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Wyandotte County commissioners voted 4-1 to terminate the request for proposal for the former Indian Springs Mall site, which has sat vacant for years, dealing a blow to a developer who had been working on a housing and retail concept for the property.
Erik Murray, developer with Eastside Innovation, first presented his "Midtown Station" concept to the commission in 2022.
He says they had to sue the UG in 2023 to get access to the project.
He had been negotiating with Unified Government staff for the past 18 months and says the project would require no financial guarantee from Wyandotte County taxpayers, no dollars from the general fund, and no county contribution, relying largely on a pay-as-you-go TIF structure.
Murray says the project would generate $66.7 million for the UG between now and 2045.
"It was disheartening on a number of levels for that committee to overlook the years of work that we've done," Murray said. "Even in spite of how dysfunctional our unified government has been, the turnover, the constant revolving door, through all of that, we've pressed forward.”
The Economic Development and Finance committee vote came after Murray said that well over several dozen community members showed up to the meeting ready to speak in support of the project.
"Development in the Eastern core of our city continues to be killed," Murray said.
Murray says the project's economic development staff leadership changed multiple times over the years, starting with Gunnar Hand, then passing to Greg Kindle for six months, before Chelsee Chism took over under the county administrator.
Kindle, the president of the Wyandotte Economic Development Council, says WYEDC and Eastside Innovation could not agree on the level of incentives for the project.
The most recent negotiations came during a period of significant leadership upheaval at the Unified Government.
The county administrator resigned effective July 5, and Chism was arrested for an alleged DUI in the same week.
"In the same week, the county administrator resigned, the economic development director was arrested, so when the UG lawyer says they're negotiating, who is behind the scenes actually negotiating?" Murray said.
Murray also alleges that UG legal counsel Todd LaSala misrepresented the state of negotiations to commissioners, saying LaSala told Eastside Innovation’s lawyer that staff directed him not to negotiate.
He sent KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson multiple email threads of discussions between UG staff, UG counsel and his counsel.
In one of those, Charles Renner, Eastside Innovation’s lawyer, was told by Todd LaSala, the UG’s lawyer, that “it was clear that City Staff was not going to provide responding comments or negotiate.”
KSHB 41 reached out to the UG for comment and awaits a response.
Murray says the sticking point was a phased payment structure and that a 2019 agreement for the previous group promised that Indian Springs’ site already accounted for multiple phases.
He provided a copy of the KC Foodie Park agreement, which outlined $100 due after phase 1 and $350,000 for subsequent phases, adding up to an overall purchase price of $1,050,000.
Murray's lawyers have since made open records requests to try to understand the turmoil and have reached out to the UG.
He says he wants to hold a special meeting before the full commission takes up the item.
"We have demonstrated to the UG the benefit of this project and the world-class team that is ready to do it, but sadly out of spite, one commissioner blames one developer when the failures that we see are systemic and have been going on for years, if not decades, and our community demands better," Murray said.
The commissioner Murray is referring to is the 8th district commissioner, Andrew Davis, who led last Monday’s meeting in Commissioner Bynum’s absence.
"We are continuing to fight for the Midtown Station project. We are not giving up," Murray said.
Davis said staff vacancies played only a partial role in the decision.
He said the primary impasse was financial.
The appraised value of the land was set at $6.2 million, and Murray's team came up short by about $200,000, Davis shared.
He said the UG's non-negotiable on property tax TIF was 75%, but Murray's team came back asking for 100%.
"We were abundantly clear that it was a non-negotiable. We said that June 1st," Davis said.
Murray says his team understood it to be a negotiation, not an ultimatum.
Davis said the UG also asked for more information on how much in STAR bonds the project would need and never received it, and that the state had not committed to STAR bonds.
He said Murray's team also asked for 85% of sales tax revenue to go toward paying off project debt if the STAR bonds were rejected.
Davis also raised questions about the tourism component of the project.
"We've been having these discussions, but I think the month of June for me was the breaking point, where it's like if you hear non-negotiable and come back and try to negotiate, you're not taking us seriously,” Davis said. “You think we're just going to continue having these conversations," Davis said.
Davis says it wasn’t a personal decision.
"This is a numbers thing,” Davis said. “If Mr. Murray didn't take so long to give us the information that we asked for, if he had come back and said, 'I'm going to give you the full price of the land, I'm going to ask for 75% TIF, let me get you more information on the sales tax,' that's fine, but the numbers are the numbers.”
Davis said the item will go before the full commission, likely this month, but said he does not think it would be wise to reopen the RFP immediately.
"I don't think it would be wise for us to just immediately go and open up the RFP again,” Davis said. “I am pushing for an autopsy of what happened because, unfortunately, we have been 0-3 with these economic development RFPs.”
He cited the 4th and Minnesota space, an 18th and Quindaro grocery store, and now Indian Springs in that number.
"I think it's time for us to take a step back, look at our process, assess the market, assess what we have done well and where we can improve, and then if the direction is to go with another RFP, then we do that. If we have some other suitors or other folks that are ready to go, and that makes sense, and we go that route," Davis said. "For me, it was time to move on.”
For some KCK residents, the failed project felt like a familiar story for the northeast part of the city.
"We're left out of everything," longtime KCK resident Carolyn Wyatt said. "It's not what we want. It's what they want for us.”
She says she’s seen decades of proposals and ideas for the area, with very little community input.
"They have a plan for the northeast, but it's not with us," Wyatt said.
Rochelle Donald, president of the Strugglers Hill-Roots Neighborhood Association, said she has seen minority developers repeatedly hit roadblocks with the Unified Government and described what she called a pattern of favoritism.
"We're also seeing issues with people from outside of the Northeast area or outside of Wyandotte County making a bunch of decisions for people that actually live in Wyandotte County," Donald said. "We've had a number of great developers come in with major projects that they wanted to do, and for some reason, they have been shut down, been denied.”
Donald says she’s noticed a pattern with Black men in particular, something she says really came to light during her time working with the previous mayor, Tyrone Garner.
"You speak against the system in any kind of way or butt heads with it, you're automatically labeled, and I don't think that's fair," Donald said.
Donald said the county needs outside leadership to drive change.
"We need a county administrator who is actually from the outside to come in and change things,” Donald said. “Someone who really knows how to do their job. We need the right kind of staffing.”
She says resident complaints often reveal the most important issues and answers.
"Listen to what the community is saying they would like to see in their various areas,” Donald said. “Allow them to be a part of the development process instead of keeping them out.”
Donald said she would like to see leaders and developers get to know the northeast community better, which Wyatt echoed.
"Treat with love, and you get love,” Wyatt said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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