Background
About Lenexa
The City of Lenexa offers a high quality of life for citizens including safe, attractive neighborhoods, beautiful parks, trails, and open spaces, well-planned developments and office parks, and quality infrastructure. According to the 2007 citizen satisfaction survey, Lenexa was ranked by ETC Institute as the metro leader in overall citizen satisfaction with city services for nearly every major service area rated when compared to other cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Results show that nearly all residents (98%) believe Lenexa is a good or excellent place to live, and 92% say they are satisfied with the quality of life in Lenexa.
Residents enjoy the hometown sense of community spirit, while living and working in a sophisticated and technologically advanced city. Known as the City of Festivals, Lenexa hosts numerous celebrations and events each year, bringing families and neighbors together while promoting a small-town sense of community as part of a thriving metropolis.
Lenexa is looked to as a leader in local government initiatives such as public safety, development issues, festivals, watershed management, and the use of technology. The city has benefited by association and leadership as a part of Johnson County, Kansas, an area ranked nationally as one of the best places in the country to live, work and raise a family. Furthermore, Lenexa is part of the Greater Kansas City metropolitan area consisting of almost two million people who live in 144 municipalities located in 15 Missouri and Kansas counties.
In 2007, Lenexa experienced a recording breaking year in terms of commercial and residential growth. The city is 34.4 square miles in size with a population of 47,000 and a similar number of people working in the city. Lenexa enjoys a healthy business base and is considered a city of choice for a variety of high tech and bioscience companies, as well as a number of national and international headquarters.
Lenexa City Center Project History/Status
Lenexa City Center grew out of Lenexa Vision 2020. This citizen based, community strategic planning process began in 1996 and was completed in August 1997 when the Governing Body accepted the final Lenexa Vision 2020 report. The complete Lenexa Vision 2020 report is available online.
Vision 2020
Goal - Develop a Lenexa "City Center" as a central meeting place for residents, with a new downtown and a gathering area integrating retail sites, commercial uses, entertainment opportunities, community activity centers, public buildings, and institutional buildings somewhere in the vicinity of the Renner Boulevard Corridor.
Rationale - The focus of Lenexa's development should be on its geographic center. Creating this city center as a premier destination point, uniquely situated near major traffic access points, will establish linkage between the east and west sections of Lenexa. The new Lenexa "City Center" could also be an example to other cities for the design of successful "new downtown" areas as well as a vitalizing development thrust for the entire Renner Boulevard Corridor.
Lenexa Comprehensive Plan Update
After the visioning process was completed in 1997, Lenexa began a significant update to its Comprehensive Plan, which was approved by the Governing Body in May of 2000. The City Center concepts first expressed in the Vision 2020 report were incorporated into the plan. The updated Comprehensive Plan called out a location for this type of development centered on the present intersection of Renner Boulevard. and 87th Street Parkway, just west of I-435. It also established general development parameters for creation of a “New Downtown” for Lenexa, with land uses mixed both vertically and horizontally, with on-street and structured parking to preserve the urban fabric, with vibrant public spaces, a high level of urban design and architectural quality, and with a broad mix of uses in a true live/work environment.
City Center Zoning District/Design Standards & Guidelines
In 2001, the city first established the CC, Planned City Center Zoning District to be used exclusively within the City Center neighborhood at 87th and Renner Boulevard. Following many of the principles of “New Urbanism," this district sets the essential standards with regard to permitted uses and property development regulations for City Center. As a companion document to the CC District regulations, in April 2007 the city adopted the City Center Neighborhood Design Standards and Guidelines manual. This document provides additional site and building design standards and guidelines as well as a Neighborhood Streetscape Elements matrix for all streets in City Center.
Initial City Land Acquistion/TIF District
In July 2002 the city purchased 110 acres at the southwest corner of 87th Street Parkway and Renner Boulevard. Portions of this property have subsequently been acquired by the adjacent Golf Club of Kansas/Cottonwood Canyon development and proposed Lifetime Fitness Center south of City Center. Currently, 69 acres are available and being developed by the city's Master Developer, Copaken White and Blitt, who was selected in 2006 to develop this city-owned portion of the neighborhood. All of the City Center neighborhood is currently in a Tax Increment Financing District.
Street Improvements
The city has completed installation of 4 roundabouts on Renner Boulevard south of 87th Street Parkway. The new design will effectively manage City Center vehicular and pedestrian traffic in an urban setting, provide on-street parking and future bus stops. The 87th Street Parkway corridor from Renner Boulevard to Lennox Drive is now being redesigned into two one-way east and west streets divided to create full city blocks that will accommodate multi-story mixed-use buildings. The one-way streets will better convey traffic into and through City Center and will provide seamless pedestrian and vehicular connectivity between all four corners. As part of that project, improvements to Renner Boulevard north of 87th Street Parkway will also be completed. Grading on this project is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2008. Funding for this $22 million project includes assessments from a special benefit district, as well as federal, county and city dollars.
Civic Center
This city is actively engaged in establishing a major civic presence for the City Center neighborhood with the future construction of a multi-use civic center. This civic center, as currently envisioned, could include a parking garage and up to 200,000 square feet (sq ft) of building space. Besides city offices and community center functions, the city is currently working to establish partnerships with such entities as the Johnson County Community College, Johnson County Park and Recreation District, Johnson County Museum, Johnson County Library, and the Shawnee Mission School District. Preliminary discussions have included the possibility of adding an indoor theatre/lecture hall, community college classrooms, relocation of the library, ongoing art displays and museum gallery space at the civic center to enrich the overall cultural experience for the community. Primary funding for the facility will come in part from a current 3/8th cents sales tax proposal, which is up for voter approval in May 2008.
Current Development/Project Status
As outlined in the Neighborhood and What's New sections of this web site, a number of additional developments have been proposed for all four corners of 87th Street Parkway and Renner Boulevard. Streets and infrastructure have been completed for City Center East Village at the southeast corner of 87th and Renner Boulevard. Construction on that project's first two mixed-use buildings is well underway. Streets and infrastructure placement have also been substantially completed for the western portion of the City Center North Village development, where the first single-family cottages are about to be completed and work continues on the 309-unit Westend apartment project. Due west of the City Center neighborhood, the 18-hole semi-private Golf Club of Kansas project was recently completed. Adjacent to the south end of the City Center neighborhood, building permit plans have been submitted for an 112,000 sq ft Lifetime Fitness facility.
At development buildout, the 200-acre neighborhood is projected to have about 1.4 million sq ft of office space; more than 1 million sq ft of retail and entertainment space; 200,000 sq ft of civic space; almost 1,100 hotel rooms; 19 multi-story parking garages; and more than 1,300 residential units, ranging from single-family row homes to condominiums and apartments.
