More delays expected for Wichita riverfront development surrounding ballpark

Wichita likely won’t see any of its heavily subsidized private development surrounding the riverfront stadium until 2028 — years after city officials agreed to a suite of incentives to land a Minor League Baseball team, according to an amendment to the development agreement approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

The council voted 7-0 to grant a deadline extension to EPC Real Estate Group that will push back the start date and end date for construction east of Equity Bank Stadium.

The development agreement between the city and EPC includes $11.3 million in tax increment financing, or TIF, funding for a hotel, apartments and a parking garage that the city will eventually buy back from the developers. The developers only get the TIF money if they complete the project.

The city and developer missed extended deadlines for a $5 million BASE grant awarded by the Kansas Department of Commerce, but ended up receiving the full grant amount, Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson said Tuesday. On Tuesday, the council granted further extensions.

The vertical construction start date was moved from January 2025 to July 31, 2026, and the substantial completion date was bumped from April 2026 to July 31, 2028.

The city's agenda report blamed the weather and uncertainty about the BASE grant funding for the protracted schedule.

“Despite all of those forces out of our control, we’ve been juggling lots— a lot of curveballs, lots of headwinds,” Austin Bradley, executive vice president of EPC, told the council. “It’s not happening as quickly as anybody wants it to. We are as unhappy as anybody; I can assure you of that.”

Bradley said EPC remains committed to completing the project. It will have 10,000 square feet of retail space, a 150-unit apartment complex, a 260-stall parking garage and a 155-room Hyatt hotel.

“This project is going to add much needed housing to Delano,” Bradley said. “It’s going to add density to the downtown urban core. It’s going to introduce this mix of unit uses, and probably most importantly, it’s going to generate a lot of sales tax.”

The project has experienced significant delays since it received a green light from the City Council in 2019 as part of a land deal that granted the baseball team owners 4 acres of riverfront property for a dollar an acre in exchange for a private-funded ballpark village entertainment district along the west bank of the Arkansas River.

The city bought back 2 acres from Wichita Riverfront Limited Partnership, the ball team’s development group, for $1 apiece after the group failed to develop the land and sold it to EPC Real Estate Group for the same price. The WRLP sold the other 2 acres north of the stadium to the new team owners for $2.2 million.

City officials at the time said the project — which was first envisioned as a major entertainment district replete with riverfront restaurants and bars, a giant Ferris wheel, and a pedestrian footbridge linking downtown — was needed to generate additional tax revenue to pay off $83 million in city debt for the stadium project.

The developer — Overland Park-based EPC Real Estate Group — originally agreed to begin construction by Nov. 16, 2024. City staff granted a 60-day extension without a separate City Council vote, moving the deadline to Jan. 16, 2025. But EPC also missed that deadline.

The new agreement would allow the developers to limit the city’s ability to claw back funds or end the agreement by splitting the project into two different and distinct projects: a hotel and a multi-family housing project.

Under the existing agreement, if the developer defaults on either project, the city could claw back its incentives. By creating two projects, the new agreement would allow the city to find the developer in default on one part if it doesn’t pan out, without affecting one that is successful.

City Manager Robert Layton said 2028 is an important year for the ballpark. That’s when half of the STAR bond district east of the Arkansas River that has been propping up debt payments on the ballpark will expire, leaving a $2.5 million-a-year gap in funding that city officials say EPC’s project will fill. The city received $42 million in STAR bonds for the ballpark, which will cost $62 million to pay off, including interest. The debt is paid off by diverting all sales tax collected in the district.

“So that tells you about the importance of this project in terms of eliminating that gap,” Layton said.

Mayor Lily Wu said that decision drove her decision to vote for the extension.

“I was not here when we made a vote on a new stadium,” Wu said. “And, again, I would have not been in support of it had I been on this council. However, it is built and there is debt, and that means we have to be responsible with how we’re going to pay it back.”

Vice Mayor JV Johnston said he is confident the project will be a success.

“I had a lot of angst for this, for this project,” Johnston said. “However, when I did my research, one thing was common, and that was everyone had good things to say about EPC. So that’s encouraging that everybody does, so I know they want to keep that reputation going forward, so I think they will really value this project.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2025 at 10:04 AM.