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Waid’s demolished to make way for new Village Shops retail space

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A decades-old Village Shops building met its demise yesterday as construction crews demolished the old Waid’s Restaurant to make way for new retail spacethat will be funding in part by the Community Improvement District.

Bulldozers knocked down the building Tuesday, leaving piles of twisted metal and crumbling concrete.

LANE4 Property Group president Owen Buckley said construction on the new building will likely begin in the next 60 days with a targeted completion date sometime this summer.

“We really wanted to get the building down now because it is an eyesore,” Buckley said.

Buckley said no tenants have signed for the new building, but the company expects to be able to make an announcement “in the next several months.”

The Prairie Village Planning Commission in November approved a conditional use permit that will allow LANE4 to build a drive thru lane as part of the new structure — a move that drew some protest from neighborhood residents who felt traffic generated by a drive thru would make the area less friendly to pedestrians. It’s been speculated that either Starbucks coffee or Einstein Brothers, which was displaced when construction started at Standees, may be the main tenant at the new building.

Buckley said the company will be working to minimize disruption to traffic flow and parking access on Mission Lane and Mission Road during construction of the new building.

“East of traffic flow through the center will continue to be the landlord’s highest priority through construction and naturally after construction as well,” he said.

A rendering of a proposed retail building slated to go in near the site of the former Waid’s building.

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