Kansas City Business Journal – August 13, 2021
By Thomas FriestadStaff Writer, Kansas City Business Journal
Lenexa officials recently have signed up multiple development partners to help bring a $65 million public safety complex to fruition, replacing its current aging facility in a more centralized location.
The city expects to start work next year on its new 117,785-square-foot Lenexa Justice Center on a portion of land it owns at Prairie Star Parkway and Britton Street, a short distance south from Lenexa City Center. The future facility will have space for the city’s police department, municipal court, information technology server room, communications unit, training and vehicle storage and a firing range.
City Council members in late July approved a $5.5 million contract with Finkle + Williams Architecture for the Lenexa-based firm to serve as the Justice Center’s lead designer. Finkle + Williams will partner with Roth Sheppard Architects, a Denver-based firm that has completed more than 60 public safety facilities, and several other consultants — including Henderson Engineers, Renaissance Infrastructure Consulting, BSE Structural Engineering, Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architecture and TCA Architecture.
Greg Finkle, co-founder and president of Finkle + Williams, said his firm feels a “great sense of responsibility” taking on architecture and design for what he described as a “generational project.”
“We’re just over the moon,” he said last month. “This is obviously a legacy project for everybody involved.”
The council also signed off on a $507,800 contract with CBC Real Estate Group LLC, whose Managing Principal Bill Crandalland Senior Project Manager Michelle Kaiser will provide owner’s representative services for the city, ensuring the Justice Center stays on time and budget.
And, earlier this month, Lenexa awarded K&W Underground a $296,938 project to install fiber optic infrastructure at the new Justice Center site, supporting a relocation of the city’s data center to the new facility from its existing Public Safety Complex at 87th Street Parkway and Monrovia Street.
The Justice Center plans stem from a 2020 facility study that found Lenexa would benefit from building its new facility on an undeveloped site, where construction would not impact public safety operations and cost 8% to 10% less than a phased renovation of the city’s present complex.
Built in 1980, that facility lacks space and efficiencies, with major mechanical components in need of replacement. Officials have said they will maintain a civic presence at the site, including with a possible new fire station.
Lenexa paused the Justice Center plans during the pandemic so staff could consider revenue sources and ensure proceeding with the project was the appropriate long-term direction to take, Deputy City Manager Todd Pelham said.
