The developer has a plan to sell the rock to help pay for its removal, says Pete Vegelahn, COO of Jabez. "There's this large knob of rock that we're going to take out, and sell as aggregate, and then we'll have a developable piece of property," he tells GlobeSt.com. "It'll cost us about the same, the profit margin is not tremendous. It's basically a break-even. But we think this will work, and we plan to take this to other areas as a prototype." Jabez is actually made up of four companies that will do all the work, including construction manager Vegelahn Construction LLC, excavating and utility contractor Team Excavating, Kenny Mack Trucking and rock seller Hillside Materials LLC.

Single-family homes will dot the property, mostly cottage and bungalow types, Vegelahn says. The commercial portion of the development will include 184,600 sf of retail which includes a 50,000-sf market, along with 13 pad sites. Also on the site will be a three-story, 39,000-sf office building. He says though the property is now vacant, there is demand. "You can get from here to Downtown Kansas City in about 18 minutes, as opposed to the 40 minutes it would take from the far west residential area of Lee's Summit," Vegelahn says. "It's busy there, you get about 45,000 cars a day going by."

He says the city is working through a new urban redevelopment district policy. Councilman Terry Riley, who represents the district where the land is, has been publicly supportive of the project. He did not return a call by GlobeSt.com. No rush, though, as the rock removal will take four years. "If everything is approved, we're slated to come online in 2012 with the commercial, and the residential after that, from 2012 to 2016," he says.