Overland Park has dealt a blow to a Kansas City-based home services company’s plans to make the old Waddell & Reed building in the city’s north its new headquarters.
Southwind Management — the group behind five home services businesses including DreamLawn — had hoped to move into the 55-year-old building at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Lamar Avenue and use a portion of its large parking lot for overnight parking for some of its smaller service vehicles.
This comes as Overland Park and other cities grapple with what to do with vacant and underutilized office parks long term. The sprawling building has sat empty for nearly five years since Waddell & Reed left it.
Now, that plan faces uncertainty after the Overland Park Planning Commission voted 7-2 this week to recommend denying a 10-year special use permit tied to the company’s plans for the building at 6300 Lamar Ave.
Previously, the planning commission delayed voting on the application for the special use permit, and Southwind made significant changes to the plan, including amending where on the property it planned to park vehicles and barring vehicles from using Lamar Avenue to exit the site.
Even so, concerns about potential traffic generation and whether Southwind would fit with the character of the nearby residential neighborhoods appear to have won out.
Only commissioners Matt Masilionis and Ned Reitzes supported the special use application in the end.
Commissioners Thomas Robinett and Jameia Haines had been in attendance at Monday’s meeting but both had departed by the time the commission voted on Southwind’s application.
Southwind wants to lease the Waddell & Reed HQ
WR Company LLC still owns the building at 6300 Lamar that — before Waddell & Reed — served as a training center for now-defunct Trans World Airlines, according to county land records.
Southwind wants to move its corporate employees to the office building, taking up roughly 120,000 square feet. To do so, they say they need a special use permit that, if approved, would allow the company to park company vehicles and small commercial trucks in the parking lot overnight and on weekends.
Previously, the plan was to put up to 84 of those vehicles on the north side of the property nearest Shawnee Mission Parkway under a 12-year special use permit. Under the amended application, Southwind would park just 41 vehicles on the south and west sides of the property under a 10-year special use permit.
No exterior storage of materials would be permitted at the site, nor would Southwind be allowed to park semi-trucks at the former Waddell & Reed site.
In February, an attorney representing the applicant said the lease for the office space is pending approval of the requested special use permit.
Neighbors, commission still worried about fit
During Monday’s meeting, more than two dozen neighbors who live near 6300 Lamar in Overland Park and nearby Mission (north of Shawnee Mission Parkway) spoke in opposition to the special use permit that would allow service vehicles to be parked at the site.
Common concerns centered on character of the neighborhood, aesthetics and traffic. One neighbor suggested that the special use permit application was trying to “ram” industrial uses into an office park.
Many planning commissioners voiced similar worries.
Chair Kip Strauss said he was leaning toward recommending the application for approval but that he was swayed by neighbors’ opposition.
“It just might not be the right fit,” he said, noting concerns about noise, quality of life and if such a use would meet the intent of the comprehensive plan’s vision for this property.
Other commissioners worried about setting a precedent for this office park and others.
“I think it’s going to set a precedent for this office park to not be what it could be,” said Commissioner Kim Sorensen.
Waddell & Reed left 6300 Lamar years ago
- Even before the COVID-19 pandemic called into question the future of large office spaces more broadly, the fate of the building at 6300 Lamar had been in flux.
- Waddell & Reed had been making plans to move out of its Overland Park headquarters to a new $140 million office building in Kansas City, Missouri.
- But those plans were scuttled when Australia-based financial services firm Macquarie Asset Management acquired Waddell & Reed in 2021.
- That same year, some local Waddell & Reed employees were laid off.
Next steps:
- The special use permit goes to the Overland Park City Council for consideration next.
- It is scheduled for the May 5 meeting.
Looking back: Company’s proposal to park trucks at old Waddell & Reed HQ in Overland Park faces pushback
