The idea, discussed in some form for at least the past five years, to co-locate a new Prairie Village community center next door to a new Corinth Library branch is officially dead.
Two weeks after the community center project narrowly survived another attempt to kill all conversations about it, the Prairie Village City Council on Monday voted 10-2 to stop moving forward on the project.
The vote came after the YMCA of Greater Kansas City — which would operate a city-owned community center — denied terms the city council requested earlier this month. Those terms asked the Y to agree to certain financial contributions, like covering any operational losses a community center might incur.
Councilmembers Ian Graves and Ron Nelson cast the dissenting votes, signaling their willingness to move forward with a public vote on the concept.
Monday’s vote puts an end to the project two years after the city council revived the conversation, following a pandemic-induced hiatus. In those two years, the city has spent roughly $225,000 on two contracts and one feasibility survey to develop a final concept to share with the city council and the public.
In an emailed statement, the Y said it is “disappointed” with the city council’s decision and is looking at how it can move forward.
In a separate statement, the Johnson County Library said it plans to “continue to serve this community” no matter the final location of the Corinth branch, which remains the library system’s third busiest branch.
How did we get here?
The idea of a new community center co-located with a new Corinth Library branch has been a major talking point in Prairie Village since 2019, years after a previous proposal for a city-owned community center failed.
Two community surveys — one in 2019 and another in 2023 — found residents mostly support the concept, though that support slightly decreased over that four-year period.
The Y continues to paint a bleak picture of the current Paul Henson facility’s future, saying it operates at a $200,000 annual deficit. Still, the Y owns the land in what is a nearly fully developed-out city.
For the past two years, city leaders have been exploring what a Prairie Village community center — built and paid for by the city, but operated by the Y — might look like and cost.
The city has also hosted public forums to garner resident feedback. The intent was to take the community center idea to a public vote if it passed city council muster.
The idea the city and its partners landed on was to build a new roughly $55 million community center next door to a brand new Corinth Library at the northwest corner of the city’s civic campus, near the city pool and Shawnee Mission East High School.
The civic campus is the area just west of Mission Road that includes city hall, the police department, Shawnee Mission East, Harmon Park and the city pool.
With interest over 30 years, the city estimated it would be on the hook to pay back upwards of $90 million in bonds. The city planned to pay the bonds back through a sales tax increase, but the city’s bond counsel estimated a hit to the city’s AAA bond rating.
Earlier this month, the city asked the Y to cover any operational losses and contribute at least $7.5 million toward the building of the community center within the first two years of its opening.
The decision came after the Y denied city terms
In an Oct. 17 letter to the city, the Y denied those two key terms that the city council specifically requested as part of the negotiations process.
Those terms are as follows, as outlined in city documents:
- The Y denied covering any operational losses as the Y believes the city should bear that responsibility “given the nature of the partnership and the shared community benefit” of such a facility.
- The Y denied committing to a $7.5 million contribution within two years of the facility’s opening, but agreed to commit $3 million for either operational or capital expenses in the first two years.
That contrasted with what the Y said in May, when officials said the Y would be willing to contribute up to $10 million for a Prairie Village-owned community center that would replace the deteriorating Paul Henson facility.
The city council weighs in
Councilmember Greg Shelton made the motion to “cease pursuit of a community center project in Prairie Village.” (Shelton is the husband of Post publisher Jay Senter’s sister.)
Shelton said he is unable to support carrying a community center project to a public vote for a number of reasons, including “the steady recession of the Y’s commitment” and the rapid increase in the cost of the project.
Councilmember Cole Robinson said he supported the motion to end the project because of the “operational uncertainty” of a community center, coupled with the need to prioritize a new city hall and renovated police department.
Councilmember Dave Robinson said the project has reached a point where he has “a hard time seeing success.”
Shelton, Cole Robinson, Dave Robinson and Councilmember Chi Nguyen all flipped their votes, going from opposing efforts at the Oct. 7 meeting to kill the project to supporting killing it on Monday.
Graves, one of the two councilmembers who preferred to keep the project alive in order to take it to a public vote, said this is a “generational project” that other smaller cities like Mission have been able to accomplish. He said he thinks residents should be able to vote on this issue.
“This is a big decision point in the history of Prairie Village,” Graves said. “I believe in third spaces, publicly owned ones, aside from parks, and this would be a massive investment — or some people would say, a spend, on this.”
The Y, library now looking at other options
- With the city council’s decision to end all community center discussions, the library and the Y both need to consider other options for the future of their separate buildings.
- The Paul Henson facility is deteriorating, and the Y told the Post in a statement that it is exploring how it “can best adapt and serve the community moving forward.”
- Corinth Library is now the oldest branch in the Johnson County Library system, as it opened in 1963 and was last renovated in 2002.
- The library board has allocated funding for a replacement Corinth branch, and the library board itself will discuss next steps at future meetings, according to a library statement.
- Updates will be available online here, and answers to frequently asked questions about Corinth Library’s replacement can be found online here.
Here’s what the concept called for
A new community center and library would be in the northwest corner of Harmon Park near the city pool, as well as a new pool entry building.
The community center concept envisioned the following, according to city documents:
- A 6,600-square-foot gym striped for basketball, volleyball and pickleball
- Indoor aquatics with a recreation pool, a five-lane, 25-yard lap pool, and steam and sauna rooms
- A new pool house for the entrance of the city’s existing outdoor pool
- A public common space as the welcome center
- Two community meeting rooms that could accommodate up to 133 people if combined
- Separate spaces for kids and teenagers
- A 10 laps per mile indoor track
- A group fitness room, a spin studio, weights and cardio area
Go deeper: Watch the city council’s entire discussion about the community center project online here, starting at 2:00:53.
