Two Light - 14th & Grand

[mister816]

It would be interesting to see a picture of the same area twenty years ago. I think it's amazing how far downtown has come and I can't wait to see the skyline five years from now when three, four light are completed as well as the new convention center hotel.

I agree that what we need next is a new large office tower.

13-ish years ago

[JBmidtown]

wow nice mixing of materials and design! If only we had the foresight to have preseverved this mighty skyline.

[WoodDraw]

That picture makes me so angry that we let things get so bad, and very happy with how far we've come.

[beautyfromashes]

That's the north loop, right?

[mister816]

It does make the current complaints about what goes where kind of ridiculous. The public vote could have gone the other direction and this could be our present day reality.

[joshmv]

[NorthOak]

A 40 story office tower east of Grand is what KC really needs to change the skyline. Cerner....

12th & Grand - best location in all of the city is sitting empty.
It's beyond all logic, even business sense that this massive hole exists.
I've heard all the arguments - need a tenant, blah, blah, blah.
There will be a real need for new Class A in 3-4 years.
It's inconceivable to think that all of the new residents and synergy happening downtown still can't spur a new large project.
Mixed use - 40-50 floors of office/retail/residential - someone get this done.
Cerner has got to come to it's senses, it could literally change the urban core of KC with one massive project downtown.
If the lot at 12th & Grand would fall, it would signal to everyone that downtown is back to stay and no other location can compete.

[normalthings]

A 40 story office tower east of Grand is what KC really needs to change the skyline. Cerner....

12th & Grand - best location in all of the city is sitting empty.
It's beyond all logic, even business sense that this massive hole exists.
I've heard all the arguments - need a tenant, blah, blah, blah.
There will be a real need for new Class A in 3-4 years.
It's inconceivable to think that all of the new residents and synergy happening downtown still can't spur a new large project.
Mixed use - 40-50 floors of office/retail/residential - someone get this done.
Cerner has got to come to it's senses, it could literally change the urban core of KC with one massive project downtown.
If the lot at 12th & Grand would fall, it would signal to everyone that downtown is back to stay and no other location can compete.

I think it was CBRE who said they see talks/negotiations about a New Highrise Office Tower in Dowtown taking place in the next 18 months.

I think that Corrigan shows that if we build a modern office tower they will come and fill it. I think Many small/medium sized companies will take the place of 1 or 2 large tenants in a new office tower.

[atticus23]

A 40 story office tower east of Grand is what KC really needs to change the skyline. Cerner....

12th & Grand - best location in all of the city is sitting empty.
It's beyond all logic, even business sense that this massive hole exists.
I've heard all the arguments - need a tenant, blah, blah, blah.
There will be a real need for new Class A in 3-4 years.
It's inconceivable to think that all of the new residents and synergy happening downtown still can't spur a new large project.
Mixed use - 40-50 floors of office/retail/residential - someone get this done.
Cerner has got to come to it's senses, it could literally change the urban core of KC with one massive project downtown.
If the lot at 12th & Grand would fall, it would signal to everyone that downtown is back to stay and no other location can compete.

I think it was CBRE who said they see talks/negotiations about a New Highrise Office Tower in Dowtown taking place in the next 18 months.

I think that Corrigan shows that if we build a modern office tower they will come and fill it. I think Many small/medium sized companies will take the place of 1 or 2 large tenants in a new office tower.

Do you have a link or more info?

[Highlander]

wow nice mixing of materials and design! If only we had the foresight to have preseverved this mighty skyline.

We lost only one building in the process that kind of made me sad - The Soakies building. While the P&L District hasn't financially lived up to promises, it has been the catalyst in a huge turn around for downtown specifically and KC in general. I wouldn't want to go back to the before days.

[WoodDraw]

The numbers were bullshit from the beginning. Throw an NBA or NHL team in there and it'll still be bullshit, and god knows what agreement we'd have had to make with that team.

I don't remember much Crossroads hate, but Westport was pissy about the special liquor rules. Anyway, it had to be done, and Cordish got a great deal out of it.

[grovester]

They looked at the numbers and found they were actually making more money without a team.

P&L was a boon to downtown for a lot of reasons, one of them being mediocre tenants that drove people to start and frequent better alternatives.

[flyingember]

Sprint Center was busier than 95% of NBA, NHL arenas at one point. We had usage nearly on par with arenas in LA and NYC. I doubt it's only justification after the fact.

It's more a pure numbers situation where people moving into the area become customers and more customers means rent can be higher, driving out existing businesses. It's not that complex, just supply and demand economics.

Even Westport is more dense than is was 10 or 20 years ago and we can see this continuing

[earthling]

Westport wasn't particularly changing to compete at first. P&L allowed Westport to go after another segment - at first specifically targeting 30+ foodie/craft beer crowd and lean more neighborhoody. They got rid of some of the party bars, added foodie leaning places and hoped P&L would take the obnoxious party crowd and it did take some. But Westport ultimately is still a metro party crowd draw on weekends and still caters to it in the end, so they still do 'compete'.

With more residential going into Westport (and as a 64111 resident), would rather they specifically don't go after the late night party crowd and go more neighborhoody yet still inviting to outsiders. Let P&L and Xroads take the late night party crowd, Westport needs to improve the weekday/night draw and more residential development should improve that. More biz would help weekday crowd and the lot in front of Buzzard Beach was a lost opportunity to put in office space (like for an incubator) with the retail/garage below - it's just a few retail spots with a wasteful rear lot.

[WoodDraw]

I know we're talking about two different things here, but Sprint Center was funded by a separate set of taxes. If there was a professional sports team, the Sprint naming rights would have gone up. I've seen no evidence that that changed any financing for either Sprint or P&L. I could be proven wrong, but I don't think it had anything to do with P&L falling millions of dollars short of expected revenue.

[WoodDraw]

With more residential going into Westport (and as a 64111 resident), would rather they specifically don't go after the late night party crowd and go more neighborhoody yet still inviting to outsiders. Let P&L and Xroads take the late night party crowd, Westport needs to improve the weekday/night draw and more residential development should improve that. More biz would help weekday crowd and the lot in front of Buzzard Beach was a lost opportunity to put in office space (like for an incubator) with the retail/garage below - it's just a few retail spots with a wasteful rear lot.

As long as they allow places like Ale House and Jonny Kaw's, who cater to the college and barely out of college markets, the late night party crowd who are looking to achieve maximum intoxication for minimal cost will continue to show up in Westport. Johnny Kaw's literally looks like a frat party every time I've tried to stop in there on a weekend. As someone who has been around P&L from almost day one, it has been a pleasure watching the crowds and typical customers mature. Of course residential has helped that, but many other factors go into why P&L no longer has the d-bag association like it did the first few years.

I'd go as far to say that p&l bought in fully on the douche level early on and has only moved away from it slowly lately.

[beautyfromashes]

P&L no longer has the d-bag association like it did the first few years.

Really?? Can someone else confirm this?!

[KCPowercat]

Styles have just changed....Friday and Saturday nights are still the same scene...although as we all age I'm sure it won't get "better". It is what it is on weekend night. Early 20s place to hang out that I wish we would have had in this city when I was that age.

[moderne]

Only two more floors to go. Will this be topped out by the end of July? Like the stone element on northeast corner, wish they would have wrapped it around southeast corner as well.

[DaveKCMO]

taken this weekend while standing on the kay barnes plaza outside the sprint center: