English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Overland Park, KS

A health care IT company led by a former Cerner Corp. executive is moving into an Overland Park office that will add dozens of local jobs and grow the company’s national footprint.

Healthcare IT leaders, a full-service IT consulting and digital services company headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, will add a 10,520-square-foot office on the Aspiria campus this month.

The office will house the company’s IT managed services center. It's expected to create more than 25 “high-wage jobs with six-figure salary opportunities” in IT, according to a release from the Kansas City Area Development Council. The office will also include four senior vice president and vice president roles.

“The health care industry increasingly relies on firms like ours to manage significant parts of their infrastructure and application stack,” Healthcare IT Leaders CEO Ben Hilmes said in the release. “By locating our managed services hub in the Kansas City region, we’re able to meet that demand and rapidly expand our operations by leveraging the area’s extensive health IT talent network.”

Hilmes, who is locally based, is a former senior executive at Cerner Corp., which became Oracle Health after Oracle Corp. acquired Cerner in 2022.

Healthcare IT Leaders, founded in 2011, employs hundreds across its offices in Atlanta, Boston and Greenville, South Carolina. When it comes to Overland Park, it will join other tech companies in Aspiria, including T-Mobile US Inc. and fintech company TreviPay.

KCADC drew the company in collaboration with the Kansas Department of Commerce, the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce and Digital Health KC, which is led by Dick Flanigan, a former Cerner executive.

Digital Health KC, which was launched by BioNexus KC, aims to nurture local digital health talent and position the area as a national digital health hub, partly through attracting companies to the region.

Digital Health KC and the KCADC previously collaborated on relocating another health care technology company, Hart Inc., to the area in January. The company moved its headquarters from Orange County, California, to offices in the River Market, and plans have 15 local employees by the end of the year.

“The addition of Healthcare IT Leaders to our region is an exciting opportunity for Kansas City’s thriving digital health cluster. The company’s expertise in health care innovation will be invaluable to forging new pathways for ideas, talent, capital and customers to converge,” Flanigan said in a release. “We look forward to supporting the collaborative innovations Healthcare IT Leaders’ presence will foster within our robust network of digital health companies.”

Once the site of the Metcalf South Mall, the 95th Street and Metcalf Avenue development could soon house a 3.6-acre miniature golf bar and restaurant.

Called Tap Ins, the sprawling campus would include an outdoor course, as well as a temperature-controlled greenhouse course.

Tap Ins will discussed by the Overland Park Planning Commission on Sept. 9.

The restaurant portion of the concept would offer wraps, salads, sandwiches and pizza. Patrons would also be able to sip booze at Tap Ins’ beer garden. Plans submitted to the city of Overland Park also contain green space for yard games.

Though it would offer drinks, Tap Ins aims to be a family friendly space, creator Ryan Patton says.

“You could be 3 or you could be 85, and you can still play,” he said.

Patton decided to pursue his first entertainment concept after searching for ways to entertain his children. It was then that he noticed a hole in the local miniature golf market.

There are a few in Johnson County — including Smiley’s Golf Complex at 10195 Monticello Terrace in Lenexa and Black Bob Batting Cages & Mini Golf at 14570 W. 151st St. in Olathe — but he saw the potential to build his own concept. Something slightly different than what’s already available.

He likened the complex to Chicken & Pickle, a pickleball-themed restaurant with several indoor and outdoor courts. But of course, Tap Ins will be covered with putting greens, not pickleball nets.

“The idea is kinda taking miniature golf to the next level,” he said.

In addition to the two 20,000 to 25,000-square-foot golf courses, the plans submitted to the city depict 2,800square feet of cabana space, an ice cream stand, indoor and outdoor seating, and multiple bars.

The 95th and Metcalf development, owned largely by developer Lane 4, includes Whataburger, Texas Roadhouse and Chick-fil-A.

Oregon-based coffee chain Dutch Bros has filed an application to open a coffee shop in the development, as has Arizona-based drive-thru salad chain Salad and Go.

PGA Tour Superstore — a 29,000-square-foot golf store with simulators for indoor play — recently opened in an old Overland Park Whole Foods at 6621 W. 119th St.

And soon, GolfTRK will open its second indoor facility at 7325 W. 161st St. in Overland Park.

Indoor putt putt bar Craft Putt also operates in Overland Park, at 11440 W. 135th St.

AME Golf and Brew Lounge, which featured golf simulators and ballpark food, recently closed in Overland Park’s Oak Park Mall.

The Kansas City Star

Jenna Thompson covers retail news for The Kansas City Star. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, she previously reported for the Lincoln Journal Star and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied journalism and English.

Burnt End BBQ has closed its Overland Park location, days before it opened another in De Soto.

Both were expected to stay open, said pitmaster Stephen “Smokey” Schwartz, but expanding the small Overland Park location while opening another restaurant proved difficult.

“In order for us to do what we wanted to do, we’d have to make some really huge reconstructive changes to the building,” he said. “It was too much to do two at one time.”

So, after 10 years, the Burnt End BBQ team decided to abandon its Overland Park spot at 11831 Metcalf Ave.

A little more than a week ago, the De Soto location opened in a former Burger King at 34071 Commerce Drive in De Soto, right off Kansas 10 and Lexington Avenue.

So far so good at that location.

“We’ve had great feedback from everybody in that area,” Schwartz said.

The Burnt End BBQ team is still looking for another location in Johnson County. The next will have a full bar and patio, like in De Soto.

“The scouts are never stopping, that’s for sure,” Schwartz said.

Burnt End BBQ is owned by parent company PB&J Restaurants, which also owns YaYa’s Euro Bistro and a few Red Robin and Starbucks locations.

Most of the employees at the Overland Park restaurant moved to the De Soto location, Schwartz said. Others were given the opportunity to work at the Crown Center location or other PB&J restaurants.

Longtime barbecue lover Schwartz began working for PB&J in 2005. He opened Burnt End BBQ in 2011 at 11240 W. 135th St., which relocated to Metcalf Avenue three years later. Another opened in Crown Center in 2020.

At the beginning of the year, Burnt End BBQ also opened a restaurant in Conway, Arkansas.

“Our biggest thing is being part of the community,” Schwartz said. “Not just being another restaurant in the city.”

Menu favorites include “the chop” — a brisket and burnt ends sandwich — and smoked ribs, as well as its bowls, including the vegan barbecue bowl made with plant-based chorizo, wild rice, onions, peppers and pico de gallo.

Meanwhile, Harp Barbecue is moving out of Raytown and over to Overland Park, at 12094 W. 135th St., near Quivira Road. It’s expected to open in late August or early September.

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Uniquely KC is a Star series exploring what makes Kansas City special. From our award-winning barbecue to rich Midwestern history, we’re exploring why KC is the “Paris of the Plains.”

For more than four years, the curtains have been closed at the historic Rio movie theater in downtown Overland Park.

Inside the pale pink art deco building, nearly 80 years old, independent films once played in its 300-seat, single-screen theater.

Now, as many movie theaters have emerged from the pandemic, owner Brian Mossman hopes the Rio will do the same.

When will that be? It’s hard to say, Mossman said. Box office numbers are still down at his other movie theater, the Glenwood Arts at 3707 W. 95th St., though he said they’re trending upward — “very, very slowly.”

“I only compare with the other theater’s numbers, and they’re not quite there yet to determine whether to open the Rio or not,” Mossman said.

Mossman continues to show a mix of films at the Glenwood. (Right now, he’s showing “The Fabulous Four” and “Fly Me to the Moon,” among others.) He said his clientele, mostly older, continue to be avid movie-goers.

They ask him almost daily when the Rio will reopen. Mossman doesn’t give any false promises but tells them they need to continue to support the Glenwood if they want to see the Rio open back up.

Meanwhile, many Americans are skipping out on going to the theaters altogether, preferring to stream movies from the comfort of their couches. A 2022 Gallup poll found that 61% of Americans had not attended a movie in a year. That was during the pandemic, but the industry hasn’t bounced back.

“People’s movie-going habits have changed,” Mossman admitted, adding that the pandemic only hurt the theater business more.

In 2019, the once-popular Cinemark Palace closed on the Plaza. And the Country Club Plaza’s new owners say a new theater is unlikely: “That whole business has gone away,” Ray Washburne, a principal in HP Village Partners, told The Star this month. He does anticipate bringing in other unspecified types of entertainment venues.

Merriam’s Cinemark (5500 Antioch Drive) will be transformed into a family entertainment center with half the amount of movie screens. The other half will include arcade games, bowling lanes, laser tag and a restaurant.

“In the aftermath of the pandemic, theaters nationwide have struggled to return to pre-pandemic attendance levels,” Cinemark wrote in its application to the city. “Cinemark’s initiative represents a pioneering trend in the industry, signaling a proactive approach to giving its business the best opportunity to thrive in a changing landscape.”

Since the Rio closed in March 2020, Mossman said he’s been approached several times by parties wanting to buy the building and turn it into something else: a music venue, etc.

No chance, he tells them. Not yet, anyway.

“We’re not ready to sell the building,” he said. “The lights will shine again.”

Built in 1946, the Rio at 7204 W. 80th St., was at first simply known as the Overland Theater.

In the ’60s, the space became the arthouse theater Kimo South. Then, children’s theater company Theater for Young America took over the space in 1977. (The troupe now performs its season of plays at City Stage in Union Station.)

Mossman’s Fine Arts Theatre Group bought the theater in 1993 and began a seven-year restoration that culminated in 2000, when the Rio reopened at last.

If and when it does return, Mossman said it would play more specialty films, and ones not offered at the Glenwood.

“Both theaters can’t play the same films,” he said.

While the Rio is in limbo, downtown Overland Park grows around it.

In 2019, the Strang Hall food court opened as the first piece of the city’s Edison District: a downtown development with 100,000 square feet of office space and a public event plaza.

Made in KC Marketplace and Flying Cow Gelato are among a few businesses that have recently opened up in the area.

This summer, the city also approved a $34 million farmers market improvement plan to remake added and expand the downtown pavilion and create more gathering spaces.

This story was originally published July 26, 2024, 5:30 AM.

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The Kansas City Star

Jenna Thompson covers retail news for The Kansas City Star. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, she previously reported for the Lincoln Journal Star and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied journalism and English.