KCK was set to get downtown apartment complex. Why did Mayor Tyrone Garner stop it?
Throughout his campaign last year, Mayor Tyrone Garner ran on revitalizing downtown Kansas City, Kansas, by bringing in new development.
But weeks into his tenure, the mayor halted a plan to bring a residential and retail complex to Fifth Street and Minnesota Avenue, where the now-closed Jack Reardon Convention Center stands. The proposal, known as the “Lanier Project” had already been approved by the previous administration and commission throughout 2020.
It’s now unclear what will happen to the Reardon Center, which is used only sparingly by the Unified Government. Garner said he wants to keep the convention center in Kansas City, Kansas, because he sees a space connected to the Hilton Garden Inn as advantageous for the city. And by refusing to put the project on commission agendas, Garner has effectively killed the development.
Willie Lanier Jr., the developer of the project, would like to go through with the project, pointing out that the previous commission approved the plan every step of the way.
“I’m willing and ready to do downtown development to meet my commitment that I gave to that community to be a positive developer for change,” Lanier said. “I’m ready and have been ready and I do not want to see the Reardon Center become KCK’s version of Kemper Arena.”
Kemper, now Hy-Vee Arena, used to be the home of Kansas City’s former NBA and NHL teams. The venue is no longer a single-use structure and houses multiple spaces that can host several different events daily.
Lanier’s proposed development in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, would have demolished the convention center and built a four-story mixed-use retail and residential building with 70 to 85 apartment units. The project included a fitness center and a meeting space that would have been at least 10,600 square feet, according to a Feb. 10, 2020, development agreement.
The development was projected to cost close to $23 million and Lanier’s proposal included a commitment for participation from local minority and women-owned businesses. But in a meeting weeks after his December inauguration, Garner informed Lanier that he would not support the project at the proposed location.
Lanier said he’s not heard of any opposition to the project from residents.
“I’ve been very, very happy to lead the effort to revitalize downtown, but I am and have been shocked that the new administration is not in sync with the current commissioners regarding the best way to bring a new face to downtown KCK,” he said.
The project is not the first time commissioners and Garner have not seen eye to eye. For months, commissioners asked Garner to launch a nationwide search for a permanent county administrator. Garner declined to do so multiple times before finally announcing last month that he would begin the process.
Brian McKiernan is the commissioner for District 2, which is where the Reardon Center sits.
“I’m not really clear on where it stands right now,” McKiernan said of the project.
McKiernan believes there are two avenues for the Unified Government: Continue with Lanier’s original project or ask him to develop at a different location. But the commission does not know if either will happen.
“I would like for the commission to get an official update on where the plan is, on what happened, and I’d like us to be able to talk through the pros and the cons,” he said. “I think we all want to see activity return to that corner.”
In an interview, Garner said that his vision is to have a convention center downtown. Community stakeholders in the area, he said, have expressed the same desire.
“This is the only event space in the county,” Garner said. “A lot of (cities) do have convention centers and event space.”
‘Really intriguing proposal’
Lanier approached the Unified Government with a plan in 2019. As an urban developer, he knew that the downtown area of Kansas City, Kansas, had not seen much investment over the years.
Then he saw the Reardon Center, a convention space owned by the Unified Government, that had been scarcely used throughout its lifespan.
Through discussions with the previous mayoral administration, plans were discussed on what to do with the convention center, from adding another building to completely redeveloping the area.
“So based on doing our analysis, we believed that the Reardon Center redevelopment was the best way to go,” Lanier said.
The Reardon Center is connected to the Hilton Garden Inn hotel. Lanier proposed including a small conference space in his development so that the hotel would still have a meeting space next to it. Lanier said he worked with Peachtree Hotel Group, the Atlanta-based company that owns the hotel, in designing the meeting space. The company did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Other large gatherings in Kansas City, Kansas, such as the inauguration of the mayor and the commissioners, are held at Memorial Hall, a reception type space that can hold around 3,500 people. Memorial Hall is located near Wyandotte County’s courthouse and City Hall.
“I thought it was a really intriguing proposal, and I was happy that somebody was proposing to improve that corner,” McKiernan said. “The Reardon Center had a lot of deferred maintenance, it needed some attention and conversely, we need more people living downtown to support downtown businesses.”
Lanier also saw another added bonus to his project: helping The Merc Co-op grocery store. The store opened in the summer of 2020 on the southwest corner of 5th Street and Minnesota Ave. A downtown grocery store had long been a priority for KCK’s policymakers. Lanier’s apartment complex was proposed to be across the street from the grocery story. That’s important, Lanier said, because grocery stores need foot traffic to survive.
Rita York Hennecke, the general manager of The Merc, said in a statement that the grocery store supports any housing and retail development that would revitalize downtown Kansas City, Kansas.
“In order to survive, grocery stores need neighbors to work, shop and — most importantly — live nearby,” she said.
Project agreement ends
Days after his inauguration in December 2021, Lanier, Garner and LaVert Murray, Garner’s economic development advisor, met to discuss the project.
Garner and Murray said they did not know about Lanier’s proposed project, though it had received local media coverage and was discussed at the Unified Government’s public meetings throughout the previous few years.
Lanier’s development overlapped with one of Garner’s campaign platforms: bringing more development to downtown Kansas City, Kansas, and areas east of Interstate 635 — particularly the northeast.
“There’s no way you can run in Wyandotte County and not know everything that’s happening in the downtown corridor because it has been void of any activity,” Lanier said. “So anything that was being planned should have been top of mind for a newly elected official.”
Around the same time, Lanier was still working on securing financing for the project and the center was being used as a warming center for the homeless.
The project agreement with the Unified Government ended on Dec. 31 and an attempt to extend the contract was pulled by Garner from the January committee agenda.
“As you can imagine, I was discouraged and disheartened by that outcome, as I had incurred approximately $750,000 in pre-development costs over the preceding 18 months to get the Project to a point of near commencement, which is no small feet for a relatively small African-American owned development company,” Lanier wrote in a March 4 letter to commissioners.
At their December meeting, Garner and Murray suggested to Lanier the project move to a different location close to the Reardon Center — near Sixth Street and Minnesota Ave.
“It’s not a development we want to chase away of course,” Murray said.
Garner agreed.
“Anyone who believes we’re pushing one developer away from the other, that’s not even the case — by a long shot,” he said. “The only thing we’ve asked is we want to preserve our one and only convention center.”
However, relocating the project would require Lanier to come up with a new development plan for his project as well as new investors. Unified Government committees would have to discuss his project and vote on the proposals. He would basically have to start over.
“He clearly is not engaged in trying to get my services downtown,” Lanier said. “I’m open to discussions to support my commitment ... No one was recommending apartment projects on the east side until I showed up.”
‘Developers need certainty’
In April, Commissioner Gayle Townsend, District 1, sent an email to Garner, interim County Administrator Cheryl Harrison-Lee, the commissioners and other Unified Government staff members saying she was not aware of the “‘killing’ of the Lanier Project, despite the fact it had been passed unanimously by the full Commission several years ago.”
“No reason I heard during that meeting gave any sound rationale or explanation for the demise of this much anticipated project,” Townsend said in the April 18 email, obtained by The Star through a records request.
Townsend — who declined to comment — requested that Lanier’s project be put on the next agenda of the Economic Development Standing Committee for a May hearing, but Garner did not add it.
Garner said that he wants to maintain the integrity of Kansas City, Kansas, and to do so by enhancing the convention center. But killing Lanier’s proposed project does not necessarily mean that the commissioners would approve a plan to redevelop the convention center. Murray said the convention center could likely be refurbished for close to $2 million and that the Unified Government already has $3 million collected from sales tax revenue that could be devoted to the renovation.
“The vision is to bring the right types of developments with a plan and a strategy, unlike you wouldn’t see in some other resurgent communities throughout our country,” Garner said. “The feedback I’m getting, Mr. Lanier wants to do business here. But we do have a process and eventually our commission will make the decision on which development proposals stand out above the rest and which ones they can support.”
Lanier, however, said he has not spoken to Garner or anyone on his staff in several months, despite multiple attempts. And last week, when Garner and Murray invited 18 nonprofits, developers and builders to a meeting to discuss redevelopment in areas east of I-635, Lanier was not among those invited. The meeting did not go forward because there was not a quorum.
Lanier believes his plan deserves to be discussed during an open meeting where the public can learn about the project.
“Developers need certainty,” Lanier said. “If the Unified Government can’t get certainty, private investment will not come knocking on this door to invest in, at least, the downtown corridor.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
