BonnerSprings.com

No big city projects are planned for 2012 in Bonner Springs — at least, not yet.

In 2010 and 2011, several large projects were under way in Bonner Springs, with the completion of Front Street, Kump Avenue and the new Fire/EMS Station, all of which were largely funded with state funds or special sales tax funds. The city didn’t have any room in its 2012 budget to plan for large infrastructure improvement projects, but that could change if funding from the new Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway comes through as projected.

The Bonner Springs City Council, during its budget deliberations last summer, decided not to make any plans for revenues it should get from Hollywood Casino until the money was in hand.

“Realistically, we’re going to receive it this year,” said John Helin, city manager. “We’ll review where we’re at with the funds we’ve receive probably in April or May, and we’ll take a look at what potential impact that will have on the budget.”

With the casino opening Feb. 3, Helin said he believed the city would receive its share of the revenues monthly, though he expected there may be some bugs to work through at first and didn’t expect to receive any funds until late March at the soonest.

Along with making sure the city’s contingency funds are increased to their previous levels, Helin said he believed the council would first dedicate funding to street repairs — though the council would have to decide which streets rank highest in need for repairs.

Some projects the city will undertake in 2012 won’t rely on casino funds.

The city received state KLINK for fiscal 2013 to make more improvements to the city’s portion of Kansas Highway 32, so Helin said work may begin on Cedar Street and Gibbs Road either late this year or early next year.

The city also was able to set aside $4,500 for a salary survey, something it hasn’t done in about four years, to review salaries for all city positions and compare them with like-sized cities to ensure Bonner Springs was remaining competitive.

Now that numbers from the 2010 census are in, the city will determine if it needs to redraw its ward boundaries before the 2013 city elections in order to ensure each ward has about the same number of residents.

The city also will be busy moving utility lines to make way for the reconstruction of the Interstate 70 and Kansas Highway 7 interchange.

The state has set aside funding for the first three phases of the 10-phase project. Though major construction won’t start until 2013, the first step for the state will be related improvements to the bridge over I-70 at Riverview, which is to be let for construction bids in December 2012, and later for the bridge at118th Street, which is to be let in December 2013.

Kansas Department of Transportation officials will review the progress so far at the council’s Jan. 9 meeting, and they will have a public meeting to cover the same information Jan. 26.

It’s hard to predict what the city might see in the way of economic development, but one new development is in the works: The Village at Deerfield, a multifamily, gated apartment complex on 8.5 acres at the southeast corner of Kansas Avenue and 132nd Street.

The planning commission will have a public hearing to discuss rezoning the property from single-family residential to multifamily at 7 p.m. at its Jan. 24 meeting. If the rezoning is approved by both the commission and city council, developers will come back with preliminary and final plat and then a site plan for approval.

Don Slone, planning director, said even if everything related to the development was approved on schedule, it isn’t likely construction would begin in 2012.

Marcia Harrington, community and economic development director, said multifamily projects like this would be helpful to provide housing for the work force of the Cerner office development and casino in Kansas City, Kan., and she hopes to see more single-family homes built — permits for single-family homes increased from seven in 2010 to 16 in 2011.

Of course, Harrington said she’d like to see more business development in 2012, as well.

“We do hope that the economy starts to loosen up a little bit, and that development starts moving at a faster pace,” she said.

Areas she thinks may see development this year include two projects that may be moving forward in the K-7 and Kansas Avenue area and a tenant for the pad site south of McDonald’s in the Community Improvement District, as well as a prospective new business for the former Mazzio’s building and a buyer for a pad site available next to Subway at K-7 and I-70.

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