In Roeland Park, a step forward for a potential entertainment district

Last year, Roeland Park Mayor Joel Marquardt — an architect by profession — brought to that suburb’s City Council some rough sketches for a potential new development on city-owned property. The site, along Roe Avenue at 48th Street, was once home to Roeland Park’s city pool. The pool has since been filled in, and the area is unused and surrounded by limestone caves. Marquardt envisioned a potential retail-restaurant district in the roughly 30,000 square feet of space inside the caves, opening into a potential courtyard where the pool once was. 

Last night, the Roeland Park City Council voted to use TIF (tax-increment financing) money to pay for engineering studies to see if the caves are structurally ready for redevelopment, according to the Prairie Village Post.  

Mayor Marquardt said previous engineering studies do not tell what the cave structures are capable of supporting safely and how the caves could be used. The TIF fund has been collecting property tax increments for a number of years in that district, primarily from the Boulevard Apartments. Those funds can only be used for a narrow list of purposes, but that would include engineering studies, parking, grading, utility work, but not for new structures or to pay a developer.

Interim City Administrator Mark Pentz called the project “potentially the last available big development” in Roeland Park. More background on the caves project here.