Overland Park engineering firm Black & Veatch is one step closer to turning its headquarters into a mixed-use district with a boost from hundreds of millions in public incentives in one of the largest redevelopment projects in the city’s history.
On Monday, the Overland Park City Council voted unanimously to establish a tax increment financing (or TIF) district, the first in a series of public incentives. This is the first step in a long process necessary to authorize the incentives.
The full project — aimed at bringing a more walkable district featuring a new public park, housing, new offices and retail spaces — is valued at more than $1.12 billion, and it falls inside a key corridor Overland Park has prioritized for mixed-use development potential.
If ultimately approved, Black & Veatch’s request would also end up being one of the largest public incentive packages the city has ever granted a developer, with the full total of incentives and tax breaks totaling roughly $280 million.
What is Black & Veatch proposing?
The proposal, formally dubbed the Overland Park Plaza II Redevelopment Project, covers Black & Veatch’s current headquarters at 115th Street and Lamar Avenue.
The scope of the redevelopment could also include vacant portions of the neighboring 115 Galleria development area as well as Nall Corporate Center, both located nearby and controlled by other entities.
If everything goes as planned, the mixed-use district would be laid out in a grid pattern and is intended to be walkable, an important priority for this area of the city.
It would be built out over multiple phases, starting with a new 612,000-square-foot headquarters building for Black & Veatch. The current building would then be demolished to make way for a proposed public park to be dedicated to the city.
Later phases would bring nearly 400,000 more square feet of office space, about 1,900 residential units and 550,000 square feet of retail space.
Black & Veatch’s plan also calls for nearly 6,000 parking spots in structured garages to be built throughout the site.
Black & Veatch asks for $280M in incentives
The city council’s action this week only touched one of the incentive types Black & Veatch has requested, but in all, the firm is asking for about $280 million in public financing incentives — about a quarter of the total price tag for the development.
The ask from Black & Veatch is larger than the $200 million incentive package Overland Park approved for the $2 billion Brookridge Golf and Fitness redevelopment.
That mixed-use development, located near Interstate 435 and Antioch Road, was controversial as it worked its way through the city’s planning and economic development process more than half a decade ago. Since then, acutal work on the project has been slow to come to life, requiring multiple timeline extensions.
As for Black & Veatch, the breakdown includes:
- an estimated $227.7 million in reimbursements from the TIF,
- $19.8 million in reimbursements from an overlapping special sales tax through a 2% Community Improvement District
- and $39 million from the sales tax exemption delivered via economic development revenue bonds.
In a TIF district, tax revenues earned from increased property values are turned over to a third party as they’re raised in order to cover or reimburse costs incurred in a defined development area for a set amount of time.
Similarly, in a CID, funds raised with a special sales tax are paid to a third party for a set amount of time to reimburse eligible development costs.
A framework by which to reimagine old office spaces
During Monday’s meeting, city leaders said Black & Veatch’s project sets an example for how to remake what Mayor Curt Skoog described as the city’s “core industry” of corporate offices.
Skoog said the project takes an office complex “surrounded by fields of concrete parking lots” and turns it into more of a defined place.
“That’s what we need to do to make sure our businesses are successful, our industry of office is successful and our community is successful,” he said.
At the same time, while they voted to advance the incentive district, councilmembers warned this week that they still want to see more details hammered out — particularly when it comes to some incentive terms, attainability, sustainability and financing for the public park — before they give a final yes down the line.
Councilmember Melissa Cheatham said she sees this as a “positive move” toward a long-term city priority to reimagine “outdated suburban office” spaces in Overland Park, but she expressed some trepidation.
“I am supportive conceptually, but just want to make sure that the applicant and the public know that the details are really going to matter as we continue down this path,” she said.
Next steps for Black & Veatch project:
- The vote this week simply sets up the process to approve the TIF district for the project.
- Later, the city council will need to vote on a project plan, a redevelopment agreement and other details tied to Black & Veatch’s mixed-use proposal.
- All of that will likely go through the Overland Park City Council Finance, Administration and Economic Development Committee first.
- Additionally, the rezoning application is still pending, and city staff expect that to go to the Overland Park Planning Commission in September.
- The city council will also need to take action on the CID and other incentive requests for the development.
Keep reading: Could this Overland Park office building be new city hall? City council takes big step to make it so
