The sun beat down on a warm fall morning in downtown Overland Park as local officials and city leaders alike lined up with shovels in their hands.

They were there to break ground on another multi-story, mixed-use building in downtown Overland Park featuring ground-level retail space and upper-level apartments.

This particular development from Kansas City-based developer Hunt Midwest has been in the works for some time near the corner of 80th Street and Metcalf Avenue, where a Winstead’s hamburger joint once stood.

Called the Canvas, the project is one of several that have popped up in downtown Overland Park near Metcalf in the past decade or so, and more are on the horizon.

That’s all by design, city and community officials say, in line with decades of planning to reinvent the downtown Overland Park district through Vision Metcalf and a special downtown zoning code. Those efforts, they say, have ushered in something of a “renaissance” for the area.

But getting to this point hasn’t always been a sure thing, and some, particularly residents in nearby neighborhoods, have felt uneasy with the changes and increasingly urban environment.

What even is mixed-use development?

Mixed-use is typically used to define a development that mixes two or more uses that would typically be found in separate districts in traditional zoning practices, like office and retail.

In a mixed-use district, these different uses could be placed in proximity to each other or be vertically stacked, with one use on the ground level and another on the upper floors.

Most of the downtown Overland Park projects are examples of vertical mixed-use.

For instance, the Edison District on 80th Street near Marty Street has Strang Hall and the Strang Reserve event space on the ground floor and office space above that. Nearby, Hunt Midwest’s The Vue development has multiple floors of apartments above retail spaces occupied by Vintage ’78 Wine Bar and a Parisi coffee shop.

Beyond downtown Overland Park, this kind of development has become increasingly popular, in part because they can contribute to the creation of more walkable, less car-dependent communities.

Vision Metcalf, special zoning district paved the way

All of this development and redevelopment in downtown Overland Park is exactly what the city has been envisioning for the area and comes on the heels of decades of planning, city officials and business leaders say.

One thing pointed to repeatedly in interviews with the Post and in public remarks is Vision Metcalf.

“I think the city’s done a fantastic job of planning and kind of bringing that vision into reality,” said Libbey Tucker, the senior vice president of economic development for the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Overland Park Partnership board member. “That’s been a huge part of the success of downtown.”

Though the 2008 Vision Metcalf plan looks at Metcalf in its entirety and how to remake what’s often considered the city’s economic backbone, it lays out some pretty specific priorities for the downtown area.

When the plan was first adopted, downtown Overland Park was quite different than it is today, Mayor Curt Skoog recalled at the Canvas groundbreaking.

“We had empty car dealerships, we had restaurants that were near the end of their life,” he said. “We had lots of parking lots.”

But Vision Metcalf called for something else. Among the goals for the portion of Metcalf that runs through downtown Overland Park was a pivot to a more mixed-use development pattern.

That idea was further cemented just a couple of years later when the city adopted a special zoning overlay for downtown, called the Downtown Form District, or DFD for short. It encourages more urban density and mixed-use development as well as redevelopment efforts that create better pedestrian access.

“The community had a different vision for what Overland Park should be in the future,” Skoog said.

All of that what brought the developers and their projects to downtown Overland Park, said Ora Reynolds, president and CEO of Hunt Midwest.

“We always talk about this renaissance because it’s a different place than it was 10, 11 years ago,” she said during the groundbreaking. “Today, downtown Overland Park has experienced so much tremendous growth.

“I say it from the standpoint of new businesses, new retail, new restaurants, new art galleries, new new new everything,” Reynolds continued, “but also a strengthening of the existing businesses that are here.”

Back when Angie Mutti first started at the Downtown Overland Park Partnership as the executive director in late 2020, she could feel it too. At that time, a lot of those earlier projects like The Vue and the Edison District were wrapping up, under construction or nearly completed.

“It just felt like it was on the cusp of something big,” she said.

Now, she’s seen it all come to life.

“We love the new development because people shop and they eat and they stay down here,” she said. “Where else in the greater Kansas City area can you go and have art galleries, local shopping, the restaurants, and all the things that you can do here?”

Neighbors have felt apprehensive about all the change

But over the years, there has been some pushback. Even in the early days, not everyone agreed with Vision Metcalf’s goals and priorities, something Mayor Skoog alluded to.

“Change is hard, and we had a lot of people who didn’t understand where we were going,” he said.

Neighbors have pushed back on some projects as they’ve emerged as well. The Canvas project faced concerns in neighborhood meetings about whether there would be enough parking to accommodate both residents, their guests and shoppers in the retail part of the complex.

Other projects have raised similar worries, as well as fears about increasing traffic and the size of projects when compared to existing homes and businesses. At times, nearby property owners have submitted protest petitions in a bid to block some developments.

At other times, residents have expressed concern about the loss of some of the unique features in downtown Overland Park as some older homes and other buildings have been demolished to make way for these larger-scale complexes.

Councilmember Holly Grummert, who represents this area on the Overland Park City Council, said she hears all of that from residents from time to time. However, on balance, she said most of what she hears is “super positive.”

“I think people can really see how following that vision and really working the vision and being true to that, how we’re getting just a really great neighborhood, and we’re really getting a vibrant, attractive place to be,” she said.

More mixed-use development is headed for downtown Overland Park

More of these mixed-use developments are headed to downtown Overland Park in the near future.

A five-story housing and retail project is planned near 82nd Street and Metcalf, which will replace a former funeral home and a nearby single-family home. This proposal, from Chicago-based 29th Street Capital, is expected to bring nearly 200 apartment units, additional retail space and underground parking.

Public hearings tied to the financing incentives the developer has requested for the project are scheduled for the Overland Park City Council next month.

“I think we’re really seeing it. We have these two new apartment complexes coming online, getting the density on Metcalf, getting the density in the district to support some of the niche kind of businesses,” Councilmember Grummert said. “I think it’s really exciting that we are seeing it come to life.”

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