KTWU Sunflower Journeys 1613b - Reinventing Lenexa
Produced by Scott Williams
Bill Worley, UMKC Professor of History: Literally, Lenexa from the period of the founding around 1870 until the 1950s was a small agriculture and farming center. Something that the community continues to recognize is its Spinach Days festival. Narrator: Lenexa's annual Spinach Festival has all the usual trappings of community festival, but with the added recognitgion of some of the more rural aspects that lead to the founding of their community. And Popeye is on hand to toss a giant spinach salad for the festival-goers. Bill Worley: One of the things that happens is some farmers discovered that they could grow produce, particularly spinach and there were several of them who were Belgium in background who moved here established a Catholic church which still operates near downtown Lenexa. And one of the major crops they grew is fresh spinach which would then be put on the railroad and shipped into the city market. Narrator: Lenexa’s farming livelyhood slips away when the town is connected to Kansas City via new roadways. Bill Worley: The thing that has grown Lenexa from a few hundred people to today where it has over 40,000 people and is the tenth largest city in the state of Kansas. Is very simply put. Access to the metropolitan area through Kansas City specifically the construction of Interstate 35 in the 60s and early 70s and followed by the construction of interstate 435 which provided a second high speed access in the area. Narrator: The major roadways in and out of Lenexa bypassed and closed-in the original townsite. Lenexa took on the growth pattern of urban sprawl. Strip mall after strip mall redirected the town's focus farther from its historic “center.” Narrator: David Watkins is the Lenexa city administrator. David Watkins, Lenexa City Administrator: We had a community-wide visioning project back in the mid-90s called Vision 20/20. It was something the governing body, the mayor council wanted to see done. And I think out of that dialogue with the community came a... I guess observation of the residents that they really liked Lenexa's small-town image but that they wanted to see a change in the type development.... A yearning for a gathering place. A downtown where people could mingle in more than urban environment rather than a subburan setting. Narrator: Town officals examined its original townsite and considered it for further development. David Watkins: There was discussion about could we make an investment in the original town which was platted back in 1869. The conclusion was that there isn't really enough room in that area to accommodate a project of this scale without destroying the very social fabric that makes our downtown old town area unique. You'd literally have to go in and buy out single family homes and displace people to provide a new gathering place. That would have been extremely controversial. Narrator: Instead, the town has opted to invest in leaving the historic townsite just the way it was, but adding improvments in the infrastructure. David Watkins: There's been a considerable amount of public money spent to keep those neighborhoods vibrant. And what we find is that the property values in the old town area are actually rising faster than the new suburban neighborhoods. Narrator: An alternative idea was formed to create a "new" downtown using the "New Urbansim" design model. The idea is to make a pedistrian-friendly environment that mixes residential space with retail storefronts. Even though its refered to as "new" urbanism, the idea has been around for years, and well-established examples can be seen in the Kansas City area. Bill Worley: Well, the best place to use the new urbanism tag actually is the Brookside area in Kansas City Mo. A mixed-use development with shops that are within walking distance. Houses and apartments, that could in effect be used as an urban center. David Watkins: Yea, if you think about it, the Country Club Plaza was developed as a subburan shopping center out in the hinterland. What JC Nichols accomplished not only the Country Club Plaza but some of the surrounding neighborhoods is exactly what we are trying to do. David Watkins: New City Center is located at the southwest corner of 87th street parkway and Renner Bulivard. What's being proposed at this corner is about a 62 acre mix of residental office, retail, and public space that normally would sprawl over about a 300 acre tract if you have the same densities that you typically find in suburban developments. Narrator: A project that moves away from conventional surburan development will be more costly to develop. David Watkins: Our means of financing this is not to tap into existing tax revenues. We are utilizing a concept called tax-increment financing, whereby the taxes generated from the project will pay for these extra costs that are necessary necessitated by a new urbanist approach. David Watkins: Lenexa is a town with a history. You know we have some surburan communities in Johnson County that were incorporated as a surburb. Lenexa, Olatha, and Shawnee in particular are all towns who's roots go back to the founding of the state. And I think what this project does it capitalizes on a feel that Lenexa already has with people who live here that its a place with a history and roots and has small town values that some of the other subburan communities just can't capture because their history doesn't go back as far.
This transcript is from KTWU's Sunflower Journeys 2003 season. A production
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