The building has sat vacant since May 2011, five months after the Shawnee Mission Board of Education voted to close the school — in which it had invested $1 million for a library renovation just years earlier.

The Tutera Group had initially hoped to have demolition on the site begin nearly two years ago. But protest from neighbors over their initial plans for a senior living development led to protracted legal issues that put the project on hold until earlier this year, when a deal brokered between the Mission Valley Neighbors Association and the company paved the way for development to begin.