KCRag Forum

Sold for 17.5 mil.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/27/39 ... enter.html

Major upgrades planned as City Center Square is sold

Upgrades are expected to the building lobby and food court, including updated lighting, flooring and electronic directories, according to CBRE. The elevators will be remodeled with marble flooring, LED lighting, wood panels and LCD televisions with streaming media.

A new conference center is planned with advanced audio-visual equipment. The new owners also are installing energy management and lighting control systems to conserve energy. City Center Square now meets Energy Star rating performance standards.

Sounds like they are banking on the GSA move.

They, uh, sure have put a lot of thought into the elevator finishes.

I was too lazy to see if this was posted elsewhere, but I just noticed a scrolling marquee from the Business Journal near the Starbucks entrance. Is this new? I like it a lot and wish the Star did something even more visible than this near the P&L.

bobbyhawks wrote:I was too lazy to see if this was posted elsewhere, but I just noticed a scrolling marquee from the Business Journal near the Starbucks entrance. Is this new? I like it a lot and wish the Star did something even more visible than this near the P&L.

i don't believe it's new. they've had a version of that up for years. i think it used to be just red LED, now it's full color.

DaveKCMO wrote:

bobbyhawks wrote:I was too lazy to see if this was posted elsewhere, but I just noticed a scrolling marquee from the Business Journal near the Starbucks entrance. Is this new? I like it a lot and wish the Star did something even more visible than this near the P&L.

i don't believe it's new. they've had a version of that up for years. i think it used to be just red LED, now it's full color.

I think thats a great idea for the Star building to have some sort of news feed running around the portion of the building facing 670 and wrap around towards Mcgee.

kboish wrote:

DaveKCMO wrote:

bobbyhawks wrote:I was too lazy to see if this was posted elsewhere, but I just noticed a scrolling marquee from the Business Journal near the Starbucks entrance. Is this new? I like it a lot and wish the Star did something even more visible than this near the P&L.

i don't believe it's new. they've had a version of that up for years. i think it used to be just red LED, now it's full color.

I think thats a great idea for the Star building to have some sort of news feed running around the portion of the building facing 670 and wrap around towards Mcgee.

Maybe they should work on putting some news in the paper first.

The feed can post the going rates for Amish heaters and commemorative minting.

grovester wrote:The feed can post the going rates for Amish heaters and commemorative minting.

"One moment of your time, please!"

grovester wrote:The feed can post the going rates for Amish heaters and commemorative minting.

T*TALLY N*DE!

Bizjournal reports that Sungevity will bring its 595 jobs to City Center square.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... tions.html

I'm hoping One KC Place had some other tenants they were hoping to land and not this one. If so, it will be a good leasing quarter for downtown.

Yay. This is good news.

Liked reading this...

"Downtown is such a great central hub that we can hire from any area around the city — north, south, east and west," Susan Hollingshead, Sungevity's chief people and corporate services officer, said in an interview Thursday. "We love the Power & Light District. We love the fact that the streetcar is going to go in there. We love that fact that it's probably the cleanest downtown I've seen in years. There's been so much restoration work there.

...."but, but, the streetcar is just mayor Sly James toy train...no one will ever ride it, what we really need is more parking"....as one co-worker who lives in Olathe put it.

keep in mind the big fear about CCS was the "lack of parking", even though there are public garages in every direction. the fact that this company chose CCS despite of that and has made overtures about the streetcar tells you something about where things are headed. so, yeah, streetcar lacks utility for longer trips but CCS also sits right between the 11th/12th pair that will host a big chunk of KCATA and JO bus routes very soon.

Not trying to take away from a fantastic announcement for downtown, but let's keep in mind that the 595 job number is not remotely guaranteed - they may create around that many jobs over the next five years.

I think there will initially be 50 or so positions IIRC, so let's not get too excited about a huge tenant announcement until we see the hiring occur.

Nonetheless, landing an out-of-town company of any size, especially from the west coast, and having them select downtown is a terrific indicator of positive momentum for KC - now let's see 1KCP leased up and start to think about n/c.

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Just the required leased space is huge. It takes it off the market which will raise rents

And we all know that KC doesnt have a space issue, it has a lease rate issue.
when a place can't make money by renovating or building new it doesn't happen. And how many companies want to move into old and tired when they can get new in JoCo

rxlexi wrote:Nonetheless, landing an out-of-town company of any size, especially from the west coast, and having them select downtown is a terrific indicator of positive momentum for KC...

adding to this, i think the type of company is a real "get" as well. i'm all for attracting all sorts of companies and different industries, but these sorts of "progressive" industries are even better since their employees and clientele would likely reflect the type that might be more inclined to do the types of things we'd like to see more of downtown.

One of the problems the downtown loop has is the lack of new commercial space in premier buildings with large floor plates, where larger companies can assemble adjacent floors.

There are some newer commercial office buildings--like at Crown Center, but they don't have enough available, adjacent space to accommodate larger companies. However, there just aren't many options inside the loop, or adjacent to the loop.

The cautious nature of local real estate developers, and local investors/financiers, causes them to be reluctant to build with vacancy rates being as high as they are. Even though the downtown vacancy rate is artificially high because the market is mostly a lot of older, obsolete buildings that most firms wouldn't consider any way. Those rates continue to drop though as many are taken off the commercial market and converted into housing (Commerce Tower, Federal Reserve Bank, Mark Twain Tower, Lucas Place, Power & Light Building).

It might take an out-of-town consortium developer/capital lender to construct a new commercial office tower inside the loop.

I would also say that Kansas City is ripe for a bigger commercial lending bank to come in looking for a market in which it could grow and face less competition than in other larger cities. A lot of our projects seem to go outside the metro looking for lenders.

With DST Real Estate seemingly appearing to slowly be going away, there are less of the proactive developers here.

What I'd like to see some developer do is a mixed-use big project that combines and office building with a residential tower or two with the intent of leasing apartments to many of the commercial tenant workers (mostly single, or married without children set). The five vacant blocks in the north loop, controlled by Tower Properties, would be perfect for this type of project.