Community residents again will discuss what to do with Indian Springs at a meeting scheduled Sept. 19, according to Unified Government Administrator Doug Bach.
The meeting will be 5:30 p.m. at the Kansas City, Kansas, school district Central Office building, 2010 N. 59th St., near Parallel Parkway.
Bach made the announcement on Thursday, Aug. 31, at the UG meeting. After registration at 5:30 p.m., the Sept. 19 meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
“We’re inviting members of the public to come in, offer input, as we look at different development opportunities we’ll have for that site,” Bach said.
The Indian Springs shopping mall site at 47th and State was razed in 2016; the UG has owned it since 2007.
Community involvement
The meeting will be an attempt to get an idea of the community’s vision for the Indian Springs site, said 1st District at Large Commissioner Melissa Bynum. While she is not on the planning committee for it, Bynum said the meeting is most likely to be a facilitated one, presenting information and offering an opportunity for community members’ views.
She said she believes there has always been some interest from developers in Indian Springs, but it is just a matter of whether it is appropriate interest and if it is what the community wants.
In July, the commission decided on a timeline for a 60-day plan to engage the community in the process, she said. Information will be presented on what the public and community have expressed as priorities, according to the process that was presented in July by Jon Stephens, acting economic development director.
The UG staff has planned working sessions with the public and with community stakeholders, she said. The first is the public town hall-style meeting on Sept. 19. Then there will be three small meetings with three groups, neighborhood leaders, business leaders and civic leaders.
Other considerations, according to the plan presented in July, are to look at appropriate land use, development processes to be used, if it should be a master plan, should another developer be solicited, what is the timing for the process, and if public amenities are the top-tiered desired item, what sources of funding should be used to pay for them.
After the community process is complete, a new report will be presented to the UG commissioners for consideration. The process is expected to take until the end of October at a minimum, she said.
Bach said at last week’s meeting that the UG plans to send out postcards to residents about the upcoming meeting. Also, he said there will be an opportunity in the future for residents to go online at the UG’s website at www.wycokck.org and fill out a survey giving their opinions on the issue.
Earlier plan from April
There was a high level of community interest in proposals for Indian Springs at meetings last April.
A plan to put an industrial site at part of Indian Springs, called “flex-tech development,” with plans for other development including some retail and housing at the site at 47th and State, was opposed by several residents, including two who were running for mayor at the time. The developer withdrew the plan, and there has been an effort to start the process again, seeking community comments. The firm the UG had hired to seek development stated in April that it could not find big-box retail developers interested in the site during the years it was searching for them.
UG officials went back to the drawing board after the meeting and came up with a process that will attempt to put an emphasis on more community comments and participation.
Indian Springs is located near the intersection of I-70 and I-635 in Kansas City, Kansas. The UG has owned the mall and property since 2007, and the majority of the original retail stores have been gone for decades.
TIFs and Indian Springs
Indian Springs is one of the TIFs (tax-increment financing projects) in Wyandotte County that are currently nonperforming, the UG Commission learned at the 5 p.m. Aug. 31 meeting.
Called the Midtown TIF district, the Indian Springs redevelopment district was approved in 2004, and the plan was approved in 2007, but it didn’t move forward, according to officials. That was a year the national economy took a downturn, plus the developer of this project died.
Now the UG is about $20 million or so upside down on the Indian Springs project, Mayor Mark Holland said at the meeting. He said the UG is working hard on that Indian Springs redevelopment project to get it paid back.
During a discussion about TIFs on Aug. 31, Kathleen VonAchen, UG chief financial officer, showed an illustrative chart that said 19 UG TIFs were mostly doing well, having increased the assessed valuation in the county by about $26 million.
Bach said the $26 million or so that is generated goes back into the local economy that wouldn’t have been generated otherwise.
Most of the underperforming TIFs here were in housing developments, not commercial, VonAchen pointed out. Housing TIFs listed as underperforming were the Peregrine Falcon TIF, at a minus $788,000; Mission Cliffs 2, minus $2.3 million; and St. Peter’s Waterway, minus $3.5 million, she said.
The UG has found that TIF is typically not the best tool for residential development because the assessed value doesn’t grow quickly enough in order to offset the principal and interest on the debt, and public financial assistance needs to be greater to facilitate residential developments, VonAchen said. Other economic development tools may be better incentives for residential, she believes.
Bach said while a big retail store can be built at one time, subdivisions are typically built maybe three to five homes at a time out of a 50-house project. Some of the projections of these projects were not practical, some expecting 120 homes to be built in two years, he said. A pay-as-you-go TIF, not issuing bonds, might be more practical for these homes projects, he added.
At the meeting, Commissioner Hal Walker questioned that as time went by, the commercial properties would hold their value as they were placed on the tax rolls after 20 years, and might diminish in value. Bach agreed that may be true for some retail properties, but industrial and residential properties generally held their value well. Walker said he didn’t think the UG always negotiated as hard as it could. Walker requested an analysis on the issues for a future planning meeting.
Bynum requested more information about the actual financial status of the individual TIFs projects, and their totals.
Mayor Holland said there are really two eras for TIFs here, pre-recession and post-recession. Fifteen TIF projects were approved from 1997 to 2007, including all six residential TIF projects. Since 2007, the mayor said, there were only four TIF projects, which included 39th and Rainbow, Metropolitan Avenue, 57th and State, and Rainbow Village.
He said in the past 10 years, there has been a lot more caution, with more attention to not giving up everything but just giving what was needed to make the project go.
While TIF is a good tool to have available, the commission has inherited 10 years of a different TIF policy, Mayor Holland said, and he thinks currently it is on the right track.
The discussion on Aug. 31 didn’t cover STAR bond properties, but Mayor Holland said anytime the local community can use STAR bonds, they should, because the state spends 60 percent of the government costs while the local government pays the rest. That is compared to the local government spending 100 percent for TIFs.
To see more of the 7 p.m. Aug. 31 UG meeting, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y3YI6og5C8.
To see more of the discussion in the 5 p.m. Aug. 31 UG meeting, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D08Gpuo0thU.
To see earlier stories on Indian Springs, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/hearing-on-indian-springs-project-canceled-as-developer-withdraws-proposal/
https://wyandotteonline.com/two-mayoral-candidates-question-indian-springs-project/
https://wyandotteonline.com/indian-springs-proposal-draws-mixed-reaction/
https://wyandotteonline.com/ug-changes-direction-on-indian-springs-development/
https://wyandotteonline.com/expectations-are-high-for-indian-springs-redevelopment/