Renderings of the new headquarters building by HO+K Architects.
The Lenexa City Council approved Omaha-based construction and engineering company Kiewit Corp.’s requested public finance incentives for the planned $50 million regional-headquarters project in City Center, which will consolidate about 1,200 of its local employees into one campus.
The project includes a roughly 182,000-square-foot, six-story office building to be built on an undeveloped parcel at the southeast corner of Penrose Lane and West 88th Terrace, and expansion of an existing two-level parking garage. The development agreement with the city requires Kiewit to start construction by Aug. 31 and finish it by Jan. 1, 2020. JE Dunn is the project’s general contractor.
At its Tuesday meeting, the council unanimously approved the tax-increment financing (TIF) project plan and development agreement with Kiewit. The city estimates the 20-year TIF term will generate $18.3 million in reimbursable TIF expenses and a tax-revenue increment of $16.6 million.
The council approved the project’s final designs at its April 3 meeting. Kiewit spokesman Bob Kula said after that meeting that the building would cost about $43 million and the parking garage expansion about $7.5 million. The parking garage has about 1,300 stalls and will have about 1,770 after the expansion, in addition to public, on-street parking.
Kiewit recently bought two adjoining buildings from Lexmark Properties at 89th and Renner for an undisclosed amount. These buildings, formerly the headquarters for Perceptive Software, and the new building will constitute its regional headquarters campus in Lenexa. Combined the campus will contain about 385,000 square feet.
The company anticipates adding another office building, from two to five stories high, on an additional lot on the site at an undetermined time. The lot will function in the meantime as a plaza and green space on the campus.
City Administrator Eric Wade told the council Tuesday that four TIF projects underway — the Kiewit project and the Sonoma Pointe multifamily and Sonoma Plaza retail projects in City Center, and the Home2Suites hotel and office project at 95th Street and Interstate 35 — represent “a remarkable effort and a lot of confidence in our community by several different developers.” Combined, the four projects account for $129 million of investment, with a projected increment of about $54 million, of which the private sector will receive about $27 million and the city about $27 million to reimburse it for public expenditures for the projects.
“These are really great projects for us to see get built, and I wanted you to understand this is a big deal for us,” Wade said.
The development agreement with Kiewit also allows the city to use the parking garage at no charge up to 18 times a year for city events and as overflow parking, and requires the developer to be a dues-paying member of the Lenexa Chamber of Commerce and to sponsor at least one city even a year for the 20-year TIF term. Kiewit also will reimburse the city for costs to build parts of two public streets: Winchester Street from 88th Terrace to Mill Creek Road and 88th Terrace from Winchester to Penrose Lane.
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