Is there hope for Brookridge? OP Council raises serious doubts about incentives

The fate of the massive Brookridge golf course redevelopment remains in serious doubt after the Overland Park City Council decisively trounced a proposal Monday night to negotiate tax incentives to make the project a reality.

The Council voted 8-4 against a request to have city staff negotiate a tax-increment-financing and STAR bonds package for the huge office, apartment and retail development, which is planned southeast of 103rd Street and Antioch Road on the golf course property.

It was a significant defeat, because any final vote on incentives would require nine of the 12 council votes, and this early rebuff showed supporters didn’t even have a simple seven-member majority.

Council members Paul Lyons, Curt Skoog, Fred Spears and Richard Collins were the only ones favoring continued talks with developers Chris and Grant Curtin, of Curtin Property Co. Mayor Carl Gerlach didn’t vote but indicated he too had serious reservations about the financing approach.

Monday’s meeting pertained to the northwestern two-thirds of the 140-acre project. That project phase, including apartments, office and retail development, was estimated to cost $470 million, with $324 million in private financing, $85 million from TIF and $61 million from Kansas STAR bonds. These financing tools would allow future property and sales taxes from the development to reimburse eligible developer costs., including infrastructure and parking structures.

But the Council thought there was still too much risk to the city from this public investment and remained skeptical that the project will be as transformative as envisioned.

“This is a major project...it’s a big promise,” said Councilman Faris Farassati. “I just don’t see the data and the evidence to support it.”

Residents of the neighboring Wycliff and Pinehurst Estates neighborhoods have fought the proposed golf course redevelopment for about five years, arguing that it’s too dense for the single-family residential area, brings too much traffic to Antioch, and poses major flood control concerns on an area traversed by Indian Creek.

They declared partial victory Monday night but remain aware that the developer could revamp and return.

“It’s a tremendous abuse of TIF and the STAR bonds, and they were right to turn it down,” Pinehurst Estates resident Mark Hunter said after the council vote.

Attorney John Petersen, speaking for the developers, had urged the council to support the TIF and STAR bonds.

“We have before you the request to move forward,”Petersen said, adding that the project “makes sense and brings great benefits to the city.”

Petersen noted that out-of-town representatives from Key Bank were present in the audience to demonstrate the bank’s financial support.

He proposed that $20 million of the TIF would be used to improve 103rd Street and Antioch Roads that border the development. He said that was a way to accomplish traffic signals and road improvements that need to occur anyway but that the city can’t afford in its annual budgets. The proposed time line would have seen those road improvements designed by 2020, utilities relocated by 2021 and road construction in 2021-2022.

But Gerlach and other council skeptics worried that if the city issues $20 million in bonds for the road improvements, and the planned developments and new tax revenues don’t materialize to pay the bonds back over 20 years, the city could be at risk for that debt service.

They also questioned the developer’s justification for the STAR bonds from the state of Kansas. That justification was based on the “business tourism” draw of the new Brookridge offices, hotel, retail and entertainment amenities. City Manager Bill Ebel said the developer would need to assure the office buildings would be constructed to create a “business travel destination,” which Petersen said was a legitimate reasoning.

Councilman Dave White wasn’t buying it. White said he didn’t see how a proposed grocery store, hotel, couple of stores and bars and apartment and office buildings would constitute “business tourism.” If that were the case, White said, any Overland Park developer could qualify for STAR bonds.

“You get a NASCAR track; you get a soccer stadium; you get the Legends, that is the STAR bond stuff.” White said. “We’re not getting that here.”

The developer had hoped to bring back a more specific financing plan and development agreement to the council on Dec. 17.

Hunter, a long-time critic of the project, said that time line for such a complex financing package was too hasty, and some council members agreed.

“They were obviously trying to rush it to get it to the lame duck Kansas administration (of outgoing Gov. Jeff Colyer),” Hunter said.

He noted that without the public financing help, the developers “have to pay for it themselves, which I don’t think they’re capable of doing.”

The Curtins and Petersen declined comment after the vote about how they may proceed.

Lyons argued that this is still a unique project that helps develop the area for the future.

He also reminded the council that the developer still has an approved rezoning of the 140-acre property. He cautioned that it’s not likely to remain a golf course forever, and the elected leaders may lose control over what it becomes.

“It’s highly likely it isn’t going to be a golf course,” Lyons told his colleagues and those in the audience. “So the questions is, to what extent do we want to control what that something is? Without working through a public private partnership, we have less leverage over what that’s going to become.”

This story was originally published October 16, 2018 at 11:46 AM.