‘It’s time to move on’ — Hartman Hardware closing permanently in downtown Shawnee as owners retire and make way for developer’s revitalization of streetscape
After 74 years in downtown Shawnee, Hartman Hardware is closing permanently as owners Mike and Lisa (Hartman) Unterreiner retire and move out of state. The couple recently sold the property to a local developer who has plans to revitalize the streetscape in that area.
The Hartman family sold their three buildings and a parking lot downtown to Shawnee Square Partners LLC, an entity managed by Box Real Estate Development, a boutique development company in Lee’s Summit. BoxDevCo is working on several projects in downtown Shawnee, including Blume Shawnee (the Nieman catalyst site) that will become a mixed-use residential/office townhome project underway just south of Hartman Hardware on Nieman Road.
The couple first met with Russell Pearson, owner of Box Real Estate Development, last fall and were drawn to his vision for the downtown area. The change in ownership became official Sept. 1.
Lisa (Hartman) and Mike Unterreiner said they hope the site of their hardware store will continue to be an anchor for downtown Shawnee and attract people to the area.
“We were kind of particular; we weren’t just going to up and leave everybody in the lurch in downtown,” said Mike Unterreiner, noting his efforts with the Shawnee Downtown Partnership to bring in reinvestment opportunities to the area. “This is a key corner and it’s going to be important to the production of downtown and everybody else’s business. Russell explained that he was interested in preserving and keeping the history of this building, but yet upscoring it to bring in people from outside to Shawnee.”
The Unterreiners’ decision to retire now came from a combination of factors — the city’s reinvestment in the Nieman Road corridor, the federal government’s designation of the downtown area as an opportunity zone and their personal desires to enter semi-retirement and slow down a bit. Mike called it the “perfect storm.”
“We also came to the realization that, actually, I felt like the hardware store wasn’t the perfect fit for the middle of everything that’s building up around here,” Lisa said, citing the recent business growth that is turning downtown into a walkable destination: Aztec Theatre, Transport Brewery, Servaes Brewing Company, McLain’s Market, Sancho Streetside and Drastic Measures. “This building needs to be beautified. It can be so much for the community.”
Pearson’s company is planning to invest $1 million in improvements for the streetscape. With an “adaptive reuse” approach similar to what McLain’s Market did with OK Garage down the street, Pearson hopes to turn the hardware store into a space for restaurant/bar uses and capitalize on the upper floor as an outdoor patio overlooking Johnson Drive. Below is a copy of the conceptual plan:
“We’re improving these buildings that have a lot of character and history and contribute to the fabric of this sub-market, and a lot of these tenants have been in the buildings for decades,” Pearson said. “So we’re trying to honor that legacy and not disrupt the balance. There’s a value to history that is difficult to put a price on, but intuitively, we all understand that it’s important and it creates character of a neighborhood.
“There’s a lot going on, a level of excitement, a lot of fun things happening, and I want to be a part of that.”
Box Real Estate Development is seeking public financing from Kansas Neighborhood Revitalization Act and the Shawnee Entrepreneurial and Economic Development (SEED) program.
Box Real Estate Development is also partnering with NAI Heartland, a real estate company in Overland Park, to identify prospective businesses for the site of the hardware store. Pearson, who is also a partner and broker for NAI Heartland, has requested that any interested parties should contact NAI Heartland.
Read the full article here.