Lenexa has settled on a preliminary plan for a new fire station to replace its old city hall and police station.
On Tuesday, the Lenexa City Council voted 8-0 to approve a preliminary plan for Fire Station 6, a new permanent fire station and city IT headquarters on the old city hall site along 87th Street Parkway.
The plan includes razing the old city hall and erecting a building that includes a one-story fire station and administration building, a future one-story office and storage building, and a future two-story office building. The fire station and administration building along with related parking for the project, will be the first phase of the project.
While city councilmembers were excited about the project, several had a problem with the plans to get rid of the fountain at the entrance of the property.
“The more that I thought about it, I’m pretty adamant that I’d like to see the fountain stay,” said Councilmember Chelsea Williamson.
The logistics of keeping the fountain will be discussed at a future Committee of the Whole meeting, City Manager Beccy Yocham said.
“The architects really haven’t had a chance to sort of wrap their head around that, because that has not been the direction that we’ve been going so far. But that’s definitely a conversation that we can have,” she said.
The original story published on April 23 continues below:
The city of Lenexa and a local architecture firm recently unveiled renderings of the proposed Fire Station 6 on the old city hall property.
At a Lenexa City Council Committee of the Whole meeting on April 14, firm Finkle + Williams Architecture showcased its plans for a new permanent fire station and city IT headquarters on the old city hall site along 87th Street Parkway.
After working through three different options, the city landed on a design that takes inspiration from some of the area’s modern buildings, including the $73 million Lenexa Justice Center, which opened in 2025.
“We feel like, operationally, the facility does everything and meets all the project goals that internally we’ve said and that you’ve asked us to implement through the master planning process,” Deputy City Manager Todd Pelham told the committee.
Site will raze old city hall, preserve trees
The project includes demolishing the old city hall building and erecting an entirely new 27,000-square-foot building on the east portion of the property.
“Paramount to the success of this particular project is emergency response and operations first in every decision that we make. This is a fire station, and emergency response is critical to the success and operations of this facility,” Ellen Foster, architect for Finkle + Williams and project lead for Fire Station 6, said to the council committee.
The fire station will sit back from Monrovia Street, so that it’s not too close to the intersection with West 87th Street, allowing for emergency traffic to merge more smoothly with regular traffic, Foster said. It will feature three drive-through bays that fire trucks can connect through from the back side of the site.
The plans will also preserve a cell tower, landscaping and a tree line on the back half of the site, to separate the property from residential homes to the north.
The plan also keeps the parking lot on the western side of the property until future development occurs, Foster said.
“(We’re) preserving some of the mature tree line and landscaping that really makes the back half of this site feel more residential and really beautiful back here on the more residential side of the site,” she said.
Public entry, like visitor parking, will be located on the eastern side of the site.
“Part of our evolution of the floor plan kind of kinked the building a little bit to try to open it up a little bit more to that corner on 87th and Monrovia,” Foster said.
The goal for Fire Station 6’s design was to make it a point of pride of the city, Foster said.
“We came up with this approachable, civic beacon of readiness, built for action and rooted in community,” she said.
The building’s design takes notes from other local architecture, like the Lenexa Justice Center and incorporates materials like Kansas limestone, Dark Ironspot brick and wood accents to create a “fire station vibe” and “sense of entry,” Foster added.
“We started to pull from other civic architecture buildings that really expressed some of these durable, lasting materials, some rhythm to the architecture, some warmth of materials and lighting. These are things that really spoke to us,” she said.
City Council “pleasantly surprised” by design
The designs received positive feedback from each city councilmember, with several stating they were “pleasantly surprised” by the new renderings.
“I really appreciate you walking us through how you got to where you did, and understanding that this was bought in from the Fire Department, from IT, from more than one group of people. And I think if it works for that group of people, then it works for me,” Councilmember John Michael Handley said.
Councilmember Chelsea Williamson also expressed her support.
“I was also going to say, ‘(I was) pleasantly surprised,’ but without any kind of negative connotation. I just think it went above my expectations,” she said.
Working with the design team, Lenexa Fire Chief Travis Vaughn was also supportive of the plan.
“This architecture has evolved over many, many meetings, and we’re really a big fan of the current design,” he said.
Closing out the comments, Mayor Julie Sayers said the designs help answer questions that residents have had since 2017, when city government operations moved to the new city hall at Lenexa City Center.
“People have been very clear that they want us remaining at this site as an entrance to the city, a presence that they can trust and fire, obviously, will bring that to us, just in the service that it will provide for this part of the city,” she said.
What’s next
The city will bring a preliminary development plan to the governing body in June.
If approved, construction would go out to bid, and the city would come back to the governing body with a proposal in October.
If that timeline stays true, construction is expected to start in November.
Go deeper: Lenexa leans towards razing old city hall to make way for new fire station
