The Roeland Park City Council this week unanimously approved developer EPC Real Estate Group LLC’s request for $19 million in public tax incentives for its roughly $75 million proposed mixed-use project at The Rocks site, 4800 W. Roe Blvd., where the city pool was located decades ago.
Incentive deal includes $16M in TIF
Overall, the public incentives comprise the following estimated amounts:
- $16.4 million in tax-increment financing, or TIF, over 20 years
- $1 million in community improvement district, or CID, proceeds over 22 years through an additional 2% sales tax within the district
- $1.5 million in industrial revenue bonds over two to three years that will exempt the developer from sales tax on the project’s construction materials
Developer wants to break ground in 2023
- The project’s final development plan is expected to come before the council in March, with due diligence in April and a June 1 target closing date, City Attorney Steve Mauer said at Monday’s council meeting.
- EPC plans to break ground in the third quarter of 2023 and complete the project by the end of 2025, according to council documents.
The plan includes apartments and a restaurant
- A 280-unit apartment complex is the centerpiece of the plan, of which at least 5% of the units will be set aside as “affordable” for renters making at or below 60% of the average median income in the Kansas City area.
- The plan also includes a 3,500-square foot restaurant, possibly with an outdoor dining space and a private-public plaza.
- It will also include a parking garage for residents, electric vehicle charging stations and fitness facilities and other amenities.
- Mauer said he could “guarantee you with everything I have that there will be a restaurant there to start.”
The Rocks site has been discussed for years
- Roeland Park has been actively seeking development agreements for The Rocks site since 2017.
- In 2018, after getting some initial interest from a developer, the city council dropped plans for a restaurant, hotel and adventure course on the site.
- Earlier this year, despite the city signing off on a land sale agreement, a plan with Sunflower Development Group also did not come to fruition.
- Ward 3 councilmember Trisha Brauer said the project “means a lot to all of our residents here. This has been decades in the works, and this will truly change the lives of every single person that lives here.”
Go deeper: Plan for ‘The Rocks’ in Roeland Park calls for apartments, two-story restaurant and plaza
Jerry LaMartina is a freelance journalist who contributes frequently to the Shawnee Mission Post and other Kansas City-area publications. He can be reached at lamartina.jerry@gmail.com.
