The Prairie Village “Municipal Campus Project,” a project renovation and expansion of the Municipal Complex, has been estimated to cost up to $30 million over the past few months, according to the Johnson County Post.
The project has been on pause since it received a lawsuit in June from Prairie Village resident Marc Vianello. The lawsuit is a petition to stop the release of bonds for the city to continue on with the renovation, according to the Johnson County Post.
The project cannot proceed until the case is settled, according to Prairie Village City Council member Ian Graves.
“The project is halted right now,because a resident has filed a lawsuit to block the issuance of general obligation bonds that the city would be issuing to fund the project,” Graves said. “What that means is that in Kansas, there is a state requirement that there cannot be any pending litigation regarding the legality of a bond issuance in order for a city to issue bonds.
The project, which has been in the works since 2020, aims to renovate the three parts of the Municipal Complex — which is home to the Police Department, Municipal Court and City Hall, according to Prairie Villages Public Information Officer, Ashley Freburg.
“During this process, the city learned that the owners of 7820 Mission Road [Mission Bible Church] were interested in selling the property,” Freburg said. “After conducting a third-party appraisal, the City Council entered into a contract to purchase the property late last year.”
The project has been delayed for almost five years as the city prioritizes other community issues, including the remodeling of other local buildings. They’re just recently finalizing the logistics and cost to make their decision about the location and cost of City Hall, according to Graves.
“We had just rebuilt our Public Works facility [when the decision was made],” Graves said. “[It] was our oldest facility that needed updating, so next up on ‘What do we do with this?’ kind of question was ‘City Hall.’”
The main reason for the renovation is the need for more space for the city’s staff, specifically police officers, according to Graves.
“They need more storage space for evidence [and] additional equipment, and they also have a bunch of officers working in closets or having six to an office,” Graves said.
The Municipal Complex was initially designed to have more space to accommodate its workers, and it has recently been back on the city's radar, according to Graves.
“The police department was originally designed with space to grow into, but it's sort of the 11th hour in the process,” Graves said. “The council at that time decided to scale back the project to not accommodate future programming needs. We hit that point where we got to go and actually finish the job.”
Members of the Prairie Village community have expressed their dislike of the $30 million cost and think it’s an unnecessary amount of money to spend, according to senior John Gagen. Although Gagen is not a taxpayer, he believes the project is too costly.
Gagen was also a part of the Prairie Village Teen Council from 2022-23, where he got to experience the city council meetings firsthand and develop his opinion on the topic.
“I believe that the government's job is to listen and to provide for its constituents,” Gagen said. “When there hasn’t been a single person who has said, ‘Hey, this is a good idea, we want our money to go to this.’ I think it's pretty hard to say that that's the government doing what it's supposed to be doing.”
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