the King Street location until 2020 when the museum relocated.

The former school and museum — which is listed as a historic building in the state of Kansas — will be home to the apartment complex. While preserving the building in accordance with State Historical Preservation Office regulations, the developer will build nine studio apartments, 15 one-bedroom apartments and 15 two-bedroom apartments.

According to the Planning Commission’s meeting minutes, the developer anticipates that rent for the apartments will be $900 for a studio, $1,200 for a one-bedroom and $1,800 for a two-bedroom apartment. Townhomes will be based on market rate.

“I hope there’s not a bunch of public pressure to make these more expensive because I think it’s hard to find a place to live at that price point right now,” Welch Blattner said. “I like that we’re offering a different range because some people are going to want a little bit bigger apartment. But some people, maybe they’re just starting out and they want a little place to call their own.”

Past development efforts

Shortly after Wonderscope left, a proposal from the Sunflower Development Group came forward to build a multistory, 189-unit apartment complex, which was approved by the Planning Commission but was ultimately rejected by the City Council in November 2020.

“That plan, it wasn’t a bad plan by any means but it did see a lot of resistance,” said Lisa Larson-Bunnell, a former Shawnee City Council member who served while the large apartment complex went through the approval process. “It was a lot of density, a lot of height for a building in that area, and so there was a pretty large community resistance for that.”

After the apartments failed, the developer came back with a proposal to build 26, two-story townhomes at the property instead. Although the City Council approved the necessary rezone requests for the project, the plat was not recorded and the developer never moved forward with construction.

“I’m very happy to see that something is happening with this land because vacant properties in the center of our downtown area that we’ve worked so hard to redevelop are not a good look for the city and they are so difficult to maintain,” Larson-Bunnell said. “Vacant properties are not good neighbors.”

Supporting downtown’s growth

Once stagnant for many years, downtown Shawnee has been undergoing a transformation thanks to new breweries, coffee shops and restaurants moving into the area.

In 2019, Shawnee embarked on a $40 million project to rebuild Neiman Road at the center of downtown — which helped bring in multimillion-dollar mixed use office buildings and apartment complexes.

Efforts continued in 2024 and 2025, with the city spearheading a project to make parts of Johnson Drive more pedestrian friendly. This year, the city opened its downtown improvement grant program, which provides grants up to $7,500 for downtown commercial property owners and businesses undertaking exterior or interior improvement projects.

Increased density can help sustain the city’s growth and efforts to revitalize its downtown, resident Christian Sinclair said.

While increased density, apartments and townhomes can be alarming for some residents, the increased foot traffic brought from higher density units — like the apartments on King Street — could generate increased foot traffic to the businesses in the area, he said.

“Housing and density is really important,” Sinclair said “I think you do need a little bit more homes in that area to make it more reasonable, more sustainable, for those businesses to thrive.”

With the parcel receiving the necessary rezoning back in 2021, the project didn’t need to go before the City Council and the Planning Commission made the final approval.