OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — From eye-catching to eyesore. People in Overland Park say a building that used to be a draw for family fun is now bringing blight to their neighborhood.
The building in question is the old Incred-A-Bowl Family Fun Center on West 151st Street near Antioch Road.
Former Royals pitcher Danny Jackson and his wife opened the bowling alley, arcade and restaurant in 1997. They shut Incred-A-Bowl down in May 2015 and sold the building a few months later.
It’s sat vacant ever since.
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“It’s kind of in a state of disrepair right now,” Dr. Myron Schmidt, who runs his chiropractor practice out of a storefront in the same Trail Winds Center shopping plaza, said.
Two doors down, Ryan Isern, who owns Hustle and Heart Fitness, offers a similar sentiment.
“I think most people would agree it’s an eyesore,” he said.
The building sits alone in the parking lot of the center, not connected to the other storefronts. It is huge and hard to miss, especially being in disrepair.
Awnings are missing, a garage door is covered in plywood, some decorative glass blocks are broken, bushes are unkempt.
41 Action News has learned that people living in the neighborhood have emailed the city and submitted complaints through the OPCares portal about the property. One person called it a “monstrosity.”
Even with all that unsightliness, the city of Overland Park says the building is currently code-compliant and the owner is not doing anything wrong at the moment.
Jerry Anderson, the city’s Community Services Division manager, said Overland Park uses the “International Property Maintenance Code” along with thousands of other cities. He admits the code doesn’t always match the public’s vision of a minimum standard.
“Those minimum standards the city has adopted are a lot of times far less than what the you and I might consider as a minimum,” he said.
For example, between 2017 and 2019, code inspectors opened seven cases against the building’s owner for violations, like having a semi-cab parked on the property overnight, letting debris and fencing pile up, not enclosing the dumpsters and not filling potholes in the parking lot.
The unkempt bushes, plywood covering the garage door and other minor issues are not considered violations, according to the International Property Maintenance Code.
“There is no standard that your bushes have to look a certain way,” Anderson said. “Which makes sense for your own home, because you wouldn’t want the city coming in there and saying your bushes are two inches over standard or cut the wrong way.”
All of the code violation cases against the property are now closed and resolved, according to city records.
A group named NMS LLC purchased the building in 2015. Records show Dr. Paramjeet Sabharwal runs NMS, which operates MISH Hospital and Clinics in Lenexa.
In 2016, the city granted a request from NMS for a special use permit and approved preliminary plans to transform the former Incred-A-Bowl site into hospital with a focus on weight loss surgery.
In 2017, NMS received a building permit to begin renovations, but the permit expired in 2018.
There’s no indication NMS has submitted any other requests to the city since 2017.
Sabharwal did not want to comment on the status of the property for this story.
The special use permit does not expire and the city does not require applicants to follow up their preliminary plans with final plans by any particular deadline, so the property remains vacant and may be for the foreseeable future, much to the dismay of Isern.
“I would think there would be some sort of a timeline to have at least some progress made toward having a business operating in there,” Isern said.
The next deadline that could prompt action isn't until September 2021.
The Johnson County Treasurer confirmed that NMS has not paid all of its property taxes for 2018 and 2019. If those taxes remain unpaid, the earliest the property would be eligible for a county-run tax sale is September 2021.
NMS would have until 5 p.m. the day before any potential sale to pay its taxes and maintain ownership.
“We’d love to see a business in there,” Schmidt said.
But for now, he’ll have to wait.
