Overland Park is moving ahead with plans to redevelop its downtown Santa Fe Commons Park to include more open play area, an outdoor work environment and a paper-airplane inspired performance stage, despite a last-minute protest from some residents.
The city planning commission voted unanimously on Monday to approve a park development plan that will also remove the gazebo and reduce the number of trees. When it’s finished, the park at 8045 Santa Fe Drive will be renamed Thompson Park, after Frank and Evangeline Thompson, who donated $1 million — or about a third of the cost — of redoing the park. Before retiring, Thompson was a long-time Metcalf Avenue car dealer. The loss of the gazebo and the renaming were two ideas most disliked by Overland Park resident Ralph Beck, who organized a protest against the plan before the commission. “Downtown Overland Park is the nearest thing we’ve got in the city of Overland Park that you could call a historic district. And it seems like our historic character down there is at risk of gradually being erased,” Beck said.
(Read more: Prairie Village Post – Neighborhood news and events for Prairie Village, Fairway, Mission Hills)