Plans are changing slightly for a retail district in northeastern Olathe that’s already home to a Hy-Vee.
Last week, the Olathe Planning Commission voted 8-0 to approve a revised preliminary site development plan for the retail center near the southeast corner of 119th Street and Ridgeview Road.
Initially, the site plan revision was part of the consent agenda for the planning commission, which means it would typically be approved alongside a series of other procedural items, but Commissioner Chip Corcoran asked to remove it.
That’s because he wished to recuse himself due to his engineering company’s involvement with R.H. Johnson Company, a local real estate firm that submitted the application for this project.
Some previous plans for site never materialized
The initial plans for the full Ridgeview – 119 development first started to take shape in the early 2000s when the city authorized a site plan for the nearby Hy-Vee grocery store as well as additional inline retail space and pad sites.
A subsequent vote in 2006 divided the property into two lots, and eventually, the Hy-Vee and most of the proposed pad sites were built out, according to city documents. The inline retail buildings were greenlighted in 2008, but they were never built, leaving this part of the property undeveloped.
What’s changing in Ridgeview, 119th plan now?
- The new plans for the site feature about 23,000 square feet of new commercial development planned east of the Hy-Vee and west of Lennox Street.
- That will include about 16,000 square feet for a retail building with a 2,000-square-foot outdoor patio seating area as well as one 7,000-square-foot pad site.
- Altogether, that’s about half of the square footage pondered in past development plans for this site.
- The retail building is expected to come first, followed eventually by the pad site.
- No specific tenants have been discussed publicly for these buildings so far, however, city documents suggest at least some of the space could be used for a sit-down restaurant.
- General retail is also listed as a proposed use.
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