Meadowbrook park plan takes another step forward

The Johnson County Park and Recreation District has approved a master plan for developing part of the former Meadowbrook Golf and Country Club in Prairie Village into one of the largest public parks in the county.

Board members voted 7-1 to adopt the plan during a meeting Wednesday night at the Tomahawk Hills Golf Course Clubhouse in Shawnee. But they cautioned that budget constraints could delay many of the amenities identified in the plan for the 83-acre park off of Nall Avenue, and some may never be built.

A preliminary estimate put building out the master plan, which includes large open areas, more than four miles of trails, playgrounds, senior fitness areas, pavilions, restroom facilities, sculpture gardens and a series of landscaped ponds, at more than $24 million. Tax incrementing financing is expected to provide only about $5 million to build or renovate public infrastructure.

The board said the master plan was largely conceptual and that the members would hold off on prioritizing projects to get the park open to the public over the next two to five years.

“The master plan is a fluid document and this is our giant wish list at this point,” said board member Nancy Wallerstein. “We will be adding things and slowly developing as we can and as the funds exist.”

Board member Leslee Rivarola remained unconvinced and cast the only dissenting vote. She argued against approving any plan that might give the public a false expectation of what was actually being built. She also objected that some parts of the plan were still undefined, such as how the park will provide lights in parking lots and along trails.

“I think we set up ourselves to upset the public and ourselves when we develop these master plans that suggest we’re going to spend $25 million over 15 years when we know over the course of 15 years that we don’t have $25 million for Meadowbrook,” Rivarola said. “I would like to see these processes change moving forward so that we can have realistic expectations for ourselves and for the public about what they can expect to see in a reasonable time frame.”

Board member Michael Pirner said he shared Rivarola’s concerns but added that he was impressed by the hundreds of people who attended public meetings about the park.

“I think this is a very important park,” Pirner said. “I’m a soft ‘yes’ mainly because I want to get the process moving forward, and I believe by moving it forward we can address some of these” concerns.

The vote represents another positive step for the Meadowbrook project that has inched along for most of the year. The Prairie Village City Council earlier this month approved the preliminary development agreement and rezoning for the 135-acre development bordered by Nall and Roe avenues and 91^st and 95^th streets.

Van Trust Real Estate plans to build a more than $200 million development on roughly 45 acres of the property. It would include a senior living center and a mix of single-family lots, luxury apartments, twin-home units and a boutique hotel.

Prairie Village wants to buy most of the remaining property for the park, using bonds paid for with tax increment financing. The financing allows the city to allocate future property tax gains on the Van Trust development to pay off the bonds.

Those bonds would provide around $4.8 million for developing the park’s infrastructure. During a presentation, Kelly VanElders, a landscape architect with Landworks Studio and a consultant to the district, identified some of the projects that money could be used for, such as removing an old swimming pool, bringing clubhouse parking up to modern disability standards, building 2.5 miles of the highest priority trails, establishing some of the major lawns and doing extensive renovation of the existing ponds. He said the ponds contain tons of sediment that could be used to build berms along Nall Avenue.

The remaining $19 million in work for future years would include site work and construction, including potentially demolishing the existing clubhouse and building a new community center, although several board members said they favored reusing the building.

Some nearby residents addressed the board and said they looked forward to the park. But they also continued to raise concerns about a road running through the project that would connect to Roe and Nall avenues as well as a parking lot currently planned in the park’s northeast corner.

The residents said both features were too close to homeowners on Roe Avenue and 90^th Street and asked for planners to consider moving them farther into the interior of the park.

“That just seems like a pretty significant intrusion on the back of those property owners,” said Floyd Wohlrab of the Kenilworth Homes Association.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Meadowbrook park plan takes another step forward."