The Future of Crown Center

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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DaveKCMO
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by DaveKCMO »

GRID wrote: Does CC have a Lego store now?  Always wondered why KC didn't have at least one Lego store and I never thought about it being at CC, what a great location for a Lego store.
plenty of legos for sale at the toy store. i've been to several lego stores, and other than bulk legos sorted by color and shape, there isn't much more there that you can't get anywhere else.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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Some odds and ends

Today Bill Lucas, president ? Crown Center, addresses strategies and priorities for the Crown Center complex this year.

Q: How is the travel business looking overall this year, and how is that affecting Crown Center hotels?
A: There's been a slight pickup, mostly in business travel. Our hotels have had some success booking their own groups as opposed to citywide conventions, which is resulting in about a 5 percent increase in our occupancy rates, but we're not back up to pre-recession levels yet.

Unfortunately, in the conventions market, there is a perception that Kansas City doesn't have enough hotel rooms and convention space. This perception has had an adverse impact on our ability to book national conventions. The conventions landscape has gotten incredibly competitive. The number of cities with which we compete has doubled in the last 10 years, and we've lost our place as a leader in the conventions business. The city will need to spend a significant amount of money to create the right image and support advertising that goes with it. It will take several years for us to catch up.

Q: How are Crown Center retail and restaurant sales going?
A: Again, we're seeing a slight uptick in sales, but we're still mired down in the recession. Consumer spending hasn't returned to the robust nature of 2006-2007, but we're beginning to see some signs of recovery. We expect our retail sales to be flat compared with last year, which we consider good in this market.

Our retail occupancy is about 93 percent, and we've had some success developing small business entrepreneurs. We've worked with the Kauffman Foundation to help new retailers develop their skills. Big Momma's Bakery-Caf? is an example of a new tenant that is doing very well. Function Junction's sales are up significantly, and it has almost doubled its retail space. Fritz's Railroad Restaurant doubled its space about 1? years ago, and its sales are up significantly.

The economy is still affecting retailers' ability to get the loans and credit they need to open and run a business, but we're always on the lookout for unique, local businesses that would fit our niche.

Q: How is Crown Center office space performing?
A: Our office space is currently about 92 percent full, which we consider fantastic. The office environment in Kansas City is very weak. Typical vacancy rates are fairly high at 15-20 percent. We have some tenants whose contracts will be up soon, and we are working aggressively to re-sign them.

Q: Are there any major initiatives for Crown Center this year?
A: We are in a period of maintaining what we have. The businesses we'd most likely grow ? in-office leasing and residential condominium development ? are both currently down. We don't expect to see a strong market for further development for another three to four years. For us to get back into a growth mode, we need those markets to become healthy again.

Q: Are you planning any new events this year? What role do events play at Crown Center?
A: Instead of adding new events, we are working on fine-tuning and improving the events we have, such as the Free Friday Flicks, Jiggle Jam children's festival, Fiesta Kansas City and Kansas City Irish Fest. Events can be fairly expensive to put on, and sponsorship dollars aren't as readily available as they have been in the past due to the recession. We are trying to make our events as efficient as possible so we can stretch our marketing dollars.

Events are important because they allow us to remain relevant. When you're an urban center like Crown Center, you have to work harder because most people go home from the city at 5 p.m. We have to get them to stay later or come back on weekends. That's what events do for us. They help us create an atmosphere in which employers want to lease office space, for example. They help our hotels sell rooms; for example, about 2,500 hotel rooms are booked over Labor Day for the Irish Fest. Events help our retailers to a varying degree, and they generate sales for our food and beverage vendors.

Q: Is Crown Center partnering with any other downtown Kansas City entities on any events or initiatives?
A: We've partnered with the Downtown Council on a fairly substantial marketing campaign that reminds suburbanites of the vital renaissance going on in the urban core, which is defined as the City Market through 31st Street. We're also part of the Convention & Visitors Association's ongoing campaign to attract families and leisure travelers from about a 200-mile radius. Along with other area attractions, we provide marketing dollars for these campaigns to help expand our reach. It would be significantly more expensive to launch an advertising campaign like this on our own.
LenexatoKCMO
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Good to hear that residential expansion is still on their radar. 
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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CC thread or Bike thread...

In any case, good news...too bad I'm too far to reasonably bike without getting up at 5 am every day.
Would have been great 3 years ago but then again, my boss let me bring my bike up the elvator, onto my floor and keep it in an empty cube.


Headquarters gets new bike racks
Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2010 11:00 AM
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New bicycle racks recently were installed in the A and B levels of the Rice Center parking garage at headquarters.

"Employees asked for these new racks, and we responded," says Amy Winterscheidt, national volunteer manager. "We hope Hallmark employees will ride their bikes when possible and use the racks to improve their own health and help the environment."

New paint, lights and signs have been added to areas where the racks are located and to the bike "cages" to help make the area more inviting and secure.

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FangKC
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by FangKC »

Crown Center vacancy rates outshine the rest of downtown (12.9 percent vs. 28.2 percent)

http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansa ... l?ana=e_ph
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by knucklehead »

Did they happen to say what the Class A vacancy rate is in Downtown KC?
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by ignatius »

According to CBRE, downtown KC overall including CC has a 17% vacancy rate and 25% availability rate.  I think the latter means someone is paying the rent but space is not in use, likely available for sublease.  Can anyone confirm? 

In comparison, downtown STL has a 22% vacancy rate and 25% availability rate. 

http://gkc3.cbre.com/search/search.aspx?qs=

Other agencies use different methodologies.  CBRE doesn't count owner occupied buildings if I recall.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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Joyce Smith wrote in her article about Rock-N that Sage & Daisy moved to Crown Center? That's kinda an interesting switch from West 39th...
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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CC is now using this image on their web site:

Image

i've never seen CC framed in this way. it's about time.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by KCMax »

Crown Center Redevelopment will auction luxury condos
In a sign of distress hitting even high-end properties in Kansas City?s Downtown area, Crown Center Redevelopment Corp. is marketing and selling the remaining inventory of the luxury Santa Fe Place condominiums at public auction....

Deal-takers will find opening bids for a two-bedroom, one-bath unit as low as $49,500, Tinnel said. On the other end of the spectrum, one remodeled and updated two-bedroom, two-bath unit will start at $134,000.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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that's considered a "luxury" condominium?
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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trailerkid wrote: that's considered a "luxury" condominium?
On a spectrum of property values, a $134,000 2br/2ba is closer to rent restricted Section 8 housing then it is "luxury." 
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Note that $134k is the starting bid, not the final price.  Not knowing how nice the thing is, for all we know it might sell for $100k more. 
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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My reference is is not to price. I just don't consider Crown Center a luxury address.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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every KC condo listing i've every seen uses the word luxury.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by trailerkid »

DaveKCMO wrote: every KC condo listing i've every seen uses the word luxury.
this was supposedly written by a journalist.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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Here are my thoughts about the auction at Santa Fe Place.  Hallmark has been very generous in paying the HOA dues on the empty units these past 4 years.  They also set up a 1 million dollar reserve when we made the changeover from apartments.  That said I think selling 95 units out of 110 in the last four years is quite a feat.  Of the remaining units, two have been remodeled; the other 13 are sold as is.  The paper shows a unit for as low as $49,900.  That is a studio unit at 550 square feet that has a kitchen that might be the original 1972.  It is in fairly bad shape.  Almost all the units were sold as is.  Crown Center did remodel two units to show and ironically these units are still for sale.  One is a nice garden level with very extensive remodeling that they originally wanted $369,000 and that price has been reduced to $269,000.  So the minimum bid for that unit is $134,500.
Another factor in going the auction route is with 15 units available, there was no sense of urgency on the buyer?s part.  They knew a unit would still be there whenever they made their mind to buy.  Also at 95 units sold, we were at 86% sold, under the limit for FHA loans.  There is not much doubt that in the short term, this will have a negative effect on our value, but I do believe that it is the right thing to do for the longer term.
The auction will be like the one at Western Auto with the first winning bid being able to choose the unit they want.  Then another round of bidding to determine next choice.  I am really debating about buying a unit myself.  At these prices they would make nice rental units until the market rebounds.  I just don?t think I would be the Landlord type.
I'll have what the gentleman on the floor is having.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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4 new office towers with a combined 2 million sqft of office space, additional retail, and residential buildings are all planned for Crown Center per a Crown Center release. Not sure what exactly the timeline would be on this considering their release from July is the first and only time I have heard of them expanding Crown Center(next 20 years was said). Anyone know more? Is this just another pipe dream from Crown Center or are they actually working on something?

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Re: The Future of Crown Center

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do you have a copy of the press release? i don't remember seeing it.
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Re: The Future of Crown Center

Post by earthling »

ldai_phs wrote:4 new office towers with a combined 2 million sqft of office space, additional retail, and residential buildings are all planned for Crown Center per a Crown Center release. Not sure what exactly the timeline would be on this considering their release from July is the first and only time I have heard of them expanding Crown Center. Anyone know more? Is this just another pipe dream from Crown Center or are they actually working on something?
The CC Press Room site is currently empty...
https://www.crowncenter.com/News-Releases

That would be a big deal if true and is unusual to build a quarter of that much space w/out a large tenant signed. For perspective, One KC Place, tallest building in KC is just under 1M sqft. Commerce Tower and 1201 Walnut are just under 500sqft 30 floors, which is about right if they do 4 buildings about same size depending on size of floor plates.

Sounds to me it's just a high level plan if they get tenants signed, and that's the downtown challenge - attracting large tenants. OTOH, it would be a huge vote of confidence for downtown if they decide to move forward with a 500Ksqft building with no significant tenant signed.
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