Elizabeth Kashka has fond memories of the old Hen House at Merriam Town Center.
She took her grandmother grocery shopping there every other weekend for two decades. She still recalls the day the store opened, when kids played in water from a fire hose. She even worked there for three years.
Then in 2018, the Hen House in Merriam abruptly closed, and the northeastern Johnson County suburb of more than 10,500 people didn’t have its own grocery.
It hasn’t had one for the seven years since.
Kashka now has to settle for traveling to a Sun Fresh store in neighboring Kansas City, Kansas, but she says it “has way less quality products” than what she was used to finding at the old Hen House.
“That Merriam shopping center has almost everything everyone needs besides a quality grocery store,” she said.
Now, city leaders and a local developer think they have a winning project plan to bring a grocery store back within Merriam city limits.
Overland Park-based Drake Development is proposing a two-block redevelopment on the northwest corner of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Antioch Road, which is currently home to the old Antioch Library building, as well as a Caribou Coffee and a gas station next door.
Dubbed Merriam Grand Marketplace, the redevelopment envisions a 12,000-square-foot grocery store, 4,000 square feet of restaurant space to the west of that and a new apartment building.
While developers officially submitted a plan last month, city leaders say this project — and the much-wanted grocery store it includes — has been in the works for years.
More than that, city officials and residents like Kashka hope a new grocery store in Merriam reignites a “sense of community” that can only be found by shopping for food with your neighbors.
“Having a grocery store is almost like a neighborhood amenity,” said Chris Engel, the city administrator. “It’s a gathering place, it’s a place where we can run into our neighbors, it’s where we get to know each other because we all have to go there.”
Merriam Grand Marketplace is not a done deal — and public incentives that could be offered Drake are also still being considered — but the Merriam Planning Commission and the Merriam City Council are expected to make decisions about the project in the coming months.
“It’s the long game”
The origins of the project dated back more than a decade ago to a 2013 study of Shawnee Mission Parkway that envisioned a redeveloped corridor between Antioch and I-35.
When Drake first floated the idea for a grocery store on the north side of Shawnee Mission Parkway, Engel said city officials knew they wanted to have more control over any potential proposal.
“This is one of the last heavily trafficked areas for development, this Shawnee Mission corridor,” Engel said. “There were things that the council, and we assume our residents, would not want to come in there, and we wanted to make sure we had some sort of control over that.”
That’s when Engel went to the city council to get the green light to talk to Johnson County Library about buying the old Antioch Library building, which officially closed in 2024 to make way for the new Merriam Plaza branch nearby. The city closed on that transaction in February.
Merriam hoped its longstanding relationship with the library — given that the two partnered on the Merriam Plaza branch — would result in collaboration on the old Antioch building.
Engel said he’s been fortunate to build off what previous city leaders accomplished, and hopes that making the right moves now can set up the city for success.
“It’s the long game, and it’s the long game that may not come to fruition until after I’m gone,” Engel said. “Just because that may be when it’s gonna happen doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make those good efforts now.”
The Merriam Grand Marketplace is a complex deal, Engel said, but he says the city will ultimately own the entire east block of the project. Drake will own the western block, which is currently home to an existing Chipotle (which will stay) and the proposed apartments.
The city plans to borrow money to pay for its portion of the project, the restaurant and grocery store, and use a public incentive package that could be worth tens of millions of dollars to help pay back the debt.
Engel said the city plans to use revenues from tax increment financing — a portion of which will also reimburse the developer for project expenses — as well as a community improvement district, or an additional sales tax, on the site. Any extra tax levied in a community improvement district, though, would not apply to groceries, as spelled out in the city’s recently approved policy.
Additionally, Engel said the city won’t divert funds from regular, existing city services in order to build this project.
City believes there is a strong desire for a grocery store
Josie Randall-Sommerla, a Merriam resident, told the Post that it doesn’t take that much time for her to drive to grocery stores in other cities, but it would be nice to have a closer one to pick up a couple of quick items.
Randall-Sommerla said she’d like to see a new Price Chopper or Hy-Vee in Merriam, or at least a grocery store that is “newer, cleaner, bigger (and) less expensive,” than Sun Fresh down the street from her.
Engel said Hen House leaving “has cast a big shadow over the community.”
That shadow is why looking for a new grocery store opportunity has “always kind of been lurking in the background” for staff, Engel said.
In a 2024 Merriam community survey, 58% of the 439 respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that the city should work to bring a grocery store to the city “even if it requires giving the store a multi-million dollar public incentive package.”
Engel said the survey results are the city’s “north star,” especially given that residents seem to accept that a public incentive package will be necessary to draw in a grocery development.
Those survey results also check out with Mayor Bob Pape’s own conclusions from knocking on doors campaigning for his seat and, previously, a seat representing Ward 4 on the city council.
Pape, who has already filed this year for re-election, said he hopes to be able to return as mayor and tell residents the city got its grocery store.
His goals for the city include fully redeveloping the former Kmart site across the street from the old Antioch Library (the project is now dubbed Merriam Grand Station), as well as the greater Shawnee Mission Parkway corridor between Antioch and I-35.
“That’s what I think my job is, and that’s what I think our council feels their job is, to find out what people want in the community and try to provide what they want — to make it happen,” Pape said.
Maybe ironically, having grocery stores nearby in other cities has made it difficult for Merriam to attract a committed grocer within its city limits — which is part of the reason why a public incentive package may be necessary, officials say.
Currently, Pape said the grocery industry does not consider Merriam a “food desert” since residents can drive 10 minutes in any direction and get to a grocery store.
Hy-Vee in Mission, Sun Fresh in Kansas City, Kansas, and Price Chopper in Shawnee are all between seven and nine minutes away by car from the proposed grocery store on Shawnee Mission Parkway.
A food desert is when residents’ access to affordable and healthy food options is either “restricted or nonexistent due to the absences of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance,” according to the nonprofit Food Empowerment Project.
While Merriam residents have nearby options, Pape said, there is still a matter of convenience, quality of life and the sense of community a truly local grocery store provides.
“A grocery store is part of the city’s identity,” said Pape. “The fact that you don’t have a grocery store probably says something about you, I think, more than having a grocery store maybe does.”
Drake has promised a grocery plan before
Matt Pennington, president of Drake Development, said he’s been eyeing the north side of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Antioch Road since 2021.
Merriam Grand Marketplace, the prospective project’s name, is intended to work alongside the larger Merriam Grand Station development across the street, which replaced the old, vacant Kmart.
Merriam Grand Station is already home to two apartment buildings, restaurants like CAVA and HomeGrown, a vitamin supplement store and a public civic center.
Pennington said the goal is for residents to be able to live, play and entertain all in the same neighborhood.
“It’s going to work all in one as almost a small community, more or less, inside Merriam, but also giving all the residents of Merriam a chance to come and enjoy the amenities,” he said.
A grocery store was floated as a potential piece to the original Merriam Grand Station design, but that ultimately did not come to pass when an unnamed grocery store client wouldn’t commit to that project.
Now, Pennington said he already has a grocery store company lined up and committed to coming to Merriam Grand Marketplace, on the old library site. But Pennington and city leaders are not yet ready to name that grocery store.
A grocery store as part of any mixed-use development attracts people to the site daily, and “everybody thrives in that type of environment,” Pennington said.
What else is left to do?
- The planning commission was set to consider a preliminary development plan, final plat and rezoning related to the project at its meeting Wednesday.
- On May 12, the city council will consider setting a public hearing date for June 16 to establish a community improvement district for the Merriam Grand Marketplace project.
- Engel said he anticipates the city discussing the plan at its June 9 city council meeting, but the final key decisions will be put before the city council during a special meeting on June 16.
- The city encourages any residents to reach out with questions and concerns between now and June 16.
