Leawood council approves $128,849 contract for 130th Street trail extension

The Leawood Governing Body on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a professional services agreement with Kimberly Horn & Associates not to exceed $128,849 to design the 130th Street trail extension.

The vote follows questions from Councilmember Harrison about how much new trail would be added, whether existing sidewalks would be removed, options to narrow the trail to save costs and the difficulty of managing federal grant dollars without certified engineering staff. "My preference would be not to take out sidewalk that's not even been around for 20 years," Councilmember Harrison said, urging staff to preserve existing, healthy sidewalk where possible. "But my preference would be to leave healthy sidewalk there, and then just add it where we don't have it."

City staff described the project as a pedestrian and bicycle corridor that would connect High Drive west to Stateline Road and Metcalf, with the design concept running approximately a half-mile for the section under discussion. "The thought is from High Drive West over to Metcalf... it provides a bicycle and pedestrian corridor for people along that street," said Mr. Lay, a city staff member involved in public works planning. He said six properties along Greenbrier have retaining walls within the right-of-way that constrain where a sidewalk or trail can be placed and add cost because the walls and landscaping would need to be removed or rebuilt.

Councilmembers asked about design alternatives. Staff said engineers will prepare cost options (including narrower five-foot sidewalks or a full 10-foot multiuse trail) once a consultant is under contract, and the council could consider stopping the project east of Greenbrier to reduce costs. "Once we have the engineer on board, they can do the design and provide us the cost alternatives," Mr. Lay said.

On funding, staff said the city is not pursuing federal grants at present because of limited in-house capacity to manage federally funded projects, which require certification and significant oversight. "We could hire the consultant to make the application. That's not the problem. But the problem is once we get the federal fund, it's just quite a bit of work on our end to be able to oversee that," Mr. Lay said. Staff noted the city can manage its own KDOT projects only if it has KDOT-certified staff (engineers) to do so.

Councilmember Sippel moved to approve the agreement; the motion passed on a voice vote and the resolution was adopted unanimously. The contract authorizes design work; staff said next steps are to complete the engineering design, produce cost estimates for alternatives, and then return to the council with options and potential grant strategies.