Kansas City North Real Estate Blog

Rezoning for Northland Schools and Residences

The Kansas City Plan Commission approved two zoning measures that clear the way for construction of two new schools in the Northland and more than 400 residential units.

Planners approved the rezoning of more than 96 acres near Northwest 108th Street and U.S. Highway 169. Part of the land will be used to construct a new Lutheran school campus that will include a 65,120-square-foot school building and parking lots; a 40,000-square-foot, two-story building and a 19,500-square-foot administrative building. The project will also include athletic fields.

The largest part of the development will be 376 multifamily residential units and 54 single-family lots on the west side of the tract.

“There were some issues on traffic congestion,” said James Kraatz of Lutjen, Inc., who spoke on behalf of the developer. “The city generally got what it wanted so we can move forward.”

The Lutheran school campus, which will be a K-12 facility, will be constructed in three phases. The two-story building and administrative building will be in the first phase, and the school building and parking lots will be in the second and third phase.

Planners also approved rezoning to allow construction of a new elementary school in the North Kansas City School District near Northeast Staley Road and Shoal Creek Parkway.

The 86,000-squre-foot school will be built next to an existing high school.

“We expect to move forward on this very quickly,” said Mary Jo Burton, a spokeswoman for the school district. “I think our plans are to have the facililty open by the beginning of the 2009 school year.”

Englewood Trafficway

Northwest Englewood Road, between U.S. Highway 169 and Northwest Waukomis Drive has some straightening out to do … literally.

The lengthy planning process has begun to give a complete overhaul to the mile stretch of road that dips and climbs its way across the Clay/Platte county line and past a Northland elementary school.

Though that overhaul will come a ways down the road — it could take five years before a design concept is completed — two possible concepts have already been considered.

The conceptual alternative alignment sketches differ in lane numbers and road usage, but each capture the goal in mind by project officials to transform the narrow, hilly roadway with no curbs or sidewalks into a safer and “pleasant” boulevard.

Abe Shirazi, parks engineer in charge of the road improvement for the Kansas City parks department, said a top priority for the redesign of the roadway was smoothing the steep vertical grade that currently makes visibility for drivers a problem.

“The profile is a pretty sharp curve in the vertical grade,” Shirazi said. “We need to straighten that out and file it down.”

The two sketches produced by consultants at HDR feature either a three- or four-lane roadway with the possibility of sidewalks and bike lanes throughout. According to Sherri McIntyre, project manager for HDR, either concept would be built along the same 150 feet of right-of-way.

With a three-lane roadway, one lane of traffic would travel in each direction with a shared middle turn lane. Each direction would also have a 6-foot-wide bike lane next to either curb. Sidewalks would be included 20 feet from the roadway curb, too.

The four-lane concept features two lanes of traffic in each direction and a bike/ped path on one side of the roadway — 20 feet from the curb — and a sidewalk on the other.

Construction would likely be extended to the exit ramps on both sides of Highway 169 and include roundabouts. The intersection of Englewood and Waukomis would also likely include a roundabout. A traffic signal in front of the entrance to West Englewood Elementary, 1506 N.W. Englewood Road, is also being considered.

Shirazi said the roundabouts would improve traffic flow, especially around Highway 169 where Summit Street runs into Englewood just to the west of the highway's exiting southbound traffic.

“We think that would be the best way to approach the intersection problems,” Shirazi said of the roundabouts. “We want to put in a really nice roadway with all the amenities to make it a pleasant place to drive.”

Funding has not been secured for the project's full design phase, which is the next step in the planning process.