Bannister Mall/Cerner

[im2kull]

Is Cerner having any problems getting employees to fill positions at the Village West site? How about their site already in South KC? Or even their current HQ in NKC?

Cerner could have easily chosen an area in Lees' Summit east of Todd George along 50 Highway. Or had another South KC location at or nearby the old RG Airport. Or even an area along I49 between Raymore and Peculiar. And another area in KC would be by KCI. And that's just on the Missouri side. So Cerner had many options.

But Cerner picked an area that was a KC eyesore and needed redevelopment. I don't think Cerner will have any problems filling it's openings. For jobs like that and people needing jobs like that this will be a good move for the City. Is it ideal? Well different people will have different opinions on that. I do believe the City comes out ahead with this project.

Cerner isn't a part time employer where they rely on people to fill their openings from nearby residential areas..like an Applebee's or any other chain restaurant. Cernerites get hired, salaried, and told where they must go to work. Where they live is their own choice, but once they're assigned to work at location X they must get to location X every day regardless. They can't simply pick a location that's nearest them to work. So no, Cerner does not have an issue filling space. They dictate the usage of their facilities from the top down.

[im2kull]

God, every time i think about this project I get more and more upset. I can just imagine having 2 or 3 new 30+ story towers downtown with 1,500 more people in our city's core on a daily basis. It just kills me that the city just let this happen. I HATE this project.

The whole project is way more than 1,500 people.
Anyway, Kansas City is made up of many different parts with many different needs. Would it be nice if it were downtown? For downtown supporters yes but for those around the old Bannister Mall area this may be one thing, with a few other projects, that brings the area back into a middle class neighborhood again. And I am not talking about just the immediate area around the project.

Wishful thinking. This project is a premier example of throwing good money after bad.

SE KC will derive no benefit from Cerner being there. Nobody is going to move into the neighborhood, restaurants are not going to move in etc... Exxon (much, much bigger than Cerner) was located in the downtrodden Greenspoints area of Houston (a 70's-80's hotspot long past its prime) for many years with absolutely no impact on the area. It just continued to go down hill until Exxon finally bolted late last year to the Woodlands. There's no critical mass in SE KC and this project will not create it. That's the unfortunate truth. It is a horrible decision by Cerner that does nobody any good at all and is just a huge missed opportunity for KC.

Exactly.. There is ZERO benefit to the community for the billions worth of their own hard-earned taxpayer funds being used to build this ridiculous, hideous suburban office park. It will not bring in new residents, it will not bring in many outside jobs (Most Cerner employee's are born and raised Kansas Citians), and it will be a PRIVATE office park that is gated and OFF LIMITS 24/7 to anyone who doesn't have a Cerner badge to obtain entry. Absolutely ridiculous.

[chingon]

Crying over spilt milk.

[AlbertHammond]

Crying over spilt milk.

Maybe so, but this is important dialog to influence changes to the way we do things in this city. If we don't talk about it and analyze it, we are more likely to make the same mistake the next time we have this opportunity.

[flyingember]

Crying over spilt milk.

Maybe so, but this is important dialog to influence changes to the way we do things in this city. If we don't talk about it and analyze it, we are more likely to make the same mistake the next time we have this opportunity.

This is very true. We need to find what works well and what didn't for next time.
I would have made incentives contingent on hiring and keeping the people, for one.

The biggest good item is it takes advantage of people coming from Lee's Summit and and Belton. Sprawl is reality and this provides jobs that don't involve going into Kansas.

[aknowledgeableperson]

" If we don't talk about it and analyze it, we are more likely to make the same mistake the next time we have this opportunity."

For you it is a mistake. For others it is a golden opportunity. And for others it is a chance worth taking. How it actually plays out no one will know until later.

" Sprawl is reality"
So true and it will remain so. As the city annexed more and more land from the late 50's on it also acquired more areas that were home to many jobs. The area at 85th and Prospect at one time was home to a John Deere plant and an Avon facility among many other employers. The Bannister Federal complex at one time was home to well over 10,000 employees. When TWA was going strong it had thousands of jobs at the overhaul base. And if the city didn't annex those job centers would be found in other cities besides Kansas City. And when annexed by the city those jobs created a good amount of E-tax revenue when the E-tax became effective.
And the sprawl in Kansas City will continue as more and more development occurs in the Northland.

[AlbertHammond]

The area at 85th and Prospect at one time was home to a John Deere plant and an Avon facility among many other employers. The Bannister Federal complex at one time was home to well over 10,000 employees.

Great examples that show that having an internally focused campus with tons of highly paid employees didn't positively impact the immediate surrounding area.

[aknowledgeableperson]

The area at 85th and Prospect at one time was home to a John Deere plant and an Avon facility among many other employers. The Bannister Federal complex at one time was home to well over 10,000 employees.

Great examples that show that having an internally focused campus with tons of highly paid employees didn't positively impact the immediate surrounding area.

When those businesses were going strong the areas around would have been considered middle class, mostly blue collar but still middle class. Linden Hills (apartments, townhouses and individual houses) directly south of the Bannister Complex was a very attractive area and was home to a KCMO Chief of Police who came NYC. The area between Troost and State Line, 85th to 103rd was a mixture of housing but still mostly middle class. The housing area immediately west of 85th and Prospect is the Marlborough neighborhood, mostly blue collar at the time but probably no different than the housing for the area around the Blue Valley industrial section of the city. Same would go for the housing north and northeast of this job center.
Remember, middle class either white collar or blue collar, was quite different 35 and more years ago when these areas were booming with jobs. Even the housing around the Bannister Mall area up to the mid 80's and a little later was also considered middle class, mostly blue collar but still middle class.

[AlbertHammond]

...but the Bannister Federal Complex/Bendix site still had a lot of high paying employees just a few years ago. That didn't seem to help the neighborhood. Build a "drive-to" employment center and you can't capture the local benefit that a transit/walk/bike employment center can capture.

[aknowledgeableperson]

What was left in the complex was just a shadow of what was there through the 80's. But even still the housing around wasn't like that what would have been found in Westport and surrounding area in the 70's and 80's and into the 90's. My parents bought the house in the area in 1957 for the low teens. Before the '08 housing collapse similar houses in the neighborhood were selling in the low 6 figures. And they weren't big houses.

[Highlander]

What was left in the complex was just a shadow of what was there through the 80's. But even still the housing around wasn't like that what would have been found in Westport and surrounding area in the 70's and 80's and into the 90's. My parents bought the house in the area in 1957 for the low teens. Before the '08 housing collapse similar houses in the neighborhood were selling in the low 6 figures. And they weren't big houses.

None of that changes what AlbertHammond is pointing out - namely that the jobs you speak of did little to enhance their respective areas. Bendix never really had any impact at all on the Bannister Corridor. It was simply a place that people went to work at 8 AM and left at 5 PM. OK, they might have had a hand in attracting a Sambo's restaurant to the area in the 70's - I'll give you that. But without a critical mass of MIXED USE development, don't expect much for the surrounding area from Cerner. For the overwhelming majority of residents of SE KC, Cerner will simply be something they drive past on the way to somewhere else. Hopefully, Paul's Pizza or Drive in on Blue Ridge Blvd (if it's still around) might get a couple of extra customers per week.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Bendix was a 24/7 operation. When shifts changed a lot of traffic went east bound, first on the old Bannister Rd then on the highway to 71 built later. Bowled in a 9:00 pm league so sometimes I would get into the traffic leaving at midnight. True, some went northbound and southbound when they got to 71 but many others continued to the east. Of course you had the IRS Center and its peak employment during the tax season. Concerning the traffic that went west the intersection at Bannister & Holmes was crazy.
True, housing for employees at the Federal Complex was scattered, much like the downtown area. But those jobs downtown help the downtown area housing as well as the surrounding area around downtown and further out.
Housing is just as important as any commercial development. Commercial development might not have been next to the complex but the nearby housing did help the nearby commercial development.
Now, what happened with Cerner is hard to say or predict. Only time will tell.

[FangKC]

What's a $4.5B campus look like? Get a sneak peek

http://tinyurl.com/hdnvqpe

[bobbyhawks]

It looks like a hotel group built four structures so they could offer one of each brand. I'm staying at basically the same campus in the suburbs of Denver right now.

[mistervinix]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... pment.html''

"The project is expected to add as many as 16,000 new jobs within the next 10 years. In addition, the redevelopment agreement calls for Cerner to invest $2 million in neighborhood improvements surrounding the campus and $6 million to establish an Education, Professional Studies and Innovation Program in the Hickman Mills district. Details of both efforts still are being worked out."

What will $2 million buy in terms of neighborhood improvements? Hopefully they will use some of that money to buy and tear down the so-so properties along 87th just to the north of the construction.

[FangKC]

I sort of wish there was a provision that Cerner had to develop so many residential units on some of their land holdings. Not so much that they had to built the residential units, but that they had to set aside some land to allow other developers to build them. This would be so that some of their employees could live near work, preferably could walk there, and not add traffic from commuting to the campus.

[shinatoo]

I sort of wish there was a provision that Cerner had to develop so many residential units on some of their land holdings. Not so much that they had to built the residential units, but that they had to set aside some land to allow other developers to build them. This would be so that some of their employees could live near work, preferably could walk there, and not add traffic from commuting to the campus.

No shit. 16k employees + families and you are talking about a community the size of Raytown. They could have their own High School, Middle School, and several elementary schools. Would have love to seen a planned community instead of a just an office park.

[flyingember]

The average is roughly a high school per 5000 students
And around 33% of an average population is usually students.

Another comparison is their numbers isn't too far off from mid 2000s royals game attendance some years since 2000.
Since baseball involves a lot of carpooling and I doubt there will be much for getting to work, it's arguable there will be less traffic for a Royals game than Cerner will create.

My guess is you want to divide those numbers by 2.5 to get a rough estimate on game traffic

2000 19,319
2001 18,964
2002 16,334
2003 22,819
2004 21,031
2005 17,356
2006 17,158
2007 19,961
2008 19,986
2009 22,473
2010 19,942
2011 21,290
2012 21,748
2013 21,614
2014 24,154

[GRID]

There is a lot of positive things happening in downtown KC. I get that. But this Cerner project continues to get under my skin and really bothers me.
This might be a dead horse to most people, but personally, I think the Cerner HQ is the biggest mistake made so far in the history of Kansas City and in 20-30 years, people will look back and wonder what in the world city planners, regional leaders and the business community were thinking. KC will be able to point to the Cerner Campus and say that is where KC missed the chance of many generations to take the entire metro area to an entirely new level. Instead of competing with Denver, Minneapolis, Charlotte etc, KC would be forever stuck in a corporate welfare mess of suburban sprawl. Not learning from Corporate Woods or the Sprint Campus or the terrible placement of many regional assets (stadiums etc), and not only making the same mistake again, but doing so on a grand scale.

Cerner is currently one of the largest construction projects in the country and it will do almost nothing for the city. Over 20-30 years, the city is expected to actually lose tax money on the project and it will not improve the city or make it a more desirable metro area to move to.

An update on the Sagamore project in Baltimore. This is a huge project that will transform a decaying industrial area of the city into a vibrant mixed use urban district. The developers have released that they would like 535 million in incentives to do the project and the city is not too happy. I can only imagine their reaction if the Sagamore has proposed anything close to what Cerner has in Kansas City.

Sagamore (including new corporate headquarters for Under Armour).
5.5 billion dollar development, urban redevelopment, structured parking, highrise structures, extensive public infrastructure improvements and new public recreation areas.
True mixed use with office, recreational space, residential, hotels and retail
535 million dollar incentive package

“If passed, the tax increment financing or TIF, request would be among the largest in the U.S.”



Cerner:
4.45 billion dollar development, suburban redevelopment, surface parking, low and midrise structures, minimal public infrastructure improvements or access.
Mostly single use, private office park with a small retail center.
1.6 billion dollar incentive package



And this is only one of the ongoing projects in Baltimore:

Harbor Point:


Waterfront at Canton:


Plus a 44 story apartment tower just broke ground downtown and a 45 story office tower is to break ground this summer.


KC could be having this going on too if so much was not still happening in the suburbs.

[nomadcowatbk]

Does the dowtown vs suburbs issue matter to employees when they move the suburbs for a bigger house when they have kids and will by driving to work wherever it is (at least to the mass transit commuter lot)?