Black & Veatch, a 110-year-old engineering firm, is eyeballing a roughly $1.12 billion mixed-use redevelopment for its Overland Park headquarters that would feature office space, housing, retail and a public park.
If all goes to plan, Black & Veatch also intends to loop neighboring properties into the effort, including vacant portions of the 115 Galleria development area as well as Nall Corporate Center, adding another $425.5 million in investment, for a project total of more than $1.5 billion.
The proposal, dubbed the Overland Park Plaza II Redevelopment Project, includes a request for public incentives totaling nearly $240 million through a tax increment financing district and reimbursement through a special 2% sales tax.
Black & Veatch also intends to request economic development revenue bonds and a sales tax exemption on construction materials.
The whole project, located roughly around 115th Street and Lamar Avenue, falls within the city of Overland Park’s OP Central area — a strategic investment area in the city’s comprehensive plan long defined by large-scale corporate users.
City leaders have emphasized mixed-use development in that area as it looks to reimagine underutilized office space.
On Wednesday, the Overland Park City Council Finance, Administration and Economic Development Committee will get the first look at Black & Veatch’s proposal. The committee serves essentially as the gateway for projects’ incentive applications before they go before the full city council.
Black & Veatch planning “walkable” mixed-use development
The mixed-use plan for the Black & Veatch campus in Overland Park would be laid out in a grid pattern and is intended to be walkable, a key priority of OP Central in a 2018 master plan for the area.
According to city documents, the project would be built out over five phases, starting with a new 612,000-square-foot headquarters building for Black & Veatch.
Subsequent construction would add nearly 400,000 more square feet of office space, though the intended tenants of that are unclear at this point.
Additionally, nearly 1,900 residential units are proposed, including a mix of apartments, condos and townhomes, as well as a 160-room hotel.
Plus, city documents detail 550,000 square feet of retail space.
All told, the mixed-use development would span about 23 new buildings across roughly 80 acres. The plan also calls for nearly 6,000 parking spots in structured garages.
It would also include public park space to be dedicated to the city at the site of the current Black & Veatch building, which would be demolished.
Some of the development, as detailed in the incentive applications, would occur on neighboring property in the Galleria 115 and Nall Corporate Centre project areas through a cooperative agreement.
Block Real Estate has existing development plans with the city for both of those sites, so those agreements may need to be amended in conjunction with Black & Veatch’s redevelopment plan.
How do these incentives work?
- Tax increment financing, or TIF, districts work by turning over tax revenues earned from increased property value to a third party to cover or reimburse costs incurred in a defined development area for a set amount of time.
- Per the TIF application for Black & Veatch, the development could be eligible for an estimated $227.7 million in reimbursement through that incentive tool alone.
- At the same time, Black & Veatch is asking for a temporary 2% special sales tax called a Community Improvement District to cover a portion of the project area.
- Funds raised by the special sales tax are paid to a third party for a set amount of time — usually about 20 years.
- That could generate an additional $19.8 million in reimbursement.
Next steps:
- This week, the finance committee will need to take a vote to advance the incentive requests to the full city council for consideration.
- Later, the city council would need to hold a series of public hearings and additional votes to finalize the details for the TIF and CID.
- Plus, the Overland Park Planning Commission would eventually need to approve an official project plan tied to the incentives.
- Additionally, Black & Veatch has a pending rezoning application, a key step in moving forward with the mixed-use redevelopment as planned. That would require planning commission and city council consideration as well.
- City documents don’t include an exact timeline, but working through all of that is likely to take months.
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