Quiet bedroom community east of Wichita wakes up, thanks to a big new development
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Big plans for Wichita suburb
Andover has been known as a bedroom community of Wichita for years, but that’s changing, especially thanks to the city’s new Heritage development.
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Quiet bedroom community east of Wichita wakes up, thanks to a big new development
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Andover Mayor Ronnie Price has a friend who has always said, “Andover’s just a road.”
“And I couldn’t argue the point,” Price said. “We’ve always been known to be a bedroom community. The opinion was — before me — if you want to shop, you can go to Wichita.”
That’s changing, in large part due to the new 110-acre Heritage development. The mixed-use development just east of Andover Road and north of Kellogg already has two housing developments in the works and this week will break ground on Heritage Square, the city’s first 5-story building that will include apartments, public parking and commercial spaces.
Construction also will begin on Heritage Plaza, a kind of a Main Street gathering spot with restaurants, service businesses and a town square that’s meant to be Andover’s first downtown.
“Short and sweet, Andover’s open for business, and the word’s getting out that that’s my mentality,” Price said. “I call it keeping money in the family.”
Price believes “there’s not going to be anything like the Heritage Square within a hundred miles.”
It’s kind of ironic praise given how Price reacted when developers Jerry Jones, Mike Lies and his son-in-law, Lance Biel, explained the project.
“It’s kind of funny because I was the one who wasn’t a fan of it,” Price said.
His concern was what would happen to other areas of Andover if the Heritage became the focus.
“What I won’t let you do is ruin the rest of our city,” Price told the developers.
He said he finally realized Andover doesn’t have to remain small to be an attractive place to live.
“We can still have a small-town feel and have economic development.”
Lies, who was a Wichita periodontist for 40 years, began collecting land east of Kellogg and Andover decades ago.
“I drove past that when it was a cow pasture,” he said. “Andover didn’t know it was a burgeoning community at that time, but it is finding it out now.”
Biel calls his father-in-law a visionary, but Lies said he knew he needed help with execution.
“I’m an investor and an entrepreneur, but I’m not a developer,” he said. “That’s a special breed.”
That’s where Jones came in. The founder of Jones Commercial Development Co. steered the project away from becoming strictly a commercial development like Andover MarketPlace at the southeast corner of Kellogg and Andover.
Jones said there needed to be more rooftops.
Then, the city became involved with a request for the developers to follow a 2014 comprehensive plan that called for, among other things, a dense collection of businesses and a downtown.
Jones brought in Old Town developer Dave Burk and Key Construction president Dave Wells for the 4.6-acre Heritage Square portion of the development.
Lies said the involvement of the Wichita developers “just changed the whole project from one that’s kind of classical, long-term, slow-growing.”
“Things are going to be happening fast.”
‘Sleepy little city’
Andover had a population of 4,000 when Les Mangus moved there in 1990 “and thought I would take this job with this sleepy little city.”
That year, there were 25 permits for single-family homes.
After a massive tornado struck in April 1991, that year saw more than 200 housing permits, and they weren’t all rebuilds from what the F5 twister demolished.
“There were almost as many new permits as rebuilds,” said Mangus, who is director of community development. He said he’s not sure if it was the exposure the city received or “if all the stars just aligned.”
Since then, growth has been organic and steady. The city grew 26% from 2010 to 2020, and it’s the fastest-growing city of 10,000 people or more in Kansas. Today, the population is about 15,000.
Schools are a big reason for the growth, and Mangus thinks a progressive city government is another.
In 2014, the city did a comprehensive plan that called for a higher density of buildings along Kellogg, including multistory commercial and residential buildings, which Andover has not previously had.
Mangus remembers one person told him: “You must be crazy — 5- and 6-story buildings in Andover?”
“That more dense development is much more sustainable,” Mangus said. “It has kind of a built-in customer base.”
And that’s what the Heritage will have.
The residential portions — including 89 patio homes in the Courtyards at the Heritage and 96 single-family homes in Heritage Commons — are on the north end of the development. That’s just south of Douglas Avenue.
Just south of the patio homes there will be an 8-acre business park.
To the west of that, there will be space for either senior living or some kind of healthcare-related facility.
Running through the neighborhoods and the businesses to their south, there will be a half mile linear series of parks and ponds, which will culminate in a final water feature at Heritage Plaza, which is meant to be Andover’s new downtown gathering place.
The plaza will be just west across the street from Heritage Square.
To the west of the plaza will be a hotel. There’s no deal for a particular hotel brand yet, and it likely is a few years away.
Up first will be the 5-story, 186-unit Heritage Square Apartments. The apartments will be on the top three floors. On the ground floor, there will be 43,000 square feet of commercial space. Part of the first floor and all of the second floor will have parking, including secured parking for the apartments.
The apartments and the plaza will be ready in 2023.
There will be freestanding commercial buildings surrounding the plaza and more will line an entertainment zone along Kellogg, with space for restaurants and bars. There are more commercial lots for sale to the east of the apartments.
In total, the Heritage is a more than $150 million project with about 350,000 square feet of commercial space.
Mangus said the development is a game-changer for the city.
“The Heritage will make a statement and change the way the public sees Andover.”
Not in the plans
A downtown gathering place may have been in the Andover comprehensive plan, but it wasn’t in the developers’ plans.
The idea came up after Lies donated land for the city to create Yorktown Parkway, a new artery through Andover that connects Central south to Harry Street.
That’s when the developers learned the city’s hopes for a dense development pattern and a Main Street-type gathering spot.
“To build that from scratch was not economically viable for a private developer,” Jones said.
That led to the creation of Andover’s first tax increment financing district to fund infrastructure, free public parking and parks within the development.
“It’s been a sharp learning curve, but everybody’s keeping up really well,” said Jennifer McCausland, city administrator.
There have been three bond issues for a total of just over $26.5 million.
Instead of the district’s tax dollars going to government agencies for the next 20 years, the money will be used to pay the debt service on the bonds that will pay for public improvements within the development.
McCausland said the TIF district will have a lot of benefits for the city.
“It creates that downtown feel that we just don’t have currently,” she said. “It will create a lot of opportunities for businesses to come to Andover. . . . It’s going to offer a lot of reasons to stay in Andover.”
Currently, she said, people visit Andover for a sports tournament or a concert “and then head right back out.”
Future restaurants and bars and the new hotel will give them reasons to stay.
“I don’t think (the Heritage) will change the schools being a huge priority for why people move here,” McCausland said.
Jones said it could be a decade or more before everything is built within the Heritage.
“The overall development will certainly be market driven.”
Mayor Price believes that “the Heritage will draw people into town to spend money.”
He envisions more developers coming, too.
“Andover has their attention now.”
Price said he knows it may sound a bit arrogant, but, “I want Andover to be the premier suburb of Wichita.”
Not everyone has been pleased with Andover’s growth or the Heritage, including neighbors adjacent to what had been a cow pasture and cotton field. Some at the city weren’t initially receptive, either, Lies said.
“Andover has had a hard time growing up,” he said. “For a percentage of the population in Andover, (change) has been a difficult thing for them to accept.”
More change is coming with the recently announced expansion of improvements along Kellogg, which will extend to Prairie Creek Road several blocks east of the Heritage.
“This highway corridor will look a lot different than it does in Wichita,” Mangus said.
He said Andover will remain at the same grade, and the highway will dip below it “so there isn’t that visual barrier on one side of the highway to the other.”
It will help Andover keep that same small-town feel, Mangus said.
Thanks to the Heritage, he said people will realize they’re seeing something new, too.
“They’re going to come in on a brand-new freeway and see a brand-new city.”
