Here is how Missouri-based company plans to develop Topeka's iconic Menninger Clock Tower

Sunflower Development Group has twice turned shuttered schools into affordable senior housing complexes.

Now the Kansas City, Missouri-based company plans to do the same thing with Topeka's iconic Menninger Clock Tower.

"It's an awesome building and we're looking forward to doing this renovation," Jason Swords, SDG's founding partner, told The Capital-Journal on Friday.

Sunflower Development Group buying Menninger Clock Tower property

SDG was recently awarded a $637,500 grant by the state of Kansas, and is waiting to hear whether it will receive tax credits it is seeking for the project from the Kansas Housing Resources Corp.

The company hopes to close within 45 days on its purchase of the property and to start work later this year to create 65 units of affordable senior housing.

SDG is teaming up on the project with the architectural firm TreanorHL, which has a Topeka office, Swords said.

Does SDG have experience with this type of project?

Though SDG is involved in real estate consulting, tax credit consulting and real estate development, Swords said the company "cut its teeth" on historic preservation.

SDG's website details 16 historic preservation projects in which it was involved, including two that turned schools into tranquil, affordable housing complexes for senior citizens.

Those were an $18 million project completed in 2017 that converted Kansas City, Missouri's former Faxon School into 48 units of affordable senior housing, and an $11 million project completed in 2018 that converted Kansas City, Missouri's former Blenheim School into 52 units of affordable senior housing.

Some other SDG historic preservation projects detailed on its website include the following.

• A $69 million project finished in 2018 through which a public-private partnership was used to convert the mid-century former Traders National Bank building in Kansas City, Missouri, into luxury apartments.

• A $35 million effort completed in 2021 to rehabilitate and create loft apartments at St. Joseph, Mo.'s former American Electric building.

• A $17 million effort completed in 2019 to convert Kansas City, Missouri's former Spaghetti Works building into 41 market-rate apartments.

What is the Menninger Clock Tower?

The Menninger Clock Tower stands at 5800 S.W. 6th Ave. on the former campus of the famed Menninger psychiatric clinic, just northeast of S.W. 6th and Wanamaker Road.

Construction of the clock tower building was completed in 1924, according to the website of the Kansas Historical Society.

The Menninger psychiatric clinic left Topeka in 2003.

The property was acquired in 2007 by Colorado-based SCL Health, also known as Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System Inc.

SCL merged in April 2022 with Intermountain Health Care, and took that company's name, though Shawnee County Appraiser's office records still list SCL as the owner.

The clock tower building is listed on the Register of Historic Kansas Places and the National Register of Historic Places.

Why was the clock tower considered to be endangered?

SCL Health sought a permit to raze the clock tower in late 2020 from Topeka's city government.

It said it had spent more than $500,000 over the years keeping the building structurally safe and sound but no longer considered maintaining it to be sustainable.

Topeka's city government had declined to accept the property as a donation because of the high costs of maintaining the building, SCL said.

The Topeka Landmarks Commission in January 2021 denied SCL's demolition permit request.

An SCL spokeswoman said in February 2021 that if SCL couldn't find a suitable partner to buy the building, it would exercise its option of appealing the denial of its demolition permit request to Topeka's mayor and city council.

What good things have since happened for the clock tower?

Bill Fiander, who was then Topeka's director of planning and development, revealed in December 2021 that the city was working with a "very bona fide group" that was close to "making something happen" in terms of its acquiring, saving and repurposing the tower.

The group wasn't yet allowing its identity to become public, he said at that time.

Topeka's mayor and city council later that month set aside $400,000 to build utility lines to serve the area of the clock tower and incentivize developers to proceed with plans to convert it into apartments for senior citizens.

On April 21, Gov. Laura Kelly signed legislation awarding $637,500 to SDG for the clock tower project through the ARPA Building Opportunities for the Disabled and Elderly program the Kansas Department of Commerce launched last year.

The project is among nine for which the state is dispensing $9.8 million in ABODE funding to be used to build or renovate housing for the elderly and/or people with disabilities.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Developer discusses plans for Topeka's iconic Menninger Clock Tower