Johnson County commissioners vote to commit $30 million to convert King Louie into an arts and heritage center

Earl Long recalls spending hours at the King Louie West building, at 8788 Metcalf, teaching his kids how to ice-skate.

Ice skating ceased at King Louie years ago, replaced by little more than political theater on how Johnson County should proceed with the beat-up husk of the building it bought in 2011.

“You paid too much for it,” Long told Johnson County commissioners on Thursday. “Maybe you didn’t know it.”

If commissioners didn’t know that they paid too much ($1.95 million), and then spent more money fixing it up ($1.6 million) for a building appraised at far less (between $550,000 and $850,000), it’s because they didn’t order an appraisal before the purchase. The commission relied instead on the advice of a real-estate agent. (Typically, the higher the price of a real-estate transaction, the more the agent gets paid in commission.)

Neglecting an appraisal is emblematic of the many clumsy steps the Johnson County Commission has made since buying the old bowling alley and ice rink late in 2011. First it released plans to make the building into a national museum of suburbia, which got panned locally and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Then it considered leasing it out to various county agencies. Then it considered selling it (which led to the dim appraisal that surfaced earlier this year).

The resources committed to restoring King Louie during a time when the county considered cutting other services, along with the missteps the commission has taken along the way, has led to a poor public perception of the acquisition.

The political drama, at least, is over. A slim 4-3 majority of the seven-member commission approved a plan that would commit $30 million to revamping King Louie. Rebranded as the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, the building will be retrofitted into space for the Johnson County Museum (currently housed in a sad little building in Shawnee), advanced voting center, and arts and theater space in conjunction with Johnson County Parks & Recreation.

The $30 million total is the total bill after the county pays $1.5 million in debt service over the life of a 20-year bond. It’s an annual expense on the books of the county ledger during a time when it copes with cutbacks in state and federal funds that would otherwise find their way into county coffers. (Johnson County has an infamously long waiting list for services for developmentally disabled residents.)

“My reservations are that I don’t believe that this project at this time is the right priority,” said Michael Ashcraft, a commissioner whose district covers portions of Olathe and Lenexa. “I think we have higher priorities we should be addressing.”

Ed Eilert, the commission chair who has been a strident champion of the King Louie purchase, said expenditures on the building don’t necessarily rob from money that would go to the developmentally disabled waiting list.

“Whatever negative impact there is on that waiting list comes from the state and the state’s inability or lack of interest in committing monies to reduce that list,” Eilert said Thursday.

But money is fungible. At least that’s what commissioner John Toplikar seemed to suggest when he told Eilert that money Johnson County depends on from the state to run certain social service programs.

“We can use general-fund dollars for any program we want, including more money for asphalt, more money for the sheriff,” Toplikar said.

The vote on King Louie turned on Steve Klika’s swing vote. Klika had been a vocal opponent of the King Louie purchase, which occurred before he was elected to the commission a year later.

On explaining his change of position, Klika said the proposal now is different from those in the past.