Is the Walmart at Mission Gateway a pizza or a plate of flounder for Mission residents?

For Mission resident Andy Sandler, getting a Walmart at Mission Gateway is like sending a friend out to fetch a pizza and having that friend come back with a flounder to feed the party.

“It’s a rotting fish,” Sandler said of the Mission Gateway plan before the Mission City Council on Wednesday. “It stinks.”

Sandler pointed out what many already know: Mission Gateway developer Tom Valenti has gone through all kinds of different plans the suburb’s most prominent piece of real estate at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Roe, eventually arriving at a project anchored by Walmart, of which there are already many in the metro. To Sander, it seems like settling for less.

“He’s gone from a pizza to a flounder to pig’s knuckles to pig ears — what else is he going to come up with?” Sander said. “And we still haven’t gotten our pizza.”

Sandler’s funnyman act brought down the house at Mission City Hall. His comments drew boisterous applause from the crowd of onlookers on Wednesday evening. The man who spoke in favor of Walmart before Sandler heard crickets after his comments.

Sandler didn’t get any giggles from Valenti.

“One of the comments made earlier about asking for a pizza and delivering a flounder, I thought, was pretty inappropriate,” Valenti.

One can understand why Valenti chafes at such comments. Valenti, according to court records, has personally guaranteed some of the debts on Mission Gateway. He has a lot riding on this. 

But one can understand Mission residents who oppose his latest plan, not all of whose concerns explicitly have to do with Walmart. Some are concerned about traffic on Roe. Others worry about the viability of small businesses on the eastern edge of Johnson Drive. Others see a Walmart not far away in Roeland Park and wonder why it should relocate to Mission.

Still, Valenti got a rare piece of good luck on Wednesday. Despite facing a council chamber full of residents who have grown tired of Valenti’s act, he got approval for a site plan for his Walmart-anchored project.

A Walmart big-box-style store will be the mantelpiece of a project that also includes apartments, a hotel and some other retail.

The vote in favor of the site plan is mostly a perfunctory matter; it merely gives blessing to the technical aspects of the site’s design and its conformance with zoning codes. 

Even so, the site plan passed by the narrowest margins. The eight-member Mission City Council deadlocked on the matter. A month ago, the site plan had come before the Mission City Council and a 4-3 majority decided to send it back to the Mission Planning Commission. Councilman Jason Vaughn wasn’t in attendance that night. He was on Wednesday, and explained his vote as focusing on the planning commission’s recommendation, not about whether he favors Walmart or not.

For some council members in Mission, a city with its share of chain retailers, a Walmart remains a bridge too far.

David Shepard, a Mission councilman who has sided with Valenti in the past, won’t offer his support for this latest plan.

“We can do better,” Shepard said, again eliciting applause from the audience. “It does not meet with our vision.”

Mission residents seem to agree, based on anecdotal or informal polls. Council member Arcie Rothrock said about 95 percent of the input she gathers from Mission residents goes against Valenti’s plan. Another neighborhood leader said 85 percent of those he quizzed were also opposed Mission Gateway’s current iteration.

In Mission, tied council votes are broken by the mayor. Steve Schowengerdt, a first-term mayor in Mission, voted in favor of Valenti’s site plan because it was in keeping with the planning commission’s recommendation.

“This is just one portion of this development,” Schowengerdt said. “This is a long ways from happening.”

Valenti still has to get a development agreement approved, one in which he will reportedly ask for $29 million in public assistance to pay for a project that seems fairly unpopular. Despite the narrow vote, most council members voting in favor of the Mission Gateway site plan couched it as a vote merely to approve the technical aspects of it. Jennifer Cowdry seemed like the only council member who was fully enthused about Valenti’s plan, saying it was prettier than Zona Rosa or Prairiefire.

Whether the Mission City Council will go for the actual project itself, and the bundle of taxpayer cash that goes along with it, at a later vote is another question altogether.

That means it will be a while Mission residents discover whether they eat pizza, bottom-feeding fish — or anything at all.

“There’s plenty of pizza out there — we can go ahead and have it,” Sandler said. “It’s what we wanted. It’s what we’re willing to pay for. We’re not willing to pay for flounder.”
 

Mission Gateway vote
For: Jennifer Cowdry, Suzie Gibbs, Pat Quinn, Jason Vaughn, Steve Schowengerdt
Against: David Shepard, Amy Miller, Arcie Rothrock, Debbie Kring