Johnson County marked the one-year anniversary of breaking ground on its new Health Services Building this week, with construction underway on a 140,000-square-foot facility at 11875 S. Sunset Drive in Olathe that will bring three major county departments together under one roof. The project, for which site preparation was scheduled to start in March 2025, is designed to combine the Johnson County Mental Health Center, the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, and Johnson County Aging & Human Services into a single campus building near 119th Street and Ridgeview Road.
The county shared a video in a post from Johnson County, KS Government, describing the new building as a welcoming, eco-friendly facility meant to improve both patient comfort and staff collaboration. According to the county, the building will include shared work areas for interdepartmental collaboration, private consultation spaces, and multi-purpose spaces designed for group therapy sessions.
Green Features Drove Up the Price Tag
The project's cost climbed after Johnson County commissioners approved a $3.07 million budget increase in March 2025 specifically to fund eco-friendly building enhancements, pushing the total project cost past $116.5 million, according to Johnson County Government. That investment is expected to pay off through a rooftop solar array covering more than 43,000 square feet, which is projected to save the county roughly $85,000 annually in energy costs.
The building's rainwater reclamation system is engineered to capture rooftop runoff into a storage tank used for indoor toilet and urinal flushing, with the potential to reuse up to 2 million gallons of water each year, the county's report notes. The solar array is projected to save on energy costs, while the water reclamation system is designed to reduce city-water demand for flushing.
Who's Building It, and When It Opens
Johnson County selected architecture firms Finkle + Williams Architects and Perkins & Will to design the project, with general contractor McCownGordon Construction and mechanical partner P1 Construction handling the build, according to a report from P1 Construction. The facility is targeted for completion in October 2027, with roughly 30% of its total floor area set aside for collaborative workspaces meant to encourage teamwork across departments.
Existing health facilities on the Sunset Drive campus will remain operational throughout construction, per Johnson County Government. Once staff complete a phased move-in planned for 2027, the county intends to demolish the old health services building and the Olathe Mental Health Office to make room for additional site work and parking.
A Design Philosophy Built Around Integrated Care
Perkins & Will designed the facility around what the firm calls the Public Health 3.0 framework, an approach that integrates mental health and public health operations under one roof to address broader social, environmental and economic factors affecting community health, according to Perkins & Will. The building will also house a commercial-grade central kitchen for the Department of Aging and Human Services, expanding meal production capacity for home-delivered meals and senior nutrition centers as demand grows across the county, according to the Olathe Chamber of Commerce.
On the funding side, the available CivIQ Citizen Portal source does not describe the Johnson County Mental Health Center's reimbursement model or its effects on staffing, client services or local taxpayers.
