Trader Joe’s intends to be the first grocery store to operate in the city of Merriam in more than half a decade as part of a $102 million redevelopment effort at the site of a former county library.
The specialty grocery store — which already has a location in Leawood’s Town Center Plaza and another in Kansas City, Missouri, on Ward Parkway — is a key feature of a long-sought redevelopment on the northwest corner of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Antioch Road.
The project, dubbed Merriam Grand Station Marketplace, will span roughly six acres and include parcels that are currently home to a Shell gas station, an auto shop, the Caribou Coffee drive-thru, some office space and the former Antioch Library property the city recently acquired.
It’s all part of a partnership with Drake Development — the company behind the mixed-use project across the street called Merriam Grand Station — that will bring more than 200 apartments, 4,000 square feet of retail and dining space, a 12,500-square-foot Trader Joe’s grocery store as well as utility and infrastructure upgrades in the area.
In a series of 13 votes on Monday, the Merriam City Council unanimously moved the Merriam Grand Station Marketplace plan ahead. The actions during the special meeting approved the site rezoning, started the process of establishing incentives and formalized a redevelopment agreement with Drake, among other things.
Trader Joe’s will be Merriam’s first grocery store in years
Trader Joe’s, which has submitted a building permit application to the city, will be the first grocery store to operate in Merriam since Hen House left Merriam Town Center in 2018.
That closure has forced citizens of the city, which is home to more than 10,000 people, to go shopping for groceries in other communities, including in neighboring Kansas City, Kansas, as well as in Mission and Shawnee.
Since then, bringing a new grocery store option to the city has been a big priority, said City Administrator Chris Engel. In a 2024 community survey, residents ranked getting a new grocery as their top priority.
“Having a grocery store is almost like a neighborhood amenity,” Engel has said previously. “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.”
Now, a new grocery store is headed to Merriam and soon. On Monday, Matt Pennington, Drake Development’s CEO, said that, if all goes to plan, then the new grocery store could open late next year.
Marketplace project to get incentives
The city will cover its portion of the project cost up front — at least $32 million — with a mix of tax-exempt and taxable general obligation bonds, which the city council issued this week. That debt will be paid off using revenues raised from tax incentives and money made from the leases on the Trader Joe’s and retail buildings.
To make that work, Merriam has established a 22-year, 1% special sales tax that will cover the retail in the future Merriam Grand Station Marketplace, as well as the majority of the dining and retail options in the completed Merriam Grand Station development across the street. The new Trader Joe’s would be excluded from the special sales tax because Merriam, by policy, is trying to keep grocery costs low for residents.
Called a Community Improvement District, the special sales tax needs to raise $5 million in reimbursements that would exclusively go to the city, per the terms of the redevelopment agreement. It would take effect on Oct. 1, 2025.
The city council also voted to approve a project plan that would include the Merriam Grand Station Marketplace development in an existing Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, district called the I-35 Redevelopment District.
TIFs work by turning over increments of 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. Drake Development alone expects to get nearly $13.8 million in reimbursement through that incentive.
Drake has also requested a sales tax exemption on construction materials (for a savings of $2.3 million) and a property tax abatement that locks in the 2024 tax rate of $49,476 for 10 years. Those tax exemptions and abatements will be delivered via industrial revenue bonds, another financing tool.
Additionally, Merriam intends to turn over some city-owned property to Drake for the project, reimburse Drake $1.5 million for the purchase of Chipotle, and give a $4.8 million economic development grant to acquire the Shell gas station site.
Drake, in turn, must contribute $1.5 million to the city’s portion of the redevelopment, helping to finance the construction of the grocery store and retail buildings.
City and developer will share responsibility for project
In the end, Drake Development is responsible for the redevelopment on the west side of Slater (which includes the four-story apartment building with a below-ground parking structure) and the city will own the retail and grocery store buildings which will go on the east side of Slater.
At the same time, the city maintains the power to convert all of the property Drake owns or will own in the project area to city property if certain deadlines and conditions are not met. Engel referred to it as the “gateway clause,” a nod to the stalled Mission Gateway redevelopment project in the nearby city of Mission, though he said he doubted the city would need to invoke it.
Additionally, the developer could lose portions of its promised incentive reimbursements if it fails to meet the terms pertaining to sustainability, housing attainability, civic engagement and other criteria specified in the redevelopment agreement.
While other businesses currently in the vicinity will need to relocate — something the city and Drake are already working on — the Chipotle at that corner will remain, though Drake is acquiring the property.
Next steps:
- Merriam has begun some demolition work and site preparation at the corner of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Antioch, tearing down old library property to start making way for this redevelopment.
- City staff said real estate deals tied to the redevelopment plan are all expected to close this summer.
- That would allow Drake to start construction as early as July.
- The terms of the redevelopment agreement require the project to be finished no later than mid-June 2030.
Keep reading: Merriam hasn’t had a grocery for 7 years. Officials say new one could bring ‘community’ back
