A plan to remake the old YMCA into a 20-home redevelopment moved a step further to becoming reality.
In early June, the Prairie Village Planning Commission advanced two items progressing the Price Brothers’ redevelopment proposal for the old Paul Henson site — but with several conditions.
The first approved item was a rezoning request, from a larger-lot single family district to a smaller-lot single family district. The second approval was for the preliminary plat.
Still, the planning commission shared several concerns with the applicant, namely around grading and inaccurate information included in the packet. Commissioners asked the developer to ensure the numbers submitted with the plan are consistent, as there were inconsistencies throughout the plan from page to page. For instance, one commissioner found inconsistencies in the lot area on various pages of the plan.
Before the 20-home redevelopment was on the table for this site, it was the heart of a concept to co-locate a city-owned community center next to a brand new site for Corinth Library.
Watch the entire planning commission meeting online here.
How we got here
Before Price Brothers purchased the property in July 2025, the site was home to the Paul Henson YMCA for decades.
That YMCA location closed in late 2024, just two months after the Prairie Village City Council killed a longtime idea to remake the site into a co-located community center and the Johnson County Library’s Corinth branch.
The idea to co-locate the two public amenities began before COVID-19, but the pandemic forced a pause. The city council revisited the conversation in 2022.
In the last round of discussions on the co-location concept, the city council ultimately scrapped the idea after the YMCA denied committing to a $7.5 million contribution within two years of the facility’s opening.
As for the library branch, Johnson County Library and Prairie Village leaders are in talks about potentially relocating Corinth to the civic campus near a new city hall.
A look at the plan
The Price Brothers want to build 20 single-family homes on the former YMCA site, featuring a private drive and new sidewalk connections.
Of the 20 homes, 10 would face Harmon Park and the other 10 would face West 79th Street. The private drive is planned to run along the back of each home, where driveways and garages would likely be built.
“We wanted to create an environment that we felt people would want to live at, and have a new product that could be beneficial to the community,” said Henry Klover, an architect working on the project with Klover Architects.
With the homes facing either the park or West 79th Street and the driveways being at the rear of the homes, Klover said the idea is to get creative with the frontages — featuring more trees, benches and the like in the front of the homes.
Additionally, the plan calls for a new sidewalk along West 79th Street and a sidewalk connection between homes leading pedestrians to Harmon Park to the north.
In the future, the plan calls for further connection into Harmon Park via sidewalks.
Bart Lowen, vice president of Price Brothers, told the planning commission on June 2 that his team and city staff have worked for months on this plan.
Lowen said Price Brothers is asking for some flexibility with the plan, but believes that a lack of public commenters during the June 2 public hearing is reflective of a job well done.
“We feel very good about the plan presented this evening,” Lowen said, in response to Chair Greg Wolf’s question about whether the applicant wanted the planning commission to vote on the items given the concerns shared.
Commissioners need “some clarity” on details
The planning commissioners generally supported the high-level concept of the redevelopment, namely the potential for flexibility that the “planned” portion of the rezoning request allows in the redevelopment project.
Still, the commissioners expressed concerns with the grading of the proposed redevelopment and how it impacts the setbacks for the homes.
“I don’t feel comfortable approving zoning because of my discomfort with that setback amount being so different from the neighborhood scale, very different from anything we have in Prairie Village,” Commissioner Melissa Brown said. “The reality is that the homes are going to be like, very vertically up from the sidewalk.”
Commissioner James Kersten said he is concerned about the possibility that, given the plan put before the planning commission, the architect will build 20 rectangular homes.
Commissioner Jeffrey Valentino agreed, saying that he was having trouble figuring out how to design a house that is not rectangular for this redevelopment with the proposed setbacks and other requirements under the zoning code.
Valentino said he is supportive of the flexibility the plan provides for, but is worried about the details getting right in the process.
“If this is our only chance, then it still feels like there is some clarity we need to bring to the table,” Valentino said.
Following staff’s explanation that the planning commission is able to confirm the applicant properly addresses their grading concerns through the final plat consideration, the planning commission ultimately approved the rezoning request and the preliminary plat.
The planning commission approved the rezoning request under the conditions that the applicant provides a grading plan that the commission itself must approve as part of the final plat process.
The conditions also require the applicant to address setback concerns under the grading plan and provide accurate numbers in all documents.
If any of those additional requirements are not met, the rezoning request approval “will be null and void,” Wolf said.
Next steps:
- The city council is expected to consider approval of the rezoning request.
- The planning commission is expected to consider a final plat and a grading plan for the site.
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