Lenexa wants to stick with its vision of medical and office space for a 17-acre area on Prairie Star Parkway, but a developer is pushing to depart from that vision, instead proposing a mixture of retail, restaurants and a gas station there.
On Monday, the Lenexa Planning Commission recommended to deny the rezoning and preliminary plat for Prairie Star Parkway Center, a 17-acre development south of Prairie Star Parkway between Gleason Road and Dunraven Street that would include a gas station, retail, office and restaurant spaces. The vote was 9-0.
The vote came after about an hour of discussion and the recommendation by city staff that the application be denied because it didn’t fit the character of the area for a number of reasons, including placing several drive-thru restaurants near Prairie Star Parkway and the lack of gathering spaces for the project.
“More intense commercial auto-oriented uses are meant to be concentrated adjacent to major highways like K-7 and K-10, as opposed to along Prairie Star Parkway,” said Jessica Lemanski, a city planner.
She added: “Prairie Star Parkway is intended to be more of a meandering boulevard that’s designed to buffer traffic from local pedestrian and neighborhood amenities and create a scenic atmosphere as one travels through the western part of the city.”
Klover Architects is the applicant.
The project aims to change open field into multi-use development
The property is a 17-acre space of undeveloped land that was annexed to the city in 1993 and is owned by a longtime Lenexa resident, who was not named, Aaron Mesmer, chief investment officer at Block Real Estate, said.
“What we have is someone who is not a land speculator or flipper, but someone who is a local member of the community and interested in the best long-term interests of what happens (in the area),” Mesmer said.
The applicant’s proposal includes rezoning the property from an AG (Agricultural District) to the CP-2 Planned Community Commercial District), which is normally reserved for districts with a mixture of retail and personal services.
The proposal includes nine pad sites totaling 75,000 square feet of space that includes:
- Three restaurants with drive-thrus
- Three buildings with office/retail space
- A gas station and convenience store
- A pharmacy with a drive-thru
- A bank with a drive-thru
- Pedestrian gathering spaces and walkways
The space is meant to be complementary to the nearby AdventHealth Prairie Star Hospital, Mesmer said.
“if you look at successful hospital campuses, for example, there are still services that need to be provided, whether those are restaurants or retail, pharmacy, for example, a place to get gas, and so if you think about that area in the entire context … it’s the place that you would put that if you were looking at this holistically,” he said.
City, applicant disagree project is a good fit
In its denial of the developer’s application, the city states that it isn’t in line with its Comprehensive Plan for several reasons, mainly that the request is not consistent with the area’s Future Land Use classification of “Office/Employment Center” within the Comprehensive Plan.
“The introduction of retail uses restaurants and gas stations stray from the predictability of the future land use map in terms of traffic, operating hours, and activity and noise levels,” Lemanski said.
The property is also identified as a Neighborhood Node, where it could “help achieve the community’s long-term vision for fostering healthier residents, stronger social connections, and enhanced quality of life,” according to city documents. The proposal makes it an auto-centric space not conducive to that plan, Lemanski said.
In its response to city staff’s denial of their application, developers noted that the space does address the office and employment center aspect of the comprehensive plan, while also addressing other needs, like food and retail.
“Sixty percent of the square footage that we have designed for this plan would be office space, and so I think that’s important to note that we are creating a place where you can have jobs and those folks will come there for employment,” Mesmer said.
He added: “I think that, again, this is something where we’ve made, I think, a really good attempt to create a pedestrian-friendly environment”
Having held a meeting with neighbors in the area, the developers said they received nothing but support.
“Normally you go to the neighborhood meeting, you have (people raising) pitchforks, things like that. We had no opposition, and in fact, it was quite the opposite. (We had) 40 people there. We had broad level of support,” Mesmer said.
Commissioners struggled with request
In their comments, most of the commissioners struggled with the proposal.
“I think the biggest challenge that I see with that would be the impact of traffic, and just what that means to the surrounding area, given the current proposed number of drive-thrus that’s in the current configuration, it’s a little maybe too much,” Commissioner Cara Wagner said.
Commissioner Curt Katterhenry didn’t buy the project as one where pedestrians in the area would benefit from it.
“it looks like a retail development that is trying to be forced into kind of an employment/office area, as opposed to an employment/office that has retail attached to it. If it was the latter, I’d likely have some more support,” he said.
Not mincing his words, Commissioner Chris Poss expressed his rejection of the proposal.
“it looks like a plan that was built around a gas station on the corner, and everything else is just put together,” he said. “I think … what is contemplated in the comprehensive plan makes sense, and I don’t see any reason why we’d want to deviate from that.”
What’s next
The Lenexa City Council will consider the rezoning and preliminary plan/plat for the project at its meeting on July 21.
