Plans for new county jail at KC trailer park stall after land price nearly doubles
Jackson County might not build its new jail on the site of an east Kansas City trailer park after the owner demanded almost double the price previously agreed to, The Star has learned.
Negotiations stalled after the owner jacked up the price, Dan Tarwater, chairman of the Jackson County Legislature, said Wednesday evening. And now each side is taking positions that Tarwater acknowledged were public negotiating ploys.
After tentatively agreeing to sell the 100-acre parcel for $6.5 million, the owner of Heart Mobile Village suddenly demanded $11.5 million after The Star reported in late March that a deal was in the works, Tarwater said, and the county subsequently refused to pay the inflated amount.
“If he comes back around, we may end up buying that property,” Tarwater said. But there’s no way he will allow county taxpayers to be gouged, he said, even if the site met most if not all of the requirements the county set for a new jail location.
Park Properties Inc. of Wichita owns Heart Mobile Village. Heart Mobile management did not respond to a request for comment.
Signs that the deal was falling through surfaced this week when, on Tuesday, Heart Mobile’s management sent tenants a letter acknowledging for the first time the county’s interest in the site, while seeming to put that transaction in the past tense by announcing plans to invest in new park facilities and start renting to new tenants.
A day later, the project schedule on the county’s website was changed without explanation. The timeline now delays construction by several months, presumably so the county can zero in on another site or reach a deal with the owner of Heart Mobile Village.
Those developments on their own seemed to suggest that the jail will no longer be built on the county’s preferred site. Tarwater went further in an interview, providing details about the breakdown in negotiations, while saying that the purchase might proceed if Park Properties reduced the price.
The developments come days ahead of when officials had planned to publicly acknowledge that a sale was in the works. An appraisal had begun and county officials were discussing privately and publicly their concerns about the need to pay for relocating the 100 families who live at Heart Mobile.
The first indication that things were amiss came when Park Properties sent letters to residents on Tuesday saying that while the park’s management is “honored” that Jackson County officials “like our property,” the mobile home community is “not under contract for sale to Jackson County.”
No one ever said it was. The county had signed a letter of intent to purchase the property for an undisclosed price, a precursor to negotiating a sale contract. But it’s not clear that Park Properties ever signed that letter of intent.
The Wichita company bought Heart Mobile for $3.4 million two years ago and would have nearly doubled its money by agreeing to the county’s offer. Its asking price is now nearly four times that.
Even at $6.5 million, Jackson County would have needed to spend millions adding fill dirt to alleviate flooding risks in the low-lying area along the Blue River.
The letter to tenants also outlined Park Properties’ plan to make investments in Heart Mobile and said that it was trying to attract new tenants after suspending all new rentals several months ago, as negotiations with the county’s real estate broker began.
“We are also preparing additional renovations to the office to construct a new clubhouse, laundry center, and even a small convenience store,’’ it said. Tenants told The Star that the company has not made good on previous promises to add amenities.
The letter blamed the news media for causing residents “panic or concern for no good reason.” Tarwater, meanwhile, said the publicity emboldened Park Properties to inflate its asking price.
The Star first reported on March 29 that the property at 7000 E. US 40 Highway was the county’s preferred site for the nearly $300 million new jail. The county never publicly acknowledged that Heart Mobile Village was the site, but several officials acknowledged it privately and legislator Jalen Anderson publicly fretted over what would become of the families that rent space there.
Part of any negotiation for the land, Anderson and others said privately, would require working out a compensation package for those people so they could find other places to live.
A Star reporter provided county officials on Tuesday with a copy of the letter Park Properties had sent its tenants.
Sometime after 10 on Wednesday morning, the project’s timeline was changed without notice. Construction of a replacement for the downtown detention center had been scheduled to begin this fall, with completion and final move-in set for summer 2024.
The new timeline had construction starting next spring and the new jail becoming fully operational no earlier than the fall of 2024.
Heart Mobile fit most if not all of the requirements that the county was looking for in a site to build a jail whose construction alone is estimated to cost $260 million. Land, equipment and other expenses are expected to push the total cost to $300 million.
It is twice the 50-acre minimum size that the county’s consultant had set. It fits the requirement that it be 20 to 30 minutes by road from the main Truman Medical Centers location at Hospital Hill, as well as the two county courthouses.
It’s on a bus line and has easy highway access, yet has few residential neighbors.
JCDC Partners identified 40 possible sites for a jail and gave county legislators a short list to choose from back in January. The Star has not been able to learn those other locations.
One qualification that Heart Mobile did not meet was that it preferably be on “unincorporated property in Jackson County.” The unincorporated Blue Summit area north of I-70 along I-435 has often been mentioned as a potential jail site.
The current jail in downtown Kansas City is 40 years old, deteriorating and has an inefficient design.
What next, if a deal can’t be reached with Heart Mobile’s owner?
County spokeswoman Marshanna Smith emailed the following statement Wednesday evening:
“Currently, there is no agreement between the county and any property owner for the purchase of a site to locate a new detention facility. The county, with the assistance of our owner’s representative, JCDC Partners, continues to evaluate numerous potential sites ...
“This process will continue until a site has been identified based on the criteria established, terms have been agreed to, and the County Legislature has voted to approve the purchase of the site.”
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 3:10 PM.
