New Feature Park (Former Westwood View Elementary School Site) - Unfunded

1968 School

Thank you to the hundreds of Westwood residents that have shared their input and priorities for the park!

 

Park Design

In Summer 2024, the PORT Architecture and Urbanism team was selected to work with the City and the Park Planning Steering Committee to develop a community engagement plan and park design. Discovery and existing conditions analysis work took place over the summer and public engagement activities took place in the fall.

On November 14, 2024, PORT presented its findings from the community visioning phase and also three design concepts for the park.

 

Click here to view the presentation slides.

Click here to view the public presentation.

Click here to engage with the designs and to provide feedback at: https://www.westwoodkspark.org/ 

Click here to view the final report.

2024 (Park Planning Steering Committee Formation, Design Team Selection)
Park Design Timeline

After gaining needed City approvals in Fall 2023, the City began the exciting work of planning the new community park. In January, City Council received and accepted a recommendation from the City Administrator outlining the process for embarking on the process to design and construct the new feature park. Click here to review that January 2024 staff report. 

In February 2024, the Mayor named the individuals appointed to the 15-member Park Planning Steering Committee and in March, the Committee held its first meeting. 

In April, the City issued the Steering Committee's Request for Qualifications and Fee Proposals (click here to see the RFQ/P) and began the process of selecting a park design team.

In June 2024, the Steering Committee recommended to the City Council to contract with PORT to lead the design efforts of the new feature park. Click here to read the June 13, 2024 staff report outlining the recommendation of PORT to design the park. 

2023 (Karbank Private Investment Enabling Feature Public Park)
Site Overview

Seeing what work the City was doing in 2021 and 2022 to plan for its future, Mission Woods-based Karbank approached the Mayor with a development proposal to fulfill the vision of the studies linked above. Karbank proposed to build a mixed-use office and retail/restaurant development along Rainbow Blvd. and to allow the City to use the taxes generated from that private investment to build a larger, modern feature park on the former school site. 

To learn more about Karbank's approved development, visit this page on the City's website.   

2013 - 2022 (Future Park Planning)
2013 Plan

The current park redevelopment began taking shape in 2021, when the Shawnee Mission School District sought and gained City approvals to build a new Westwood View Elementary School on the north side of 50th Street (across from its long-time location on the south side of 50th). Click here to learn more about the history of Westwood View and click here to learn more about the replacement of the school building. This culminated decades of organized community efforts to keep the doors of Westwood View open despite declining enrollment for the 20+ year period leading up to 2015, when enrollment began to steadily increase due to an influx of young families attracted to live in the community. 

As Westwood View's future was now secure with the 2021 site plan approval, the City approached the School District to fulfill the goal of previous community planning efforts to take a leadership role in redeveloping public property within the city limits. Acting on a 2019 option agreement negotiated with the School District for the City to purchase the old school site, the City made plans to position itself to explore whether, how, and for what purpose it would be possible for the City to acquire the former school site. This option [to purchase] agreement was set to expire in February 2024 and the School District notified the City in 2021 of its intent to sell the former school site when it no longer needed the old building for students, in 2024. 

To educate and inform itself, in 2021 the City Council built upon previous land use planning exercises and identified future steps to gather input and data to make well-informed decisions. 

To learn more about planning efforts leading up to the City's decision to purchase the former school site and redevelop it into a new feature park, follow the links below:

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