Dillons gets OKs for new grocery store in Lee’s Summit; company floats 1% tax
Lee’s Summit City Council members have given a green light to plans for a new $49 million, 100,000-square-foot Dillons grocery store off Douglas Street. They also appeared open at their July 7 meeting to a new taxing district that would give the project a funding boost.
The store, which would have a pharmacy and a gas station, would be built on a 22-acre site at the southwest corner of the Tudor Road-Douglas Street intersection. The market would sit west of Lee’s Summit North High School across Douglas and south of the new Evren apartment complex along Tudor. The site would also have spaces for future commercial development along Douglas.
City documents indicate construction on the store could begin next year ahead of an opening in 2028. The space would employ 250 full-time and part-time employees and have a payroll of $9-10 million a year, according to a presentation City Council members saw.
City Council members approved a preliminary development plan and a rezoning request for the site from developer Phillips Edison and Company. As part of their approval, council members also signed off on a group of code exemptions requested by the developer.
“You guys are thriving,” Tim Goyette, vice president of design, development and construction for Phillips Edison, said to City Council members. “It’s an attractive growth market. You have well-educated residents, great household incomes, a quality-focused community. We’re excited to bring Dillons here.”
Mayor Pro Tem Hillary Shields said she felt the grocery store made sense at the site, noting that it appeared residential development in the area had inspired commercial growth.
“That seems like we’re kind of achieving a goal that we talk about a lot here,” she said.
Kroger, the parent company of the Dillons brand, also floated a conceptual request for a new community improvement district at the site that would implement a 1% sales tax to fund about $6.8 million in improvements, including site grading, a widened Douglas Street, sidewalk construction and utility relocation.
Jill Giles, a Kroger representative, told council members that site work and roadway improvements “are definitely going to make it necessary for a CID in this case, unfortunately. It’s not somewhere the company really wants to go, in taxing our customers, but we believe with this partnership, we can work something out that’s mutually agreeable for both parties.”
Council members gave positive feedback to the proposal at their July 7 meeting, but the district would still need future approval.
“As far as that’s concerned, if you need it, you need it,” said council member Trish Carlyle. “You’re doing it to yourself, so go ahead.”
Joe Perry, the president of the Lee’s Summit Economic Development Council, hailed the project, pointing to the swath of jobs the store would create both while it was under construction and in direct employees once it was open, and the surge in tax revenue the store would generate.
“You can say that this is the city’s largest jobs corridor, with the two largest employers on it (the Lee’s Summit School District and Saint Luke’s East Hospital), and this will serve those apartments and others that need food,” he said.
