As businesses near Midland Drive in Shawnee deal with a new round of construction, they’re slowly seeing sales bounce back.
Earlier this month, the city began work on its Midland Rehabilitation project, a $12.4 million project aimed at making Midland Drive safer between Shawnee Mission Parkway and I-435, through measures like widening roadways and adding bike lanes.
It is the latest project for that area of Shawnee, which has endured almost two years of construction, including the Kansas Department of Transportation’s two-part, I-435 Bridge replacement project in 2024 and 2025, which businesses in the area said hurt their sales.
While some said business is slowly returning, others are still concerned about the flow of traffic that is being cut off during construction.
“We’ve had a lot of people from western Shawnee, where a lot of our clients are from, complaining about how it takes longer to get here — if they come. They might find somewhere else closer to go,” said Nancy Hall, owner of Salon Savvy on Midland Drive. “So that’s been a big deal for us. So yeah, I do think it’s affecting our business.”
The effect of construction on local businesses was on the Shawnee City Council’s mind when it approved final plans for the Midland Drive project in December.
“(We recognize) that they have had to put up with a lot over the last two and a half years,” Public Works Director Kevin Manning said at a city council meeting on Dec. 8, 2025.
It was also repeated at Shawnee Mayor Mickey Sandifer’s State of the City speech in March, which was held at B&B Theatres Shawnee 18 in Shawnee’s Midland Entertainment District.
“The local businesses employees and owners dealt with the two-year-long construction at I-435 and Midland. While the project did wrap up early, I fear customers may have been slow to return to this area,” he said.
Eastbound Midland closed from Shawnee Mission Parkway to Lawrence Road
Westbound Midland open to local traffic (including people visiting Station 3 and Midland Liquors) from Lawrence Road to Shawnee Mission Parkway
The project is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
While business owners in the area view it as less detrimental as the I-435 Bridge Replacement, they say they’re still taking a hit to vehicular traffic to their locations because of detours and delays.
“My clientele is very diverse, but Monday through Friday, it’s more of a senior clientele. So they struggle getting here,” said Matt McQueeny, co-owner of the Rize N Shine restaurant in the Midland Entertainment District.
The owner of Salon Savvy said her clients voiced similar frustrations.
“It’s hard for a business to go through something like that when our clients are regulars then they’re like ‘Wait a minute, this is getting to be a little too much, and I have to go down these back roads. And sometimes they don’t make it clear of which way to go,” Hall said.
Businesses have endured setbacks due to construction
Cars navigate closures on Midland Drive. Photo credit Andrew Gaug.
Two years ago, when Matt and Heather McQueeny opened Rize N Shine, taking over the old Eggtc. location at 7182 Renner Road, they were unaware of the 16-month-long bridge replacement project that was coming, Matt said.
On June 6, 2024, they saw a city email alerting them that the I-435 bridge replacement project would start soon. They wondered if it was going to impact their new business, which they had just closed on only two days before.
“I didn’t understand the whole scope of everything,” he said.
The project did impact Rize N Shine, as well as many other businesses in what is now called The Midland Entertainment District, which includes a number of restaurants, hotels, bars and theaters.
“By the time they closed all the exits, a lot of our customers left,” Matt McQueeny said. “(When) we bought it, it was averaging at about $1.4-1.5 million (annually). We barely topped $1 million, and that wasn’t even breaking even.”
Other businesses expressed similar drops in business at the time.
“It did affect our late-night business. People started going home earlier and earlier, and even with the roads open back up, that hasn’t come back. It’s stayed away,” Kevin Collins, general manager at Barley’s Kitchen and Tap, said in a previous interview in 2025.
The city has improved communication
Rize N Shine owners Matt (left) and Heather McQueeny. Photo credit Andrew Gaug.
The angry response from the business community, not only about the bridge replacement but also what they saw as a lack of communication from the city and KDOT, was palpable, Shawnee City Spokesperson Doug Donahoo said.
During an interview with the Post in 2024, Donahoo acknowledged their anger and confusion.
“I think their concerns are valid,” he had said at the time. “I think that anytime you suffer this amount of hit to the bottom line, whatever concerns they have are perfectly reasonable.”
In response, the city created the Midland Entertainment District and helped promote it through signs placed throughout the city and TV advertisements.
Business owners in the area also took the initiative, by setting up quarterly meetings with the city and establishing a text message chain to keep on top of developments, which was long overdue, McQueeny said.
“I go to all the city council meetings, least as many as I can and any committee meetingsz. We all have representatives going to everything we can, and that wouldn’t happen in the past,” he said.
When road closures happen now, Hall said the city gives her notice beforehand, so she can prepare her clients for detours and delays.
“City council’s on top of it with us. They have emailed me and texted me about openings and closures this time,” she said. “This time, it has been better.”
Businesses have hope after taking the hit
Though businesses like Salon Savvy and Rize N Shine are still recovering and haven’t returned to their pre-I-435 construction numbers, they say they’re optimistic about the future.
“I think we’re going to be fine, but I think what we’ve had to go through is just wrong,” McQueeny said.
While construction on Midland Drive negatively impacted some of the businesses, it’s nothing compared to the bridge replacement, which Hall said caused a drop in business she hadn’t experienced in her 14 years of business. She hopes to never experience that again, she said.
“I-435 is the main reason that I chose this area to be here, because it is easy to access from everywhere, and pretty fast for people to get here … So I hope that stays open because we’ve had a lot of construction,” she said.
The city also wants to do its part to help, as well as the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce, which has been working with businesses in the area throughout the process and will continue to help them, said Ann Smith-Tate, president and CEO of the chamber.
“A lot of those businesses have been there a long time. And I think Shawnee is a very loyal community,” Tate said. “I think we understand the importance of being loyal to the businesses, and that our dollars matter, and patronizing them makes a difference.”