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Wichita City Council To Vote On Multimillion Dollar East Douglas Project

Courtesy/Shelden Architecture
A rendering of the Douglas Avenue Development project in the 600 block of East Douglas, near Naftzger Park.

The Wichita City Council will vote Tuesday on a multimillion dollar plan to develop the 600 block of East Douglas, near Naftzger Park.

The Douglas Avenue Development plan would include renovating the former Spaghetti Works building into 41 apartments. It also calls for the construction of 60,000 square feet of commercial office and retail space in the parking lot north of the building.

The project also calls for renovating Naftzger Park.

The initial phase, expected to start next year, would include work on the apartments and construction of 35,000 square feet of retail and office space. A future phase would add another 25,000 square feet of retail and office space.

Developers and city leaders hope the project will help connect Old Town to the north with Intrust Bank Arena, which is just south of the project.

The project would also include establishing a Community Improvement District. That would allow the developers to charge an extra 2 percent in sales tax to be used to pay for the project. That is expected to produce about $3 million over the life of the project.

The developers include TGC Development Group and Landmark Commercial Real Estate of Wichita and Sunflower Development Group of Kansas City, Mo.

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Tom Shine is KMUW's director of news and public affairs. Follow him on Twitter @thomaspshine

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Tom joined KMUW in 2017 after spending 37 years with The Wichita Eagle where he held a variety of reporting and editing roles. He also is host of The Range, KMUW’s weekly show about where we live and the people who live here. Tom is an adjunct instructor in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University.