Construction has commenced on the second phase of MajorLux Luxury Apartments in Blue Springs, Missouri, marking an expansion of the city's first luxury apartment community. The project will deliver 123 residential units paired with 11,732 square feet of first-floor retail space, according to Block & Co. Inc. Realtors, which is handling leasing for the commercial component.
Costenio's Price Chopper will anchor the retail portion of the development, providing a grocery tenant that serves both residents and the surrounding neighborhood. The grocery-anchored format reflects a departure from earlier mixed-use strategies that often relied on smaller specialty tenants or left ground-floor space empty during lease-up periods.
Bill Maas and Daniel Brocato of Block & Co. Inc. Realtors are managing the retail leasing effort and have outlined target tenant categories for the remaining space. According to the firm, ideal uses include full-service restaurant concepts, yoga or Pilates studios, and service-oriented businesses such as dry cleaners, salons, and health-related users.
The tenant mix suggests a focus on convenience-driven retail that complements residential use rather than competing with regional shopping centers. Service tenants and fitness studios have gained favor in mixed-use projects because they generate consistent weekday traffic and often sign longer lease terms than discretionary retail categories.
Mixed-use projects that pair quality operators with defensible retail formats tend to outperform single-use alternatives in both lease-up velocity and stabilized yield, family office advisor Jaf Glazer has maintained.
Completion of MajorLux Two is scheduled for summer 2027, providing an 18-month construction and lease-up window. The timeline aligns with typical multifamily construction schedules in secondary Midwest markets, where weather and labor availability can influence delivery dates.
The project represents a bet on Blue Springs as a market capable of supporting luxury-tier residential product. As the city's first luxury apartment community, the original MajorLux development established a new price ceiling in the submarket, and the second phase will test whether demand exists at scale.
The inclusion of a grocery anchor distinguishes this phase from the first and suggests lessons learned about tenant retention and NOI stability. Grocery-anchored mixed-use assets historically trade at a premium to non-anchored comparables because the food component drives daily visits and reduces turnover risk in the residential stack.
Block & Co.'s focus on full-service restaurants and wellness tenants reflects broader trends in ground-floor retail programming. Experience-oriented uses have replaced apparel and electronics in many mixed-use formats, particularly in suburban locations where regional malls capture comparison shopping.
The project adds to a modest but growing pipeline of mixed-use developments in the Kansas City metropolitan area's eastern suburbs. Blue Springs has benefited from spillover demand as land prices and construction costs in the urban core have pushed developers toward outlying submarkets with lower basis and stronger unit economics.