The Roeland Park City Council this week approved two agreements to sell land to Sunflower Development Group to make way for a nearly $50 million proposed mixed-use project with apartments and commercial space a the former site of Roeland Park’s city pool.
At its Monday meeting, the city council voted 7-1 to approve the purchase agreement for one lot and 7-1 for three other lots, totaling $3.45 million, at 4800 Roe Parkway.
Ward 4 Councilmember Michael Rebne was the lone vote against both agreements.
The city retains approval authority over the design and development plans, Mayor Mike Kelly said.
City Administrator Keith Moody added that the council could prevent the sale if it doesn’t like design or development details and that the city expects the project will include public financial incentives.
Jason Swords, principal of Kansas City, Missouri-based Sunflower, told the Post after the meeting that the project would include:
- about 200 one- and two-bedroom units,
- about 5,000 square feet of commercial space,
- a parking garage with about 320 spaces and
- surface parking with about 40 spaces, all on three of the four lots the developer seeks to buy from the city.
The fourth lot is occupied by the city’s public works department.
The council on Monday separately authorized exploring where in the city the public works department might be moved to.
Swords said he wanted to “pursue a hotel for that part of the site at a later date when that market comes back and the financing is easier.”
Sunflower had expressed interest in early 2017 in building a hotel on the site’s upper portion but never made a formal offer.
About three years ago, a committee tasked with exploring options for the site reported a persistent lack of interest in the site from developers.
Sunflower will continue working on the project’s design and development plans and aims to break ground this year, Swords told the council Monday, adding, “We’re all systems go.”
Rebne said that after learning of the land’s purchase price, “I want to be cautious to understand how much money and sense of power is swirling around.”
He said he wanted to give the information to the city’s racial equity and sustainability committees and any other resident committees to consider “the environmental impact of a development this large.”
Swords told the council in December that the details of the mixed-use apartment complex — with retail and a restaurant on the main level — should be similar to what the developer is working on at the former Mission Bowl site in neighboring Mission, which he said was “the direction we’re trying to push here.”
“I believe I know the direction the city would like to see this go,” Swords said last month. “We’re going to do our very best to get it there.”
He said Sunflower estimated 20% of the apartments would qualify as affordable, using 70% average market income.
The project would cost a little less than $50 million and would take about 20 months to complete, he said.
Kelly said last month the city had been “working on this site for a long time, and to have a project like this with the amenities that are contemplated here would truly be a benefit. A $50 million investment is pretty generational in Roeland Park.”
Jerry LaMartina is a freelance journalist who contributes frequently to the Shawnee Mission Post, among other Kansas City-area publications. He can be reached at lamartina.jerry@gmail.com.
