LANE 4 president Owen Buckley gave the Prairie Village Environmental Committee a peak at the company’s preliminary redevelopment plans for the Village Shops and Corinth Square last night.

In September, the Prairie Village City Council approved two Community Improvement Districts, raising the sales tax at the Village Shops and Corinth by 1 percent to help fund major improvements to the centers.

With the CIDs having gone into effect Jan. 1, LANE 4 is in the process of assessing a first round of renovations.

“The main reason we purchased these properties was the community, the schools and the spirit,” Buckley said. “And we don’t think that’s going anywhere. We view these centers as a long term investment, and we’re planning our redevelopment of them accordingly.”

Buckley presented a series of conceptual drawings from Kansas City architecture firm Helix, though LANE 4 has commissioned conceptual work from other firms as well to get variety of options.

Bryan Gross, a principal at Helix, said his team had worked up its concepts with the goal of making the centers much more walkable.

“A lot of the ideas we’ve put in have to do with slowing down traffic, and making them more pedestrian friendly,” he told the committee.

Buckley said they were hoping to create a “Norman Rockwell” aesthetic for the Village Shops, while the plans for Corinth Square strove to “create kind of a sense of California cool, using more natural materials than are there now.”

We’ll post a few more details about what Buckley told the committee at the meeting about LANE 4’s plans later today, but we want to get the drawings up first. There are three more pairs of drawings after the jump:

Buckley told the committee “it’s a good time to be having this meeting and showing people our concepts, because the start of any major changes is at least a year away.” They’re looking for feedback — so don’t be afraid to share your thoughts in the comments section.