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Michel Borchardt’s vision to fill out the Nottingham Center with apartments, services and restaurants came about by asking the question: What does Eudora need?

Borchardt is originally from the Kansas City area and has lived in Eudora for nearly 5 years. He said he’s been in the contracting world for 40 years and has been self-employed his whole life, starting with building his first home in 1985 while a student at KU. 

He said he first started looking at the Nottingham Center in the spring. They were about to begin development of a different project, but decided to see if there was a way they could develop in their own community. 

Below is a transcript of the Eudora Times’ interview with Borchardt about his life and his vision for the Nottingham Center. The interview was lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

What brought you and your family to live in Eudora?

Yeah, we’ve been here for four and a half years. We’ve lived in Kansas City and in Lawrence as well. Our three daughters were going to school in Lawrence, so that was a good place for us to live during that season. When we decided to leave Lawrence, we thought about going back to Kansas City, but we really liked this area and the small-town community. We started looking, found the right place, and moved here. Four and a half years later, here we are, developing something in our community.

You and your wife served as missionaries and pastors. Can you talk briefly about that chapter of your life?

Yeah, well, my wife and I — my wife is from Brazil — and we have three daughters. Early in our marriage, we went to Bible school, and after that, we pastored in Kansas City for 14 years. Her being Brazilian, we also do some missions work in Brazil. One of the things we’re working on is some youth outreach there.

You’ve proposed roughly 140 apartments, 10 two-story villas and about 50,000 sq ft of retail and office space for the site. What is your vision for the character of this development?

Community, connectivity, a place of engagement, a place of relaxation, shops, dining, walking — a lot of keywords kind of pop into my mind. But centered around the Village Green, it becomes a place to thrive, a place to be with family and friends. We’re looking for some cafes, different things, so a place for people to commune and be together, kind of the village lifestyle.

How do you see this project meshing with the existing businesses in Nottingham Center?

I think, as an ecosystem, everything benefits each other. A standalone business doesn’t benefit when people don’t come around it. So developing an ecosystem, that’s where these mixed-use developments thrive, because there’s going to be approximately 140 apartments, 10 villas. There is, right within walking distance, 150 families that will service and be part of these businesses, in addition to all the other people coming from other parts of the city and driving down the highway and making a pit stop. 

It will actually attract, and we feel it’s going to bring added revenue to the existing businesses. And all the case studies show that to be what’s happening. Bonner Springs is doing a smaller-scale mixed-use development, and I just spoke with one of the developers. 

In the beginning, there was a lot of kickback, because the businesses were like, ‘They’ll take away from our business.’ The opposite is actually happening. Businesses are growing. They’re renovating their spaces. More people are coming. So the fear factor in the beginning turned out to not be so.

The plans for the development mention a cafe. What other businesses do you hope to see in this space?

Well, anything that will service the economy here, anything that is beneficial, that the people can utilize and not have to travel out of town to use. And that’s a wide spectrum. It could be like a UPS store. It could be hair. It could be a workout. It could be medical-oriented or insurance. There is a wide variety of things that people need that currently they go to Lawrence for or De Soto or Kansas City.

The lots have been vacant for years with no other businesses moving in. How do you plan to attract businesses to want to be part of your development?

Well, I think number one, where Eudora sits. Its proximity on K-10, situated between Lawrence and Kansas City. After COVID, there’s been a lot of people that are looking for a quieter lifestyle outside of density, outside of congestion and big city living. And there are a lot of people, but there’s just not a lot of places to migrate to that are close to Kansas City that fit that need. And Eudora fits that need. 

It’s a small hometown, and it’s attractive to a lot of people, and it’s accessible for commuters to Kansas City and to Lawrence. It’s perfect. And there’s maybe 30,000 or 40,000 students at KU and there’s a huge market pool for people to come here, which is 10 minutes down the road, and utilize all the services that are here in the Nottingham Center.

Let’s talk about the residential portion. You’ve mentioned before that the apartments and villas would be market rate, but residents would like more specifics. What kind of rental prices are you looking at?

It’s still in the design phase. We’re actually in the concept phase. Once we get past a few hurdles through the city, we still have the purchase agreement and the development agreement to work through. Once that’s done, the architects and designers will begin what you saw in the plot plan. That’s just a concept test phase, and it gives us a direction—a launch point. Like, what can we do with this land? These are just blocks, so it gives an idea, and a lot of this may shift. It’s just a starting point.

Rent will be done to market. The units are not going to be low end or high end, but they will have modern, quality amenities. I would say mid- to upper scale — not a full class A, but not a low class B. We want to make it affordable, and the challenge is that what we buy here locally costs the same as in Kansas City. 

Build costs are no different, but traditionally, rents are lower in Eudora, so we need to find that balance in providing a great quality living experience within a good budget. We’re cognizant that we can’t get the rents they get in Overland Park or Lenexa City Center per square foot, but the build cost is the same. So the challenge for us is to find that inflection point where we provide good value for the tenants coming in.

Some residents have expressed concerns about the residential components of the plan. How critical, for you, is the residential component? In other words, would you consider just the business development portion of the plan?

As Theresa [Curtis, one of the architects for the project] stated on Monday night, all the statistics for success are hinged on homes, on residences. These businesses will actually thrive and prosper with an immediate walking community steps from their door. That is the concept of the mixed-use development. So, it is beneficial for the businesses. 

Absent that, it would be very hard to attract businesses to occupy just retail space with no density housing connected to it. That’s part of that ecosystem where they feed off each other, they benefit each other. There is a win-win relationship.

The apartment, the aesthetic, the design, won’t be like people imagine in their mind. It’s going to be very well designed and cohesive. It’s going to have a hometown feel, right? You know, it’s not going to be some janky looking structure, right? It’s going to blend well, and it’s going to look fantastic for the community.

There are opportunities here for senior housing. It’s not a senior thing, but for people who want a main-level walk-in, no maintenance and the property is kept for you. They can walk to the grocery store, walk to the bank. It’s not a retirement home, but it’s for that next phase. 

If they live in a big home somewhere and want to downsize, it’s a great opportunity. We would like to see that. We want to invite that cohesiveness from generation to generation because there will be a lot of young professionals coming to live here, but it would be nice to see generation to generation.

Have traffic impacts been explored already before you submitted this proposal, or will they be?  

I think a traffic study is part of the process, and that will be determined. I think there already is good infrastructure here with stop lights and stop signs.

How will you engage with local residents and business owners during the development process? Will there be opportunities for public input or collaboration?

Well, 100%, we want community involvement because we want to hear what people want to see, what they need, or what is lacking in the city, and that all together helps create the final design, when we hear from the people. 

We’ve been having those conversations with people: What does Eudora need? What would you like to see here? What does Eudora not need? Hearing both pros and cons is important, and we certainly want to do our best to mitigate the cons. 

To the best of our ability, we want to hear concerns, and upon hearing them, find reasonable solutions to acknowledge those concerns and mitigate them. That is important. We want to be part of that, and we want people to be part of that process.

What are the biggest challenges you anticipate in bringing this project to fruition—and how do you intend to address them?

To be quite honest with you, we haven’t foreseen a lot of challenges. We’ve heard so many positive things, and people are excited about having facilities and infrastructure here that the citizens of Eudora can utilize and use. So I just heard so many positive things that challenges – we really haven’t foreseen anything to this point.

Some are concerned about providing additional city-backed financial incentives to developers. First, what would you tell them, and second, how critical are additional incentives for you to move forward?

I think one important way to look at this is cost-benefit analysis. To make money, you need to spend money, and that’s part of the process. The city has done a great job already in the initial phases of developing the Nottingham Center, and all the infrastructure is there. We need to get it over the finish line, and that costs something. 

You don’t get a car for free, but the utility you get out of that is much greater. In the same way, the city has already invested funds for that, but they will reap the reward. So there is a benefit to the cost of what they have done.

On the incentives, there’s a sales tax abatement for the building products. There’s not a local supplier, so building materials would be purchased in Kansas City and elsewhere. One of the incentives is a sales tax abatement for the purchase of material. That doesn’t cost the city anything, but it does help the developer. 

There is the TIF (tax increment financing) district that’s already in place, so that’s been established and won’t cost the city any additional money. So I think, in terms of the incentives, it won’t affect the people of Eudora in a negative way. They won’t see money going out of their pockets to sustain this.

What is your hoped-for timeline for completing the development?

We’re going to do it in two phases. Phase one is lot six and then phase two is lots eight to 11. So phase one will take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to complete, and then phase two would be approximately about the same. 

So what is that, about two to three years? 

About two to three years, yeah. 

When the development is complete, what do you hope the legacy of this project will be for Eudora?

I would say the legacy would be contributing to the story of Eudora, whose logo is “a place to grow,” and this became an artery to the city that provided lifeblood to the community. In all its meaning, as a mixed-use development—communal engagement, entertainment, dining, shopping, living—these developments that are coming up locally in Kansas City and throughout the country have proven to be dynamic places of engagement. To sum it up, the legacy we would like to be part of is the story of this city that helped the city prosper and benefited the citizens.

Is there anything else you want to add?

There’s a lot of online chatter and gossip and AI-generated things, people saying things that really are not accurate. So I would encourage the population, the people of Eudora, if you have any questions or want to know what the truth is, contact a city council person or the mayor. I would really encourage people not to believe everything they hear on Facebook or other social media.