McCrite Plaza

McCrite Plaza at Briarcliff, which currently offers 170 independent- and assisted-living units in Kansas City, will become a continuum-of-care community for senior citizens via an $18 million construction project launched this week. The McCrite family conducted groundbreaking ceremonies Monday for the project: an 87,000-square-foot, 96-bed facility that will provide short-term rehabilitation services, long-term skilled nursing care and memory care. Designed by Kansas City-based ACI Boland Architects, the new building will be built immediately north of the existing McCrite Plaza facility, 1201 NW Tullison Road, which is located within the 400-acre Briarcliff mixed-use community in the Northland. Overland Park-based Excel Constructors Inc. is the general contractor for the project, which is expected to be completed before the end of 2017. Leawood-based Alterra Bank is the construction lender for the project. "With the addition of this new facility, we will be mirroring the model of our continuum-of-care community in Topeka," said Cassidy McCrite, administrator for McCrite Plaza at Briarliff. His parents, Patrick and Judy McCrite, founded the family-owned business that launched McCrite Plaza Topeka in 1975. McCrite Plaza at Briarcliff's initial independent- and assisted-living phase, a $20 million project, was completed in spring 2014. The facility won a Capstone Award from the Kansas City Business Journal in 2015. It offers one- and two-bedroom apartments ranging from 750 to 1,300 square feet, plus 1,600-square-foot penthouses. Patrick McCrite said the units are 92 percent occupied and that full occupancy should be reached when the final six units are licensed soon. Cassidy McCrite said the adjacent facility now under construction will employ a staff of 80 to 100.