Three Light

Come here for discussion about the new downtown entertainment district.
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GRID
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

Maybe they can refine it some and make it a more attractive tower for such a front and center location in the skyline. As designed, that building would look great in any other location, anywhere downtown, but I honestly think they could do better to make Three light contrast with Two light and also make Three Light a tad more "sexy".

I guess you take what you can get though. It should be nice from the street and from the P&L district.
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Re: Three Light

Post by normalthings »

GRID wrote:Maybe they can refine it some and make it a more attractive tower for such a front and center location in the skyline. As designed, that building would look great in any other location, anywhere downtown, but I honestly think they could do better to make Three light contrast with Two light and also make Three Light a tad more "sexy".

I guess you take what you can get though. It should be nice from the street and from the P&L district.
I think a change in height and girth would be the single greatest improvement that they could make.
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Re: Three Light

Post by kboish »

StrangerThings wrote:On the topic of changing the design of Three Light...
...
It will be Cordish's 6th high-rise residential/hotel project, so as a company, we are learning by leaps and bounds over here. Over the next decade, you'll be seeing us pop up in several other major markets.
I thought four light was the residential/hotel project?
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GRID
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

ldai_phs wrote:
GRID wrote:Maybe they can refine it some and make it a more attractive tower for such a front and center location in the skyline. As designed, that building would look great in any other location, anywhere downtown, but I honestly think they could do better to make Three light contrast with Two light and also make Three Light a tad more "sexy".

I guess you take what you can get though. It should be nice from the street and from the P&L district.
I think a change in height and girth would be the single greatest improvement that they could make.
Yeah.

The Star article mentioned "underground" garage. I'm assuming that's wrong and this will be a tower on top of an above ground garage structure.

You can keep the same parking garage pedestal and overall footprint. Just make the tower higher and more slender. It would make a huge difference.

I don't understand why the new buildings going up in KC are so blahh. The new hotel is the same way. Look at whats' going up in other cities. KC can and should do better.

Something like this would be perfect for the Three and or Four light locations:
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Re: Three Light

Post by flyingember »

Wow, that's a really bad building.

It's so messy in design. Some balconies are inset, some aren't. The blue glass changes width depending on the height of the tower and the balconies go to different heights at different horizontal positions and which face it is.

Not at all sure what the different width horizontal lighter decoration is, it makes the building seem like it gets wider higher up which is weird
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Re: Three Light

Post by TheLastGentleman »

A lot of new apartment buildings are just really ugly imo, and not just in kc. Not sure why everything has to look like a jenga set or grey shipping containers. On that front I actually commend the light towers for looking stable and being blue.
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

^ it's kind of busy, but I like the general structure of it. Take away the exterior columns and roof thingy and the way it tapers at the top would play off many other buildings in Downtown like the P&L tower, One KC place, Bryant and City Hall.

All I'm saying is something taller and more slender would probably improve things quite a bit with the "glass wall" etc while adding a more striking building to the skyline.

I know none of this will happen with Three Light. It's too far along. I"m just voicing my opinion. Maybe Cordish will think about some of these ideas for Four Light. Three light may look okay so long as they do it at least ten stories taller than Two Light and do a more dramatic slanting roof line.
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GRID
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

TheLastGentleman wrote:A lot of new apartment buildings are just really ugly imo, and not just in kc. Not sure why everything has to look like a jenga set or grey shipping containers. On that front I actually commend the light towers for looking stable and being blue.
The north sides of the cordish towers look great. It's the south sides that could use some improvements to break up the monotony.
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Re: Three Light

Post by TheLastGentleman »

GRID wrote:The north sides of the cordish towers look great. It's the south sides that could use some improvements to break up the monotony.
I just worry because it seems like the contemporary solution to monotony is making the facade overly chaotic
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Re: Three Light

Post by TheLastGentleman »

I do agree that a tall slender building would be great in that spot. I think 4 light will be what makes or breaks the buildings visually
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normalthings
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Re: Three Light

Post by normalthings »

StrangerThings wrote:As for the height and designs of the buildings. It really just comes down to several cost analysis that have been done. In order to be profitable (and not piles of cash, because residential buildings tend to be very long term commitments), you need X amount of units at X amount of money per unit right. So when you determine all of these things and settle on a budget of let's say 130 million, you're working within those parameters. It would be awesome to add 5-10 floors onto Three Light, but the additional construction cost isn't offset by the amount of rental income you can get. At some point, radical exterior designs get pushed aside in order to ensure a solid business plan is executed.

The only thing that will ever change and allow Cordish to build a taller and riskier building would be having a major employer move it's headquarters downtown. One that would see hundreds of employees making well above the national average income. CEO's, executives, Lawyers and the like. At this point, Cordish has to worry about function over fashion in regards to the exterior. People paying these market rate rents want nice units and great amenities so that's where the money goes. They don't want to live in an ugly building, but how often are they standing around looking at it?

I hope I'm not over explaining because most of you probably know all of this. Trust me when I say Cordish wants to build what you all are talking about. Look at some other projects they've done or are doing. They love big ideas and winning awards for urban design.

Our CEO who is 78 years old still goes to work everyday, served as Director of Urban Development Action Grant program under both President Carter and Reagan. He loves this shit! He wants to leave behind epic developments and buildings, but they've got to make money too.
Would Cordish ever be up for building a few floors of office space in one of their towers? We do need modern class A space downtown. I get that this would be a risk, but spec built Corrigan Station filled up pretty fast.

Would preselling condos in an upcoming tower(is possible) allow for more floors to be added?

I would think that 4 Light would at least be able to reach some height due to being Hotel and apartment.
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Re: Three Light

Post by DaveKCMO »

StrangerThings wrote:The only thing that will ever change and allow Cordish to build a taller and riskier building would be having a major employer move it's headquarters downtown. One that would see hundreds of employees making well above the national average income. CEO's, executives, Lawyers and the like.
It's so frustrating that this hasn't happened yet, despite the city's willingness to throw the kitchen sink at it.
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Re: Three Light

Post by beautyfromashes »

Nick- Is there any chance 3 & 4 would be built at the same time? It seems you could put the crane between and get some cost efficiencies.
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Re: Three Light

Post by WoodDraw »

I think class A spec could work downtown right now. Especially modern layouts. It's too bad we don't have any commercial builders willing.
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Re: Three Light

Post by KCTOGA »

stranger- How many floors is 3-4 light scheduled to be at this time?
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

KC needs to land something like this:
https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/of ... ille-88007

Nashville is booming. KC is still a much better city IMO than Nashville. When is KC going to get some national love from companies and developers? The city seems so ready.

Speaking of Nashville, they just voted down their huge light rail plan. I was really surprised by that. Huge setback for the city. They are on their way to becoming the Denver upper south. But not if they don't improve their transit.
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Re: Three Light

Post by KCPowercat »

Nashville won't sustain this growth they've had...but they've had a nice growth spurt for sure.
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Re: Three Light

Post by Highlander »

GRID wrote:
Speaking of Nashville, they just voted down their huge light rail plan. I was really surprised by that. Huge setback for the city. They are on their way to becoming the Denver upper south. But not if they don't improve their transit.
Why are you surprised? It may be growing but it's still a pretty conservative southern city. There may be some progressive new arrivals that promote density and public transportation but I suspect the general populace sees them about like north Kansas Citians see people living in downtown apartments. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
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Re: Three Light

Post by FangKC »

Sometimes I think if KC just bought a regular, small ad in the Wall Street Journal in the real estate section advertising what commercial rents are per sq. foot in downtown Kansas City; avg. apt. rents; avg. home prices, etc., that might be enough. It would have to run constantly. A constant reminder echoing in their heads as they try to cut costs.

We might not get 1000 employee companies, but we might get several in the 100-200 range. Smaller companies often have huge growth potential, but also have a hard time providing all the things they need to attract employees like health care, child care, higher education tuition reimbursement, etc. Everything is cheaper in KC, and smaller companies have a hard time paying for all those things in NYC, SF, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, etc.
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GRID
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Re: Three Light

Post by GRID »

Highlander wrote:
GRID wrote:
Speaking of Nashville, they just voted down their huge light rail plan. I was really surprised by that. Huge setback for the city. They are on their way to becoming the Denver upper south. But not if they don't improve their transit.
Why are you surprised? It may be growing but it's still a pretty conservative southern city. There may be some progressive new arrivals that promote density and public transportation but I suspect the general populace sees them about like north Kansas Citians see people living in downtown apartments. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
Because I thought maybe they were getting over that anti transit hump. Traffic in metro Nashville is pretty bad and the boom going on in the urban core of Nashville is nothing short of impressive. It may not seem sustainable, but it's been going on for some time now and the amount and quality of the types of development going up there just continues to ramp up. It's not just residential, it's super luxury residential like you see in much larger cities. They are also building a lot of high end large hotels and a significant amount of office space. The city is very likely to look more like a Denver or Minneapolis in just a few more years as it catches up with Charlotte and the fights for the second city of the southeast behind Atlanta.

It will be interesting to see what Nashville does now. They will probably have to re-group and start very small like KC has had to do. I'm not sure any city has built a regional transit system from the ground up without a small starter line, but I thought maybe Nashville could pull it off. Few cities have gone through a transformation like they are going through now.
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