Crown Center: urban disaster, shining star, or in-between

[PumpkinStalker]

Hallmark signed a letter of intent to sell 5 acres of surface lot space to Indianapolis developer Milhaus. It's the wedge of property between 27th and 27th Terr, and Gilham and McGee. Milhaus would work with UC-B Properties, who has done some other urban renewal type stuff, apparently. I'm not familiar with them. As long as re-zoning gets approved, could start mid 2016 on 425 apartments and some commercial buildings.

[mgh7676]

Hallmark signed a letter of intent to sell 5 acres of surface lot space to Indianapolis developer Milhaus. It's the wedge of property between 27th and 27th Terr, and Gilham and McGee. Milhaus would would with UC-B Properties, who has done some other urban renewal type stuff, apparently. I'm not familiar with them. As long as re-zoning gets approved, could start mid 2016 on 425 apartments and some commercial buildings.

I just did a little bit of research on them a week or two ago. I know they recently announced some apartments in OKC. Comparable to the stuff Cityscape is doing.
http://www.milhaus.com/

[earthling]

Nice. Hope to see a high quality project there.

[mgh7676]

Some more information on the purchase and intent to develop.
http://www.milhaus.com/posts/milhaus-si ... =hootsuite

[kboish]

I haven't looked into the details at all, but on the surface, this is great.

[KCtoBrooklyn]

Nice! Glad to see something being done with some of Hallmark's lots.

I'm a bit surprised that something is happening with these parcels before the ones between 27th Terr and 29th St. I would think being closer to all the development with Union Hill would be more desirable. Maybe something else is in the works for those lots.

[kboish]

The letter previously linked states

Going forward, Milhaus will have an option to purchase an additional 3.7 acres of land immediately south of this property, Lucas added.

[joshmv]

Is this the correct area in red?



It's a cool spot, but definitely needs some work and creativity. Here are some pictures of your walk to crown center, directly through North Korea.

[kcjak]

The corporate announcement says this may also include the gravel parking lot on the west side of McGee, although employees do still park in that lot so they may have just been off a little and McGee is actually the western boundary:

The land is adjacent to Hallmark's corporate headquarters and lies on either side of McGee between 27th Street on the north, 27th Terrace on the south, and Gillham on the east.

[flyingember]

That weird brown sided garage is much less ugly in person

[TheBigChuckbowski]

FINALLY some movement on these lots. This area is a disaster despite such a fantastic location for this type of development.

I am a bit worried about the lot as it is on a pretty steep hill. Hopefully they integrate their building(s) into the landscape and don't build a giant retaining wall or something. I'm not a huge fan UC-B, their building at 29th and Gillham looks nice but is a street-level disaster and their single-family homes are butt ugly. I will be eagerly awaiting a rendering.

[mgh7676]

FINALLY some movement on these lots. This area is a disaster despite such a fantastic location for this type of development.

I am a bit worried about the lot as it is on a pretty steep hill. Hopefully they integrate their building(s) into the landscape and don't build a giant retaining wall or something. I'm not a huge fan UC-B, their building at 29th and Gillham looks nice but is a street-level disaster and their single-family homes are butt ugly. I will be eagerly awaiting a rendering.

It is interesting that they are going with HOK for this development. KEM Studios designed the 29th & Gillham building and Draw Studio did the Gillham Park Row apartments.

[FangKC]

Since Hallmark has not developed those surface lots, I'm glad to see they are at least selling them to a developer who will.

Let's hope that UC-B Properties has paid attention to some of the criticism of their previous developments, and works harder to improve their designs.

[mgh7676]

Flaherty & Collins, Cityscape, and Milhaus have all shown recent considerable investment in our core. They are also all from Indianapolis.

I wonder why Indy firms seem to like KC? And I wonder if other firms from outside the midwest begin taking notice?

[FangKC]

I would wager a guess that it's became KC is a pretty similar market to Indianapolis.

[Highlander]

Sounds like a significant project for KC and the Union Hill area. When I first read about it, I was hoping it would be over on the Grand side of Crown Center but I see it's on the Gillham side. It will fill a big hole and hopefully make a huge improvement to the overall area something the Founders Development failed miserably to do (one of the more disappointing developments of the last 10-15 years). Still, one of the big gaps in KC urban development is between CC and the Union Hill area developments and this could be a catalyst for filling it in.

[pash]

.

[moderne]

The UC-B new apartments at 29th and Gillham are cheap and awful. An instant ghetto. The little bit of landscaping was not watered, the grass died as well as the trees(and in a wet summer). They somehow squeezed the blvd sidewalk up onto the building to make it the entrance patio behind a retaining wall and ended it on the north with steps. The previous sidewalk did not have steps and I know of no other public right of way sidewalk in town that has steps. Surface level uncovered parking. There are portions of the wood trim that are still not completed that cannot be seen from street level.
Hope the Indy developer makes a better product. I fear that with the sloping site they just may plop a building on top of a garage that will make the McGee frontage a continuation of the Crown Center parking garage canyon that leads to the dead ended McGee. Poor McGee, it has been dead ended and parking garage-ized also in the downtown loop.

[PumpkinStalker]

And already a coworker is complaining about the development bringing too much traffic and wondering how hard it will be getting in/out of that parking garage. SMH.

[cknab1]

And already a coworker is complaining about the development bringing too much traffic and wondering how hard it will be getting in/out of that parking garage. SMH.

Although I'm retired from Hallmark, they brought me back for a couple of months to work on a project. I work in the RIC Center that fronts 27th street on the south side and that is the main concern of people so far. Well, that and the fact that we are losing our fitness center.