Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Discuss items in the urban core outside of Downtown as described above. Everything in the core including the east side (18th & Vine area), Northeast, Plaza, Westport, Brookside, Valentine, Waldo, 39th street, & the entire midtown area.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by flyingember »

I would find a teardown to be better if they were taking out two homes and putting up three.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by alejandro46 »

flyingember wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:43 pm I would find a teardown to be better if they were taking out two homes and putting up three.
It's all about having a healthy balance to the neighborhood. It seems like part of the purpose is to provide quality housing for medical staff and prospective "customers" (patients) at SLH.

If you'll look at the 44th Washington and 46th Summit projects underway, plus completed 46 Penn and 45 Madison, there are plenty of options for apartment dwellers. Add in the Tutors and those other townhomes on Summit St., your multi-family niche is somewhat addressed. These should all be 1:1 tear downs, not decreasing the density which I think is fantastic and seems super rare.

I think the price seems fair, considering the Tudors townhomes are STARTING(!!) at $850k. If you will recall, the homes were donated by Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation and are rentals currently, so there is substantially less uplift required than would be typical if this was just some random developer buying up all these homes from long-term residents. Thus, a multi-density would almost certainly be required in order to justify the exorbitant cost any savvy homeowner would request.
Last edited by alejandro46 on Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by KCtoBrooklyn »

For the most part, those lots are pretty narrow. I think they may have to get variances to even build back a single family home. They would have to be be townhouses to increase the density, and even then, fitting three on two lots might be tough.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by alejandro46 »

No paywall link from about 20 min ago: https://www.saintlukeskc.org/about/news ... a-westport
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by tower »

It would also go pretty far towards revitalizing the area if the just sold the two lots they own north of 43rd to developers and gave land to the city to connect Washington Street to Mill Street.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by missingkc »

this seems to be obvious to everyone but me: what are the north-south streets this development lies between? Thanks.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by kboish »

missingkc wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:18 pm this seems to be obvious to everyone but me: what are the north-south streets this development lies between? Thanks.
Madison Ave (Southwest Trafficway) and Broadway

43rd on the N. and approx. 46th on the South.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by FangKC »

I'm actually surprised St. Lukes is building single family houses. I would have expected that the parcels they owned would have been redeveloped as multi-family buildings.

Why demolish single family houses to just build single family houses? Wouldn't it just be easier to remodel the current houses?
KCtoBrooklyn wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:32 am Many of those homes are under 1,000 sq ft, so it wouldn't make sense to dump a bunch of money into them.
Around 40 percent of all households in KCMO now are occupied by one person. 1000 sq. foot-or less sized-houses are perfectly-suited for one person. Many people live in 600 sq. foot or less sized-apartments and get by fine. There is an entire tiny house movement. Since most of these houses were gifted to the medical center, you could probably renovate them easily for around $50,000-$60,000 and call it a day. The article mentions replacing them with "modern" houses. You can modernize an existing house. It's not that hard. It just takes some money, and usually you can do it for less than the cost of demolition and rebuilding an entirely new house.

It just seems wasteful to me to demolish single family houses that could just be renovated. You aren't gaining significant density by replacing them with more single family houses. If one is going to make an argument for demolition of the existing houses, then it seems the only reason to justify it is to build higher density multi-family buildings.

All the debris from the demolished house ends up in landfill. About 40 percent of municipal dumps/landfill is debris from demolished buildings and new construction waste. A good deal of that building debris is toxic.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by kboish »

FangKC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:15 am I'm actually surprised St. Lukes is building single family houses. I would have expected that the parcels they owned would have been redeveloped as multi-family buildings.

Why demolish single family houses to just build single family houses? Wouldn't it just be easier to remodel the current houses?
Its because the organization is mission oriented. They basically promised the neighborhood they would redevelop single family housing, in exchange for allowing the hospital to expand and to also develop (or land bank properties for others to develop) larger multifamily.

Here is an article from 2015 that talks about their approach.
The Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation and Miller Nichols Living Trust gave 93 Plaza-area properties to the nonprofit St. Luke’s Foundation, which then founded the for-profit Westport Today.

“Our mission has been to improve the neighborhood west of St. Luke’s Hospital,” said Whitney Kerr Sr., chairman of Westport Today. “We didn’t want it to die. We wanted to stabilize the neighborhood. We didn’t want to think of moving the hospital like you’ve seen many other hospitals do.”

In the last few years, the effort turned to building and marketing new residential construction in addition to improving existing houses, many of them 80-year-old bungalows.

“We don’t want to be a long-term landlord,” said Mark Litzler, executive director of the St. Luke’s Foundation, who juggles real estate matters along with the traditional fundraising role of a foundation director. “We want to help improve the neighborhood through home ownership and then move on.”

...

Litzler said Westport Today at one point had about 130 properties, generally between Southwest Trafficway on the west, Washington Avenue on the east, and 43rd and 46th streets north and south.

“When we started out, there was lots of suspicion and unease in the neighborhood,” Kerr said. “But when we made it clear that we wanted a neighborhood that was a mix of people, of incomes, and that we weren’t going to (raze everything), we got the neighborhood support.”

Some of Westport Today’s work has been demolition. Some houses were torn down when they were deemed too far gone to save, Litzler said. And some of the vacated property nearest the hospital is expected to be used for medical building construction, not housing.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by kcjak »

On a side note, Noodles & Co has closed (or is in the process of closing) and the building where Tomfooleries is located has been sold and Byron is prepping for a going-out-of-business sale.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by alejandro46 »

kboish wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:51 am
FangKC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:15 am I'm actually surprised St. Lukes is building single family houses. I would have expected that the parcels they owned would have been redeveloped as multi-family buildings.

Why demolish single family houses to just build single family houses? Wouldn't it just be easier to remodel the current houses?
Its because the organization is mission oriented. They basically promised the neighborhood they would redevelop single family housing, in exchange for allowing the hospital to expand and to also develop (or land bank properties for others to develop) larger multifamily.

Here is an article from 2015 that talks about their approach.
The Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation and Miller Nichols Living Trust gave 93 Plaza-area properties to the nonprofit St. Luke’s Foundation, which then founded the for-profit Westport Today.

“Our mission has been to improve the neighborhood west of St. Luke’s Hospital,” said Whitney Kerr Sr., chairman of Westport Today. “We didn’t want it to die. We wanted to stabilize the neighborhood. We didn’t want to think of moving the hospital like you’ve seen many other hospitals do.”

In the last few years, the effort turned to building and marketing new residential construction in addition to improving existing houses, many of them 80-year-old bungalows.

“We don’t want to be a long-term landlord,” said Mark Litzler, executive director of the St. Luke’s Foundation, who juggles real estate matters along with the traditional fundraising role of a foundation director. “We want to help improve the neighborhood through home ownership and then move on.”

...

Litzler said Westport Today at one point had about 130 properties, generally between Southwest Trafficway on the west, Washington Avenue on the east, and 43rd and 46th streets north and south.

“When we started out, there was lots of suspicion and unease in the neighborhood,” Kerr said. “But when we made it clear that we wanted a neighborhood that was a mix of people, of incomes, and that we weren’t going to (raze everything), we got the neighborhood support.”

Some of Westport Today’s work has been demolition. Some houses were torn down when they were deemed too far gone to save, Litzler said. And some of the vacated property nearest the hospital is expected to be used for medical building construction, not housing.
Going off those good points, as you can see in the last section there, the foundation has renovated several houses already, I believe mostly along Jefferson near where the previously built new bungalows are but also that small apartment complex along the W side of 46th and Summit and the cute little house just north of there. The numbers just don't add up to renovate them and not be able to sell for a reasonable ROI.

I confess I do live in this area, but not in any of these affected properties.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by FangKC »

I still don't see how they couldn't spend $50,000-$80,000 renovating the existing houses, and basically sell them for the a bit more than the cost of the renovation. The houses were given to them after all. Many of these houses appear to be in decent shape, and the type of houses that investors buy, renovate, and flip. The renovated houses sold at affordable prices would be the gift to the neighborhood, and also solve a community-wide problem -- affordable, decent housing. There are probably many lower-paid hospital staff (janitors, secretaries, etc.) who would jump at the chance to own an affordable home near their job.

These are houses Westport Today owns on the south side of 44th Street--the entire stretch between Jefferson and Summit.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0479478 ... 312!8i6656

I'm not trying to be difficult here. I just don't get why the neighborhood would be happier with the houses replaced by new houses instead of just renovating the existing houses. One of the reasons is that the demolition and construction will certainly affect the adjoining homeowners. Westport Today doesn't own all the houses on the block--the houses on Corbin Terrace to the south. Those residents will have to endure months of inconvenience, stress, noise, and dust from construction. A renovation doesn't involve the same level of stress for them as new construction.

Spend 6-9 months living next door to a house demolition and new house construction, and you will see what I'm talking about--especially if you are home all day listening to it.
Last edited by FangKC on Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by kboish »

Its a valid question and I don't pretend to actually have an answer, but I can see how they may just want to build new at this point in the process. In the past, they rehabbed and built houses/townhomes at lower price points. Now they are doing their high end stuff.

They are starting at 45th street across from some of the townhomes currently going up. Three houses at the Northeast corner of 45th and summit are already down. If you look at google maps to the south along 45th, you can see just how many houses they already torn down for the townhomes going up. This neighborhood is going to be completely new in 24 months. Its really incredible if you realize the scale of development there.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by kboish »

And it should be noted- any profit they turn on these properties (less developer fees, etc) goes towards either additional development in the neighborhood or to the St. Luke's Foundation to fund hospital activity...which is a good thing and was one of the reasons the houses were given to St. Luke's in the first place (in addition to helping stabilize the neighborhood)
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by beautyfromashes »

They’re building new and bigger because they want to increase the property values in the neighborhood. They don’t care about making money on these houses, it’s such a small amount in the scheme of things. But, if they can increase the land price in the area, that would be a bigger profit for them as they own so much land.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by TrolliKC »

The new houses are definitely geared to a different demographic than who would move into the houses that were in Fang's google map photo (thanks for that Fang!). It seems like they are creating a good, diverse mix of housing in that area.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by FangKC »

Deliberately increasing property values can hurt the long-time neighborhood homeowners. If a resident is on a fixed income, or a younger homeowner has inherited their childhood home, but doesn't earn a lot, they are facing increasing property tax bills. It can also affect them to the point that they can no longer afford their property taxes, and have to sell and move to a cheaper house, or end up losing their homes because they cannot pay their property taxes.

A house valuation is affected by the houses around it. You see this on the tax bills on a house west of Troost versus east of Troost. Same house can have double or triple the property taxes.

Whitney Kerr talks about stabilizing the neighborhood, without acknowledging that Miller Nichols Foundation, by buying up and renting so many houses in the neighborhood, might have contributed to the instability. If a long-time resident can no longer afford their property taxes, is that creating stability? You are just replacing that resident with a high-income resident.

The hospital probably doesn't care if neighborhood property values increase, because they are exempt from property taxes if they are a non-profit hospital. And there is the insensitivity.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by beautyfromashes »

^ I guess I’m just glad St. Luke’s is actually replacing houses that they tear down now. They’ve carpet bombed the entire area with parking lots the last couple decades.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

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FangKC wrote: Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:42 am Deliberately increasing property values can hurt the long-time neighborhood homeowners. If a resident is on a fixed income, or a younger homeowner has inherited their childhood home, but doesn't earn a lot, they are facing increasing property tax bills. It can also affect them to the point that they can no longer afford their property taxes, and have to sell and move to a cheaper house, or end up losing their homes because they cannot pay their property taxes.

A house valuation is affected by the houses around it. You see this on the tax bills on a house west of Troost versus east of Troost. Same house can have double or triple the property taxes.

Whitney Kerr talks about stabilizing the neighborhood, without acknowledging that Miller Nichols Foundation, by buying up and renting so many houses in the neighborhood, might have contributed to the instability. If a long-time resident can no longer afford their property taxes, is that creating stability? You are just replacing that resident with a high-income resident.

The hospital probably doesn't care if neighborhood property values increase, because they are exempt from property taxes if they are a non-profit hospital. And there is the insensitivity.
The idea that the hospital doesn't care if neighborhood property value increases based solely on their status as a non-profit ignores a lot of other factors.
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Re: Plaza move-ins (ongoing)

Post by FangKC »

My point was that the hospital leadership, and those running Westport Today, probably don't live in the neighborhood and are insensitive to the long-term outcome of their decision-making on the neighborhood.
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