Revised plans for a park at the site of the 1950s-era fire station and city hall on Lee Boulevard moved forward Tuesday with a unanimous vote of the Leawood Planning Commission.

City leaders have been debating what to do with the outdated and little used 1950s-era buildings that housed the original fire station and historic city hall building at 96th Street and Lee off and on for years before a pause during the COVID pandemic.

The buildings have sat vacant except for storage in recent years. The 1,100-square-foot city hall, small even in its day, has accessibility issues with basement stairs, mold, water damage, asbestos and lead paint. It hasn’t been used since 1994.

The fire station was retired in 2024 after a new fire station was opened next door to the old city hall. It is currently housing a 1949 fire truck in search of a new home.

Because of the various problems and potential expense of rehabbing the buildings, council members have struggled with the question of what to do with the land. Northern Leawood residents had been asking for more park and play space.

The Leawood City Council took up the question again in late 2024. Ideas have been workshopped in more than 50 city meetings since 2001, according to the staff presentation Tuesday. Mayor Marc Elkins stressed last year that he’d like deliberations to be done by the end of 2025.

Councilmembers hashed out numerous suggestions in the past year, including a proposed coffee shop for the city hall, meeting space and outdoor play spaces for the grounds of the 3.7 acres. By the end of 2025, they had decided the former city hall building had too many accessibility and environmental problems, and was too small to make fixing it up practical. It would be demolished.

By the end of last year, the city council and architectural consultant had drawn up multiple permutations for park space that included playgrounds, an ornamental garden, green space, a walking trail and public use for the fire station as a meeting space, with outdoor patio and possibly a concession stand.

But the plan the city council had finally settled on appeared to stall at the year’s end, when planning commissioners balked at approving it, saying they wanted more consideration and more public input on various aspects, including sidewalks and the former city hall.

City hall is coming down — What else is in the plan?

The plan commissioners approved Tuesday kept many elements the same, such as the decision to raze old city hall and improvements to make the former fire station useful as a gathering space. But some other changes were made.

• The parking lot, for instance, now runs east to west between the old fire station and the new one to the south of where the old city hall is now. In the earlier plan, it was proposed for the west side of the park, running alongside Lee Boulevard.
• A walking trail that had been ruled out was added back in, running in a circle around the entire project.
• External access to restrooms was added.
• A proposed concession stand was changed to a kitchenette with an exterior pass-through window.
• A crosswalk across Lee was upgraded from a flashing yellow light to one that blinks red and stops traffic for pedestrians. The HAWK (High Intensity Activated Crosswalk) was requested by parents concerned about pedestrian safety on the street. Their concerns became especially pressing after 10-year-old Duke Ommert was killed after being hit by a car on Lee Boulevard last October.

Sidewalks came up in the brief discussion by planning commissioners Tuesday. Some commissioners said they’d like to see sidewalks added to the east side of the street. Public Works Assistant Director Brian Scoville said Leawood typically designed streets to have a sidewalk on only one side, but there is a petition process for residents who want to add sidewalks. On Lee Boulevard, the sidewalks are on the west side.

Scott Bingham, of BBN Architects, said designing sidewalks for the street is outside the scope of the project for the firm.

What about the old fire station?

Deciding how exactly the interior space of the fire station will be used will come in later discussions with parks staff. At various meetings, council members discussed keeping the old fire truck or finding it a new home, for instance. They also had debated a concession stand versus a kitchenette.

One idea — for a coffee shop in the old city hall building — had substantial public support with about 1,000 people signing a petition in its favor. The city council declined to follow up on offers to buy the old city hall for use as a coffee shop because of concerns about having a private business in the midst of a city park and operational fire station next door.

One of the people who offered to buy the building, Jaclyn Penn, criticized the latest plan in an email, saying northern Leawood residents lack a casual meet-up space rather than space for programmed activities they may not participate in.

She also lamented the lack of walkability and safe sidewalk connectivity for older kids who are beginning to explore their independence.

“Residents were not asking for extravagance,” she wrote. “They were asking for thoughtful placemaking, accessibility, safe connectivity, and spaces that help build stronger neighborhoods and stronger relationships between neighbors.”

Commissioner Steve McGurren said he’d like to see basketball hoops available inside the fire station for older kids. The park plan now includes a play area for 5-12 year olds and one for 2-5 year olds.

Ommert family urges more safety measures for those on foot

Several emails and letters submitted in May, including one from Duke’s dad, Ryan Ommert, echoed that, saying there needs to be more recreational space available with safe sidewalks for young teens and tweens.

Ommert wrote: “Up until October 13, 2025 you could get away with “not truly knowing the situation that the people on the East side of Lee face while trying to get to the sidewalk on the West side of Lee.” You can’t get away with it any longer.

You now know the consequences of kicking the can down the road. You can see what it has done to a family, to a TON of friends, and to “YOUR” community. Can we PLEASE make sure that we are doing EVERYTHING in our power to make sure that another family doesn’t have to endure the things that we have?”

The plan is essentially a master plan, the city vision for how to use the space. It doesn’t come with funding authorization to start construction. To aid in discussions, architects gave very rough estimates about a year ago of the various costs of maintaining the buildings or demolishing them. They said the Old city hall could cost as much as $630,000 to make suitable for public use. Other rough cost estimates for plans being considered ranged from $1.5 million to $2 million at the time, although there have been changes in the plan since then.

There was also a letter from the Kansas Historical Society in background documents saying the old Fire Station is potentially eligible to be listed on the national and state registers of historic places, but it was not discussed during the planning meeting Tuesday.

The letter was a response to an architect’s query about eligibility and it mentioned that there are some incentives and grants for preservation. But it cautioned that changes to the building must be considered carefully lest they change the building’s character and remove it from being eligible.

The letter, signed by Katrina Ringler, deputy state historic preservation officer, also said it was “regrettable” that the old city hall building will be lost, “since it appears to have a similar history and significance as the fire station. Loss of the other building would not impact or jeopardize the rehabilitation of the fire station.”

Planning commissioners said the plan was still worthy of an up vote to move forward. McGurren said, “It’s a very worthy project and it’s been years in the making.” But he asked that the sidewalk issue continue to be considered, as well as some park elements for teens.

Chair David Coleman said the extra five months of study has been worth it. “When we first saw this in November our overwhelming response at that time was, we could do better.”

“I think what we’ve got at this point is that it’s a great improvement over what we saw in November and I’m very glad we did that,” Coleman said.

Commissioners voting yes were Kathy Nadlman, Steve McGurren, Stacey Belzer, Matt Block, Doug Stevens, Mike Fishman and Dana Farrington. Commissioner Chris Frantze was absent.