An Overland Park-based property management company is the new owner of the former Paul Henson YMCA in Prairie Village.
The Price Brothers bought the former Y property at 4200 W. 79th Street, Y officials confirmed to the Post on Monday.
“We have finalized the sale of the Paul Henson Family YMCA to Price Brothers,” said Paula Oxler, the Y’s vice president of marketing and communications.
“We are grateful for the many memories made at this location and look forward to seeing how Price Brothers reimagine the property to serve the community in new ways,” Oxler added.
It is unclear what may become of the 34,000-square-foot facility at this time.
A representative from the Price Brothers could not be reached for comment for this story.
How did we get here?
This sale comes after years of various attempts by the Prairie Village City Council to partner with the Y to retain the Paul Henson facility.
In 2019, those conversations restarted with an idea to build a new city-owned, Y-run facility on the same piece of land that housed the Paul Henson YMCA for nearly 60 years. A city-backed study at the time found broad support for the idea.
After a multi-year hiatus prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city once again restarted conversations with the Y and Johnson County Library for a co-located community center and library facility — similar to the one in Merriam. A second city-backed survey still found support for the community center, though resident support dropped compared with the original survey results.
The city spent the next year or so, in partnership with the Y and the library, developing a potential community center idea to bring to a public vote.
In October 2024, the city council killed the idea altogether after the Y refused to commit to certain terms, including contributing at least $7.5 million in the first two years of operation.
The Y closed the Paul Henson doors for good just two months later in December 2024.
A look at the property
The Paul Henson YMCA is a nearly 60-year-old 34,000-square-foot building that sits on nearly 5 acres in Prairie Village, on the same block of land that is home to city hall, police department, pool and Shawnee Mission East.
In early March, a few months after Paul Henson officially closed, the Y put the property on the market.
The Y did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for more information about the specific sale price for the property.
Still, Prairie Village city staff estimated in early March that the Y would ask for about $3 million for the site.
Prairie Village briefly discussed buying the Y
In early March, right before the Y officially put the Paul Henson facility on the market, the city council briefly discussed the future of the property.
A handful of developers have previously met with city staff to share mostly residential projects to transform the site, similar to a nearby townhome community.
At that same time, councilmembers expressed a variety of opinions on offering developers public incentives for a redevelopment of the site. Some were against the thought, but others were more open to potential public incentives.
The city council did briefly go into executive session in early March to discuss the city itself buying the property, though nothing came from that executive session into the public meeting.
In a recent interview with the Post, Councilmember Dave Robinson said he thinks the city missed an opportunity by passing on the Y property.
Robinson said he thinks the city council was “fatigued with all the fighting for the community center” at that time, and that the project wasn’t the right fit.
Still, Robinson said he thinks the city missed a chance to control the future of that site.
“The land was still valuable right there on the campus, and to not acquire that property, or at least to put a bid in for it, was a mistake in my opinion,” Robinson said.
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