A housing redevelopment at the old Paul Henson YMCA can move forward after Prairie Village’s approval of a rezoning request.
The Prairie Village City Council on Monday unanimously approved a rezoning request from Overland Park-based Price Brothers for the old YMCA site, at 4200 W. 79th St.
The rezoning approval changes the site’s zoning district to a single-family district that allows for smaller lot sizes, compared to the larger lot sizes under the current single-family district.
Mayor Eric Mikkelson said, given the site’s history as a community center and the now-defunct effort years in the works to maintain that concept with a co-located library, he’s glad that the public can access Harmon Park through a new north-south sidewalk under this development.
“Looking forward to welcoming new Prairie Village neighbors to this beautifully designed, thoughtful, new park community,” Mikkelson said on Monday.
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 voted against moving forward with a longtime idea to remake the site into a co-located community center and the Johnson County Library’s Corinth branch.
The plan to co-locate the two public amenities dates back to pre-pandemic conversations, which were ultimately paused when COVID-19 hit in 2020. The city council revisited the conversation in 2022, getting the concept to the point of council consideration in 2024.
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.
The redevelopment envisions 20 homes
Price Brothers plans to build 20 homes on the old YMCA site.
The homes will front either Harmon Park or 79th Street, and the backs of the homes — along with driveways — will face a new private drive.
Patrick Reuter, vice president of Lenexa-based Klover Architects, told the city council on Monday that the goal of the project is to “create a community centered around greenspace.”
Reuter said the plan is to create 20 different homes with varying looks as opposed to 20 homes that look exactly the same.
In addition to the 20 homes, the project also features the following upgrades to the surrounding area, as outlined in city documents:
- A new public, north-south sidewalk that runs through four of the homes from 79th to Harmon Park.
- The realignment of the sidewalk that runs east-west on 79th Street, to provide a roughly 13-feet green buffer between pedestrians and traffic.
“Mostly out of our hands”
All 12 councilmembers and the mayor voted in favor of the rezoning request, but some still reflected on what could have been.
Councilmember Betsy Lawrence said she, like some residents, thinks this property could have been an opportunity to create civic space or “put a small dent in attainable housing.”
“It’s my belief that if the city wanted to do that, we probably would have had to acquire the property and then we could have controlled (it),” Lawrence said.
Councilmember Cole Robinson said that after the city council voted against the co-located community center idea in October 2024, the city council also “declined to play a role in bidding on this property when it went to the private market.”
Robinson said the previous city council did discuss it, but there was little support to try to control the YMCA site through a potential property purchase.
While he thinks it is good to have more housing in Prairie Village, Robinson said, residents should know that the privatization of a formerly civic property is a result of a previous city council’s lack of interest in the site.
“We’re in a judicial capacity; this is not about whether or not we have feelings or would want to put pickleball courts there or whatever,” Robinson said. “This is, in a lot of ways, mostly out of our hands.”
Mikkelson said there were “a couple of runs” at keeping this land a civic space with the co-location effort.
Next steps:
- Now that the city council approved the rezoning request, Price Brothers can move forward with the planning process.
- The final development plan needs to be approved by the planning commission before construction can start.
- Lowen told the city council that he anticipates demolition and site work to begin this fall, with construction of the first homes in early spring.
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