Developers break ground on new 400-apartment complex at 135th and Antioch

Community leaders and the developer Ryan Companies celebrated the commencement of the development with a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning.

Once completed, the OsLo, named for the capital of Norway, will feature 413 apartments on the southwest corner of 135th and Antioch.
There will be five total four-story buildings overlooking a large courtyard space at the heart of the complex.
The development will also bring some commercial spaces, including a drive-thru bank, restaurants and more than 15,000 square feet of new retail space.
There will also be a dog park and a pool.

In the years that have followed the Great Recession, Mayor Curt Skoog said the city and other neighboring communities have struggled to address a growing demand for housing.
Skoog said Overland Park has a very low vacancy rate, with housing already 97% full in its existing apartments and multifamily developments, which leaves few options for current and prospective residents.
To compare, vacancy rates were about 5-6% from 2000 to 2018, with a healthy market vacancy rate considered to be about 6%, according to the Johnson County Community Housing Study from 2021.
“If we want to continue to be the economic engine of the state of Kansas and the metropolitan area, we have to have housing for our kids, our grandkids, our empty nesters and for the people that we continue to attract to the area,” Skoog said. “We need all kinds of housing for every generation that lives here and wants to live here.”
The Overland Park City Council approved the rezoning request for the OsLo apartment and mixed-use development at the southwest corner of 135th Street and Antioch Road late in 2022.

For generations, Bill Frey and his family ran Mission Gardens Nursery, a tree and garden shop, at the southwest corner of Antioch Road and 135th Street.
Mayor Skoog said that, for years, the business was surrounded by soybean fields, and very little traffic traveled down 135th Street.
Now, the area around this intersection has grown up, long-envisioned as a key commercial hub, Skoog said.
Skoog called it a “premier Overland Park story,” noting the transition of the Frey family’s land from a nursery to a large-scale multifamily home development.
“People saw the land as a way to earn a living, to start a business, to raise a family,” he said. “They understood that the future of this metropolitan area and Overland Park was going to be dynamic, and they wanted to be a part of it.”

Keep reading: Overland Park OKs rezoning request for apartments at 135th and Antioch