KCRag Forum

God damn paywalls. I'm also interested.

Planning 10 story, 270000 sq ft. 50000 devoted to retail. Says they are "approved" for that. Larger still possible w big enough tenant. Lcra bought old lawyers bldg lot from city and sold to copaken who says they don't need the remaining lots but could be interested. Nothing imminent.

A Kansas City economic development agency voted Wednesday to sell a small downtown parking lot for use as part of what may become Downtown’s next office tower development.

The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority voted 4-0 to buy the city-owned lot at the southeast corner of 12th Street and Grand Boulevard and sell it for the same price — $425,000 — to 112 Redevelopers LLC, an affiliate of Copaken Brooks.


Jon Copaken, a principal with Copaken Brooks, said the acquisition was necessary for the affiliate’s plan to develop a 10-story, 270,000-square-foot tower in that block, which is immediately north of Sprint Center. Although most of the building would be used for offices, the project is being referred to as mixed-use because it would include 50,000 square feet of retail in addition to a 1,300-ace parking garage.

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Copaken Brooks previously floated a plan for a more grandiose office tower on the site, which is bounded by 12th Street on the north, 13th Street on the south, McGee Street on the east and Grand Boulevard on the west. That $200 million plan called for a 25-story building with a spiraling design achieved by rotating each of the building’s 21,000-square-foot floor plates 4 degrees from the one below it.

Copaken said Tuesday that the 10-story, 270,000-square-foot plan “is what we are currently approved to construct.” But “as always,” he added, “if a major tenant’s need required a change, we would consider that, and the acquisition of this (parking lot) parcel allows flexibility to modify the design, if necessary.”

Copaken, whose firm developed Downtown’s last multitenant office tower, 1201 Walnut, 26 years ago, said in a previous interview that he had long viewed the block in question as “the next logical corporate headquarters-type site Downtown.”

With the purchase of the city-owned lot, Copaken Brooks affiliates now own about three-quarters of the block — everything but the northeast quadrant, which includes the block’s only two structures — the one-story law offices at 1222 McGee St. and the two-story home of the Zoo Bar and other businesses at 1212 McGee St. — plus an L-shaped city-owned parking lot.

Copaken said Wednesday that “unifying the block” by buying those parcels might be a good idea. But he added that such an acquisition is “not mandatory for our approved plan.”

The parking lot to be conveyed to 112 Redevelopers LLC was previously the site of the eight-story Law Building, which was completed in 1930. Developer Matt Abbott bought the then-vacant and crumbling building in 2002 and planned to redevelop it for mixed uses. But it was demolished after Abbott failed to meet a renovation deadline imposed because the structure was on the city’s dangerous buildings list.

Located across 12th Street from the Traders on Grand redevelopment, the parking lot parcel is expected to be reduced in size by a city and Kansas City Area Transportation Authority plan to expand a bus stop at that corner, Copaken said.

“In order to provide for the uniform development of this block ... and to enhance our ability to design and market this (mixed-use tower) project,” Copaken added, “the acquisition of this small parcel is necessary.”

To remain eligible for tax increment financing support approved for the project, Copaken said 112 Redevelopers LLC will have to commence construction by October 2023. But he expects market demand to allow the project to advance sooner than that.

“We would like to begin construction as soon as possible,” he said, “and will plan to do so as soon as we have commitments for an occupant or occupants to lease approximately 50 percent of the leasable square footage of the building. We have spoken to numerous potential tenants, but we do not have any commitments at this time.”

Sooo...nothing...

you could get four building on that block.

anyone know what the zoo bar was originally? Noticed the terra cotta crosses today.

ugh. just 10 stories?

I hate when something with 10 stories is considered a tower

past 10 stories is probably around the point the cost goes up dramatically. look at how many residential projects aren't past that. how many buildings along College Blvd top out around the same

they're probably trying to hit a leasing number that can compete with suburban developments and that sets the size

And in that sense, a shorter building has value strategically even though it's not the best use

...then it doesn't need an entire city block.

.

Without a tenant signed up it's not likely there will be new speculative building of any large size until Class A vacancy is below 12%. At least in the past developers' threshold used to be 12% vacancy. And until effective metro wide transit, lots of parking will still be needed.

According to Colliers, Class A vacancy downtown is still near 15%...
http://www.colliers.com/-/media/files/m ... office.pdf

If I understand correctly, they control around 65k square feet on that block. 1300 parking spaces would be something in the ballpark of 400k square feet of development. Add that to the marketable space and you have a roughly 670k square foot project. So when they say 10 stories, they must mean 10 stories across 100% of the development site. That's nothing to sneeze at. Sounds better to me than a squat parking garage with a stick on one corner, which is what their other proposal looked like.

pash wrote:You're not going to fit a 1,300-space garage on much less than a full city block.

so now you know how i feel about another subsidized mega-garage.

^ I agree. A 10 floor streetwall along Grand would be substantial and as large as any building downtown except for 3-4.

It would be great if Cerner had enough sense to build a 50+ floor signature tower on one of the best, high profile blocks of downtown.

people want big floor plates, maybe they will do tens stories that run the width of the block?

Lets face it. They have no tenant lined up at all, so right now they are doing zero floors.

The article includes this rendering of the 10-story option:

I'm just about sick and tired of sexy renderings turning into these chode buildings

KCPowercat wrote:I'm just about sick and tired of sexy renderings turning into these chode buildings

value engineering at it's best

Why not throw in a hotel/residential segment? I feel like it would be a great location for a truly mixed use project. They could maybe even start on the Residential Portion first. Or do something like the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower in Chicago where they build up as more floors are needed.