American Fire, a new steakhouse concept set to take over the former Houlihan’s space at the Fairway Shops, remains an active project despite recent uncertainty and ongoing negotiations.

This week, all three parties involved in the project — the restaurateur, the landlord and the city — told the Post they remain committed to bringing American Fire to fruition at the much-watched corner space at the retail center just off Shawnee Mission Parkway.

Houlihan’s closed there in 2019 after 16 years in business, and the building has stood vacant ever since.

In an interview on Wednesday, Whitney VinZant of W. VinZant Restaurant Group told the Post that he is hopeful that the three parties can reach the necessary agreements in time for his new dining concept to open by winter 2027.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to be able to come to a satisfactory agreement with the city and landlord,” VinZant said.

This is a significant change from just a couple of weeks ago, when VinZant told The Kansas City Star that American Fire “may not” happen, saying the cost of renovating and operating the long-empty space was too high and that the roughly $1.7 million in public incentives being offered by the city wasn’t enough.

The uncertainty surrounding that building’s future isn’t new.

Through an open records request, the Post obtained emails exchanged between the city, VinZant and the building’s owner, Block & Company, Inc., dating back to 2022, that show years’ worth of challenges and tension over trying to redevelop the former Houlihan’s space.

The building’s long vacancy has created complications

Part of the issue has been how long the building has sat empty.

VinZant said over the more than six years the property has sat vacant, infrastructure issues have cropped up, including deteriorated plumbing and pipes.

VinZant said that due to the “unique challenges” at the old Houlihan’s, all three parties have “had to do a little more on this project than normal.”

He added that he and Block, the landlord, still need to agree on a lease for a space, but he sees the former Houlihan’s as having the potential “to be a defining social landmark.”

For his part, Block president David Block told the Post on Wednesday that the space at 2820 W. 53rd St. is “in leaseable condition” and is “ready to be rented to someone.”

So long as the city and VinZant agree on public incentives for the project, including establishing a community improvement district that will charge an extra sales tax on purchases made at a new restaurant there, Block said a deal is still on the table.

“I’d just like to see the deal get done,” Block said. “I want to see this restaurant open up and be a benefit to the residential community of Fairway.”

The city approved a $1.7M public incentive package

Email records show city officials worked with VinZant over the course of two years on a public incentive package for American Fire that has now taken the form of a community improvement district.

A community improvement district places an additional sales tax levy on a specific area, allowing the revenues from that tax to be paid back to a developer to offset construction or renovation costs.

The Fairway City Council in December approved a development agreement that offers VinZant up to $1.7 million worth of reimbursements from a 2% additional sales tax to be charged at 2820 W. 53rd St. That tax would be levied over a 22-year period.

In a March 10 statement, the city noted that the public incentives package offered to VinZant for American Fire “is the largest public incentives package, as a percentage of an overall project budget, the city has ever approved.”

The $1.7 million will cover 50% of the overall project cost, according to the city.

Despite the city council approving the development agreement in December, the city said in its March 10 statement that “the City of Fairway remains the only party to have signed the Development Agreement.”

“All [parties] agreed to the terms of the Development Agreement prior to its placement on the December 2025 City Council Meeting Agenda,” the city said, when the city council voted 7-1 to approve the agreement.

As of this week, VinZant had still not signed the development agreement and said that he and the city still need to agree upon specific terms included in that agreement, suggesting there may still be changes or further negotiations to come.

City Administrator Nathan Nogelmeier told the Post on Wednesday that any changes to the development agreement will need to be approved by the city council and that the city will notify residents of any potential future discussions regarding the development agreement.

For his part, like Block and VinZant, Nogelmeier said the city “is still fully committed to” American Fire and that the three parties “are still trying in earnest to bring this project to completion.”

Nogelmeier said he knows VinZant and Block are close to “resolving their differences” over the building itself, which he said will hopefully lead to all parties signing the development agreement.

“The city has done everything in its power to try to work with any party that has come forward in wanting to open a restaurant in the space,” Nogelmeier said. “I think the city has done a good job of being up front and honest with what it’s willing to do and what it can do.”

Behind-the-scenes negotiations have been rocky for years

This is not the first time that public incentives and the need to upgrade the building at 2820 W. 53rd St. have delayed a restaurant coming to that space.

In 2023, when VinZant first expressed interest in the site for a different restaurant concept, he and Nogelmeier reached an impasse over VinZant’s requested amount of public incentives, according to emails obtained by the Post.

At that time, VinZant asked for an even bigger public incentive package that included a 2% CID plus an “1% direct reimbursement from the city,” according to an email VinZant wrote Nogelmeier on Aug. 16, 2023.

Nogelmeier replied to VinZant, calling the request “a non-starter.”

“If you were to put this ask in front of the governing body, you’d be laughed out of the building and told not to return,” Nogelmeier said in his email to VinZant.

“We all know the ranges that are acceptable for public incentives, and asking for 100% of construction costs plus more on top is, frankly, absurd,” Nogelmeier added. “We look forward to a revised proposal that is worthy of council consideration.”

With the city refusing to take VinZant’s 2023 request further, that nascent proposal died.

It wasn’t until December 2024 that a new request from VinZant came through for a dining concept dubbed The Fairway.

Over the next year, Nogelmeier, VinZant and, at times, Block representatives continued to negotiate over public incentives. The process had hiccups, including months-long delays in sending $15,000 for a funding agreement and conflicting information about whether a lease was in place.

Still, the three parties say they remain committed to reviving the restaurant space, with the project now carrying the name American Fire.

It’s a process many in the city are watching with interest.

City Councilmember Lee Story said he sees the recent bumps in the process as relatively “low hurdles” in a years-long effort to bring a restaurant back to that space.

Story said he quickly learned after first being elected in 2023 that filling the old Houlihan’s space is a top priority for residents, given its history as an anchor for the Fairway Shops, one of the city’s only retail outlets. A new restaurant, too, would mean new jobs, he said.

More than anything, Story said, residents “want that place where they can congregate over a beverage or a good meal.”

“The residents miss their local gathering place,” Story said. “They miss that experience that they could take advantage of at Houlihan’s.”

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