Developer Walt Clements recently told a gathering of commercial real estate professionals that he was thinking about adding high-rise condominiums to his Deer Creek Woods office and retail project in Overland Park.

   There is no Johnson County precedent for mixing multistory condos with commercial. So Clements asked his colleagues to "please tell me if you think I've been smoking my front yard."

  But Clements and Don Linscott, his partner in Greenleaf Properties, aren't the only ones on the verge of bringing urban living to the suburbs.

Encouraged by the condo boom taking place in downtown Kansas City and near the Country Club Plaza, several developers are plotting to extend the trend to Johnson County.

  Leawood alone has approved preliminary plans for mixed-use developments containing more than 1 million square feet of multistory condos, said Mark Klein, a senior planner for the city.

  The bulk of that -- 560,000 square feet -- is planned for Park Place, a mixed-use project near 119th Street and Nall Avenue.

 Jeff Alpert, a co-developer of the project with Park Place Partners LLC, said the city has given final approval for The Meridian at Park Place - a 52 unit condo development - and construction is set to begin by late summer or early fall.

  Located in adjoining five- and eight-story towers, The Meridian's $400,000 to $1 million-plus condos could be the first to open as part of a mixed-use development in Johnson County.

  They certainly won't be the last.

  "We believe there are a lot of people who want that style of urban living but have Johnson County as their frame of
reference," Alpert said. "They're not really Plaza or Downtown people."

  Doug Weltner, a principal with Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group, agreed.

  Weltner and Mark Sutherland plan to build about 60 condo units in the
100,000-square-foot Mission Farms retail center they are developing near
107th Street and Mission Road in Leawood.

  Immediately west of Mission Farms, on the Overland Park side of Mission
Road, "we'll probably have another 180 units," Weltner said.    "I think there are a lot of people who work along College Boulevard who want to have some options," he said.

  Not all Johnson Countians are soccer moms and dads who want
single-family houses with yards to mow, said Ralph Varnum, a longtime
principal with Varnum Armstrong Deeter Inc.

  Varnum is part of a Johnson County development establishment that has
been slow to stray from strategies that have been profitable in the
past. But after witnessing the successes in Downtown and at Zona Rosa in the Northland, Varnum is calling mixed-use development "an idea whose time has come for Johnson County."

  As part of Varnum Armstrong Deeter's 600,000-square-foot City Center East retail project in Lenexa, he said the company plans to build about 60 condos. The units will be on top of an unusual structure that will
sandwich two stories of parking between the condos and ground-level
retail.

  Meanwhile, the city of Lenexa is planning 1,100 rental and for-sale
residential units as part of its Lenexa City Center mixed-use project,
located near 87th Street and Renner Road.

  An additional 540,000 square feet of condos is being planned as part of
developer Richard Sailors' Parkway Plaza East and West projects in
Leawood.

  And for every Johnson County condo project that's been announced,
there's another one in the discussion stages, said Bob Lindeblad, a
senior planner for the city of Overland Park.

  "We're having discussions with several groups that haven't submitted
applications," Lindeblad said. "But they're close."

  One of those groups is Greenleaf Properties, which is considering five
floors of condos atop ground-floor retail and underground parking in
Deer Creek Woods, at 135th Street and Metcalf Avenue.

 Located on 56 acres that Greenleaf bought for about $10 million,
Clements said, Deer Creek Woods was to include only retail and office
buildings. Then, about two months ago, Clements attended an
International Council of Shopping Centers meeting and heard a speaker
announce that the loosely used term "lifestyle center" finally had been
defined.

  In listening to the ICSC's new definition, Clements said, he realized
that Deer Creek Woods had all the ingredients of a lifestyle center save
one: residential.

 Located within walking distance of a regional mall project, a golf course and a 16-screen megaplex, the Deer Creek Woods site has woods and
waterways. When fully developed, it also will include 250,000 square feet of shops and 180,000 square feet of offices.

  "Those are all the amenities you could want in a lifestyle center,"
Clements said, "so maybe it would be wise to make this a lifestyle
center and add that third component."

  He and his partner will decide within 30 days whether to join the Johnson County condo vanguard, he said.

Copyright(c) American City Business Journals Inc.  All
rights reserved.