Mission Gateway coming in … 2016?

Since acquiring and tearing down the old Mission Center Mall in 2005, Cameron Group LLC’s Tom Valenti has talked a lot about the great things in store for the intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Johnson Drive. But so far, all he has done is push some dirt around.

But even the dirt is at a standstill today, as it has been since Valenti’s December announcement that the project had encountered another delay.

Subsequent press reports pegged various opening dates in 2015. The Kansas City Business Journal quoted Roeland Park Mayor Joel Marquardt, saying he understood that his town’s Wal-Mart would become Mission Gateway’s Wal-Mart in the spring of 2015.

The Kansas City Star reported that the tony apartments meant to accompany that Wal-Mart would open in the summer of 2015.

But a visit to the Cameron Group’s website shows a new projected opening date for the stalled project: sometime in 2016.

And the apartments might not make it.

Tipped this week that the latest Mission Gateway plans omitted the apartments, we called Valenti for confirmation. He said he didn’t have any comment – and said that if he did, he would make it to the Mission City Council first.

Administrators at Mission City Hall haven’t seen his latest plans.

Valenti added that he was unhappy with our January report on Mission Gateway (linked above), which traced a litany of statements he had made since 2005 about what would happen at the barren property and contrasted those pledges with what had actually happened. He said we called him a liar. Nowhere in the story does the word liar appear, but we did say that a big portion of Valenti’s development promises had gone unfulfilled. It’s difficult to argue otherwise.

If it’s true that the apartments are no longer part of the Mission Gateway equation, they would join a storied list of elements proposed for the project and then abandoned: a grandiose aquarium, a hotel, an office space.

Should anyone feel sorry for Valenti? Mission committed to a financing plan that would send $37 million in public money to his project, and so far the city’s residents have gotten nothing in return. And if when if whenever the project gets built, it’s likely to shape up as pretty ordinary, even after all the city’s help.

Aside from adding another Wal-Mart to the nearly 20 in the Kansas City area, Valenti plans a Sprouts Farmer’s Market (already in Overland Park), a Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill (which used to be at Harrah’s Casino) and an Aspen Fitness Center (already in several places in the metro). Mission Gateway’s marketing materials also indicate plans for a bowling alley. Mission already has a bowling alley just blocks away, the beloved Mission Bowl. Maybe Valenti should drop by there and try to roll a spare.