KCRag Forum

Density creates a lot of opportunities, plus r&r hall of tourist trap fame doesn’t hurt to have

New tower in Cleveland going before their plan comission next week. This is the kind of stuff we could get if our local corporate community was dedicated to downtown


600'+ and 1 million sqft

Why isn't our local corporate community as dedicated to downtown here?

AlkaliAxel wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 2:15 pm Why isn't our local corporate community as dedicated to downtown here?

Because they are used to the suburbs we need to put pressure on to change their minds

Riverite wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:45 pm

AlkaliAxel wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 2:15 pm Why isn't our local corporate community as dedicated to downtown here?

Because they are used to the suburbs we need to put pressure on to change their minds

If it has not happened by now. It isn't happening. And KC has very few large companies based in the metro now.

Best KC can hope for is for companies new to the region to open regional offices downtown. I think KC could pretty easily land a major HQ if it had a big new class A office building or two. I mean something bigger than the W&R, but even that will help.

Downtown KC is probably one of the biggest success stories going from one of the worst downtowns in the entire country to a pretty good one despite its negatives. And not hardly a peep out of regional corporate community.

Except W&R which were bribed with hella incentives and they knew they were getting ready to be bought out I'm sure.

It's quite sad actually.

Seems like 300-600 k sqft structures is what is going up in other cities. WR and Freight House are on the low end it appears. However, I am sure Freight House has to balance lack of current demand in building just 250,000 sqft

normalthings wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 8:09 pm Seems like 300-600 k sqft structures is what is going up in other cities. WR and Freight House are on the low end it appears. However, I am sure Freight House has to balance lack of current demand in building just 250,000 sqft

KC just has WAY too much suburban office space for the size of the metro.

And that space will continue to haunt downtown KC as it's subleased while companies merge etc yet more office space keeps going up in the KC suburbs.

So you not only have very few companies based in the city that care about downtown, but you also have so much suburban office space making it nearly impossible to build downtown.

W&R is not a big building at all, it's a smaller building sitting on a giant parking structure. But at least KC will have something to offer relocations. My bet is that some other company already based in the downtown area will lease the space though since it's one of the only ways for smaller companies that want to be downtown to get into new class A space.

Again. suburban companies in the KC area have zero interest in downtown and it has really hurt the city.

I still say it's going to eventually hurt the residential development downtown. There are only so many people that are gong to pay MORE to live in the city and commute to suburban office parks. That really makes no sense.

Is bizarre how much office space KC has for its size. Yet has lowest vacancy according to Colliers.
https://www.colliers.com/en/research/of ... ok-q2-2021

KC is a smallish metro to pull off a strong secondary economic center. JoCo to KCMO is like Orange County to LA or San Jose to San Fran. Is impressive KC can do that but it takes away from downtown focus. OTOH if you tie Plaza to downtown per link above that's impressive too for KC's size. It is what it is, KC is healthy overall. Downtown scoring F500 would be a bonus but not doing so hardly makes it a failure. Ped friendly Infill more important than skyscrapers.

And the tide is changing as MO side of metro is taking off with jobs moreso than KS side for a change, including office/pro biz jobs...
viewtopic.php?p=625350#p625350

We have some building blocks in place to make downtown KC a good place for offices. Population is getting up there, amenities are existent albeit lacking some, streetcar will connect much of the urban core over the next 0.5-2 decades, its mostly safe.

Taking this even further off subject, crime in downtown St. Louis is pushing businesses out. 340 police calls for shooting into buildings in their downtown area last year alone. Some of their big downtown offices and HQs are reconsidering their leases.

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 0a81d.html

Businesses consider ditching downtown St. Louis amid gunfire, violence.

Multiple large employers are considering moving their offices out of the downtown business district, city officials said this week, after more than a year of nighttime violence and gunfire that has struck buildings, broken windows and injured and killed people.

Just this summer, windows have been shot out at the Laclede Gas Building, One U.S. Bank Plaza, One Metropolitan Square and Peabody Plaza, said Alderman Jack Coatar, whose ward covers part of downtown.

^^ some of their biggest office buildings downtown

“I’ve spoken to a number of large downtown employers who have indicated they are going to seriously consider not renewing leases,” Coatar said Wednesday, based on recent conversations. “You want your workforce to be safe.”

The owner of Peabody Plaza contacted the office of Mayor Tishaura O. Jones just this week saying that at least one of its tenants, Peabody Energy — the nation’s largest private coal company and one of downtown’s most prominent headquarters — has considered moving out

Waldrop (real estate broker) said that he was initially drawn to buy downtown thanks to the allure of its architecture and potential to be a dense, diverse area with lots of people. But now he said his rents have been cut in half since he first bought downtown property around 2005. “I’ll always love downtown,” he said. “(But) I don’t want to do business down here anymore.”

Can't remember who said it earlier, but someone made a great point that so many of the offices are in JoCo because that's where the executives live. They don't want to travel all the way to downtown from 143rd and Quivira or thereabouts. I don't blame them. Those new neighborhoods down south are pristine and those houses are insane.

It seems to me the issue is that if you're a rich executive you really can't live in downtown or near it and have that lifestyle that JoCo can give. The neighborhoods are much much better down there- even far more-so than Brookside. The schools are significantly better. The roads are far better, and of course there's like far less crime. If you're an executive want to live in a mansion, there are nowhere near as many near downtown and KC.

It seems to me, these are like the core issues the urban core in KC needs to address. Not that there's anything you can really do about it, but having another luxury neighborhood near downtown without the beaten down roads would maybe bring some of them over. We need to figure out a way to allow executives to get this lifestyle nearer to the downtown, and not just 35 minutes south.

Right now there is this type of higher-end residential at Briarcliff, and off Tom Watson Parkway in the Northland west of Riss Lake. Need more CEO-type housing. Maybe along NW 52nd and NW 56th street west of NW Northwood Road over to N. Green Hills and N. Klamm Road. Some developer needs to make this area the Mission Hills of KCMO. It's a short commute to downtown and mostly undeveloped land.

There is a huge tract of land off North Holmes and NW 32nd Terrace owned by one party -- north to NE Russell Road -- that could certainly be developed with this type of neighborhood -- around the Riverside Greenway. It's hard to believe that such a large parcel so near downtown still remains undeveloped.

Is our primary criticism of KC at the moment that we don't have sufficient housing for the excessively rich?

mean wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:53 pm Is our primary criticism of KC at the moment that we don't have sufficient housing for the excessively rich?

At this point I honestly don't know what else to do to get headquarters downtown. They've tried doing alot of things and nothing seems to get it to go.

I do know for a fact that all that JoCo expansion (which is mostly all south) is just developers building massive houses in nice neighborhoods. That's where they're getting all their growth from. Not even just execs, most of the Chiefs and Royals players who live here year round all go for those southern JoCo too. It's a problem.

No. It's being realistic. CEOs and upper executives make decisions about where their offices are located. Kansas City's downtown lacks corporate presence, and it hurts us with jobs there. The River-Crown-Plaza strip is a narrow band that funds the other neighborhoods in KCMO. Not having our biggest corporations with downtown offices hurts the City long-term. Creating attractive neighborhoods so that they will live close to the downtown business district might attract decision-makers back, and rebuild downtown as the center of the Metro. A good deal of our Metro's wealth has been lured into Kansas over the past 60 years.

Another note is that these neighborhoods would be closer to KCI and the downtown airport. That would be an attractive amenity to the management class.

The most cringeworthy thing is JoCo for our downtown is Corporate Woods. How many is it...like 12 full size buildings? Imagine if we had all that downtown instead. Literally just College boulevard is ridiculous.

New construction ultra high end housing is far from the center city in all major metros. KC has plenty of luxury housing for the very wealthy relatively close to downtown with both sides of state line from the plaza through mission hills, ward parkway etc and in southern platte and clay counties. There are also plenty of places in the urban core itself if they choose to live there. Again, urban schools, crime etc is no worse in KC than in any other major city.

The problem is KC has way too much office space in the KS suburbs now and culturally, KC's corporate community has little emotional interest in downtown, much of which is due to decades of animosity across state line. For decades people in KS didn't even claim KC, they were from Kansas first, KC second.

It will take just as many decades to reverse the years of damage inflicted by this and with star bonded office space still going up in the KS suburbs while at the same time places like the Sprint Campus and Cerner buildings are getting subleased, downtown KC has little chance of ever landing major office buildings.

Tons of cities that have similar sprawl issues etc as KC like Cincy, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, OKC, Omaha, Columbus, Nashville and many more have built very large corporate office towers in the past couple decades while KC has done very little downtown and millions of sq ft in the suburbs.

The corporate community in KC is just not interested in downtown.

It's just reality.

And I'm pretty sure "most" of the pro ball players actually live in KCMO (or at least on the MO side), not Kansas. Even Mahomes lives in KCMO and is building his dream home in KCMO up by tom watson golf course I believe. Tons of players live downtown, the plaza area and in the jackson county suburbs. Some probably live up north too.

Hopefully the trend will be for some larger businesses to decide to come back to downtown. I mean MAC was there, Sprint always had their campus along Rainbow & Shawnee Mission (or whatever it is called right there). But I believe they used to have a large presence downtown, in One KC Place. Plus town Pavilion used to have AT&T, etc. Some were lost to mergers, cost cutting, and some jumped ship across states lines for incentives.

I wish companies like HOK/Populous would have stayed in the River Market or downtown. I would think it would be an easy slam dunk for these world class architecture firms to have unique buildings, stylized buildings, downtown as a way to show off their abilities with an HQ. Even if they were buildings they designed but perhaps didn't full occupy, just served as a major tenant. I would think the young talent that these companies thrive on would love a downtown location. I mean the board of trade building in Plaza area is ok but and it's a desirable area but I would think being downtown in a building your firm designed would be cool. Plus if you had a few firms around it would create some density and maybe a unique little area, and "architects row" if you will. But who knows...

For suburban companies that need to attract talent hopefully they will embrace the urban flex space bandwagon like Plexpod/WeWork. That gives their employees who prefer urban environment some options. It's happening now to some degree but could potentially see this as defacto standard for companies who struggle to draw talent.

I never understood the Populous move from the River Market after getting that building constructed for them.

FangKC wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 2:30 pm I never understood the Populous move from the River Market after getting that building constructed for them.

I feel like these 2 reasons given hold true for me.

Plaza was the best place to bring in visitors from across the globe. Many of their clients were staying at the Plaza.

Plaza is more vibrant than RM.

Populous also talked about setting their own identity. The RM building was designed for HOK. The new Plaza building was tailored to the needs and tastes of Polulous.

If I was Populous, I would want my clients staying at the Plaza. (In the time period this decision was made). This is a benefit that having a 5 star hotel could bring to downtown KC. An improved ability to entertain and host clients from across the globe