Update: Thursday, July 23
The Lenexa City Council approved final plans for a 10-story building in Lenexa City Center aimed at an active adult community aged 55 and older.
On Tuesday, July 21, the city council approved the plans with a 6-0 vote. Councilmembers Chelsea Williamson and Courtney Eiterich were absent.
The final plans for the project were on the city council’s consent agenda, which means it wasn’t independently discussed before it was voted on alongside a series of other agenda items.
The final plans confirm details about the project that were previously unclear. It will be a total 10-story building, including nine floors of apartments on top of a ground-level parking structure, making it the tallest structure in Lenexa City Center. It was previously proposed as 12 stories (11 floors of apartments with a ground floor parking garage).
The height of the building was also reduced from what was originally proposed, dropping it from 137 feet tall to 109 feet in its final plan.
It will contain nearly 7,000 square feet of office area, about 5,000 square feet of restaurant and bar area, and 121 multifamily residential units.
Developers have withdrawn its final plan for a planned apartment building and mixed use facility in Lenexa City Center aimed at people 55 and older.
While Lenexa City Council was scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a final plan for The Rise, a planned apartment building at Lenexa City Center, it has been withdrawn, according to city documents.
The city council previously approved financial incentives, including tax increment financing worth up to $12 million, for the project.
Last week, the Lenexa City Council unanimously approved a redevelopment project plan for The Rise, which will be located next to The Lofts apartments near the entrance of Lenexa City Center. The vote was 7-0, with Councilmember Bill Nicks absent.
During the meeting, the city council approved six different measures, including a public hearing for the TIF district, as well as the incentive package, which includes:
- Up to $12 million in future reimbursable TIF expenses over 20 years
- $21 million in industrial revenue bonds
- $400,000 City Center East Community Improvement District Grant Agreement with the developer, Copaken Brooks, for the construction of the project.
While preliminary plans for the project were previously approved by the Lenexa Planning Commission and city council last fall, final plans for the project were continued to June 2.
It is normal for the city to approve a financial incentive package before approving the final plan, the city said.
“Prior to consideration of a TIF plan, the project must have received zoning approval and preliminary plan approval from the City Council. After those approvals are in place, the timing of TIF consideration can occur at various points during the development process, including before final design plans are approved,” Lenexa city spokesperson Denise Rendina said in an email to the Johnson County Post.
Lenexa-based Finkle + Williams Architecture is the architect for the project, and Renaissance Infrastructure Consulting is the civil engineer.
The building will be one of the tallest at City Center
Located at the southeast corner of 87th Street Parkway and Renner Boulevard, The Rise is planned to be a nine-story building that requires residents to be 55 and older.
“Active adult is a fairly recent emerging product type. It’s not multi-family, and it is not independent or assisted living. It is not considered senior housing, and it’s not considered multi-family. It fills the gap between the two,” Hal Shapiro, REAL Property Group founder and one of the property’s developers, said to the Lenexa Planning Commission in October.
He added: “The age restriction of 55 years old is a minimum, but we find that, in these projects, the applicants are normally closer to 70.”
The building will include apartments, office and restaurant space, a parking structure, and amenities like an outdoor pool and a rooftop restaurant and bar.
Since its preliminary plans were approved by the governing body, the developer reduced its size from 11 stories to at least nine stories, which still eclipses nearby buildings that range from 1.5 to 7 stories, according to city documents.
“The developer is still debating how high he wants to make that building. It is still going to be a 9+ story building,” said Lenexa City Attorney Sean McLaughlin.
Calls to the developer from the Johnson County Post concerning the height reduction were not returned.
The development also includes 197 parking spots, including a ground-level lot with 116 parking spaces, as well as 24 additional spots constructed on the east side of the building’s second floor.
There will also be a surface lot added south of the building, and angled and parallel on-street parking available along Renner, 87th Terrace and Ryckert Street.
Why a TIF?
TIF is a public financing tool that lets a private developer get reimbursed for some of their building costs, using the extra property or sales tax revenue the development itself generates after it’s up and running.
It’s an increasingly common tool used by local governments in Johnson County in recent decades to try to spur development, including The Rise’s neighbor, The Lofts, for which the city council approved a TIF agreement in 2019, prior to it being constructed.
TIFs are used by Lenexa’s governing body to “to incent high-quality development in Lenexa City Center,” Rendina said.
The eligible reimbursable TIF expenses total about $12 million, of which about $8 million is for the developer and $4 million is for the city.
With the $21 million in IRBs, the developer will also receive sales tax exemptions on construction materials.
The use of TIFs is controversial, with critics, including the Wichita-based conservative think tank Kansas Policy Institute, calling the financing “subsidies that drain prosperity.”
The organization criticizes TIFs as funding that frequently has delays in cost recovery and “overestimated economic benefits.” Critics argue public incentives like TIF crowd out private investment and risk putting taxpayers on the hook for footing a future bill if developments don’t deliver on their promised benefits.
Residents had previous reservations about parking
While no one spoke during the public hearing portion of the TIF discussion this week, residents had previously voiced their skepticism about it.
During the Oct. 6 planning commission meeting, Rebecca Ward, a longtime Lenexa resident, worried about how an 11-story building would affect parking.
“It’s almost impossible to find a parking space over at the Rec Center when there’s classes being offered, because millions of people are trying to get in there. Last time I parked, I was on the top (floor), and that’s at like, 10 o’clock in the morning. That’s ridiculous,” Ward said.
Another resident, Susan McCurdy, also voiced complaints with congestion at City Center.
“I do feel like parking is a very big issue in this City Center area, to the point that when I first moved here seven years ago, I used to come down for lots of things on Friday night, (and) other activities that they had. And now, I just don’t even come because it’s a parking issue,” she said.
Developers defended the decision to have less than 200 parking spots.
“We think we’re adequately parked. Would we like to have 300 spaces? Yeah, we’d like to have 300 spaces. We don’t think it’s necessary. We’re comfortable that we have enough,” Shapiro said at last year’s planning commission meeting.
In an email to Councilmember John Michael Handley, residents Debbie and John Turner worried that the building was too tall for City Center.
“The Rise’s chosen Lenexa location (disrupts) the view of existing businesses and amenities. We don’t believe it would blend well with the existing surroundings but that it would become the visual focus as an eyesore,” they wrote.
The city council had few questions
Most of the councilmembers’ questions on May 19 were concerned with the change in the building’s height and whether that affected other areas like parking.
“It has the same number of square footage relative to the office and retail uses. All the uses in the building would be the same. The only thing that would change is potentially the height of the building,” said City Manager Beccy Yocham.
Go deeper: Lenexa advances plan for 11-story living community meant for older adults at City Center
