After discovering unpermitted changes made to the inside of the much-watched former Incred-A-Bowl building in southern Overland Park, the city has started the process of declaring it “unsafe and dangerous.”

The building, at 8500 W. 151st St., was a bowling alley for years before the business closed in 2015. Since then, NMS LLC acquired the building, but plans to redevelop it have fallen through, and neighbors have complained about how they say the property has deteriorated.

NMS LLC, owned by Lenexa surgeon Paramjeet Sabharwal, has also received multiple code violations for the state of the property and has at times been delinquent on its property taxes.

On Monday, the Overland Park City Council voted 10-0 to schedule a public hearing for Oct. 6 for the building, after which the city could formally declare it “unsafe and dangerous” and compel its repair or demolition. Councilmembers Sam Passer and Jeff Cox were absent.

Initially, the item was listed on the city council’s consent agenda, but Mayor Curt Skoog asked to remove it for more in-depth discussion of the situation before the vote.

Before the vote on Monday, Kristi Uenishi, a neighbor who lives off of 150th Street, said she was glad to finally see the city taking action on the Incred-A-Bowl building, which she called “atrocious.”

“I’m glad you guys are doing something, and I appreciate it,” she said. “It gives me a lot of faith in the city that things aren’t just going to sit and deteriorate and look horrible.”

Internal work made Incred-A-bowl building unsafe, staff say

Jim Brown, Overland Park’s codes administrator, told the city council this week that a recent unrelated inspection of the old Incred-A-Bowl building in June revealed that structural modifications had been made to the center of the building without the required city permit or the review of a certified structural engineer.

Those changes made “an unsafe condition,” he said, which could lead to a ceiling cave-in. It would be particularly dangerous in a fire, if first responders went on the roof, he said.

“We didn’t know they’d done it until we were out there doing another inspection, and it caught our attention,” Brown said.

If that isn’t properly repaired and inspected by the Oct. 6 hearing, then the city could contract out someone to repair it or demolish it, and then charge the property owner for the expense. Additionally, the city can double the cost of a permit fee after it has discovered that unpermitted work is occurring at a site.

Overland Park has also previously documented unpermitted work at the site on at least two other occasions before, including one instance as recently as last year, according to city documents.

On top of those structural issues caused by recent unpermitted work, the city is also currently pursuing resolution for several code violations at the property through the municipal court system. Among the city’s concerns are unauthorized outdoor material storage, general disrepair and erosion issues.

With all that in mind, Councilmember Melissa Cheatham said she worried that the city’s ordinances weren’t strong enough to prevent a situation such as the one at the Incred-A-Bowl building.

“I’m concerned that our ordinances don’t seem adequate to deal with situations like this,” she said. “It’s not right that a building owner can routinely, regularly, constantly disregard our rules and seem to get away with it for a very long time. And it’s not fair for neighbors to have to deal with it.”

She suggested modifying city rules or lobbying the Kansas Legislature to strengthen municipalities’ power to deal with situations like this more effectively.

Standing redevelopment plans envision event space

Although skeptical that the property owner would follow through with their development plans because the owner has dropped plans in the past, the city council last year approved a rezoning and 10-year conditional special use permit for the property in the Trail Winds Shopping Center.

The plans are to convert the 65,000-square-foot building from its former use as a bowling alley to house an event space that can fit more than 1,000 people, as well as dining, retail and a gym.

One tenant appears to be open and active in the building: Beastified, a gym and supplement store, took over one side of the building in late 2023. City staff didn’t address whether and how the gym could be impacted by the issue between the property owner and the city.

The 2024 approval gave the owner until Sept. 9, 2025, to acquire a building permit or else face the revocation of the special use permit that allows the space to be used as intended.

Meanwhile, the city has decided to hold a separate permit that it had previously issued for the site, Brown said. The city had issued that permit for a tenant finish in a different part of the building, but the city won’t allow that work to move forward for now, citing concerns for construction worker safety.

What’s next for the Incred-A-Bowl building?

• On Monday, Brown said the building owner had submitted an application for the fixes earlier in the day, but that city staff had not reviewed it yet.
• In addition to the permit application, city staff want to see the work completed with designs from a structural engineer and to have an inspector check the work by the Oct. 6 hearing.
• Regardless, the city council wants to hold the public hearing and implored the property owner to attend, though they do not have the legal authority to compel him.
• In addition to the need to repair the unsafe modifications to the building, there are still a number of code violations present at 8500 W. 151st Street as well that the city wants resolved.

Looking back: Code violations at Overland Park Incred-A-Bowl raise fresh concerns about long-troubled site