KCRag Forum

The Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee unanimously recommended that the full council approve a multifaceted public incentive plan to help the private developers on the project.

A $146 million redevelopment project was proposed for a building that’s been vacant for eight years. The committee sent the ordinance for final council consideration on Thursday with an “advance and do pass” recommendation.

Language in the ordinance includes an accelerated effective date, according to council member Katheryn Shields, which means it cannot be subject to a referendum petition.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 50467.html

approved!

until petitioners ruin everything

JBmidtown wrote:until petitioners ruin everything

passed with an accelerated effective date and thus not subject to referendum.

awesome!

#yaaas! Final two clearances have been approved. They should start the conversion for the 301 Room Embassy in August. Now, put a Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds in there!

Lots of photos here

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... ml?ana=twt

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 95497.html

Aside from the convention hotel, the biggest downtown lodging project in the works is a $146.5 million rehabilitation of the former Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City tower at 925 Grand Blvd.

Developers are forging ahead with plans for a 301-room Embassy Suites plus an adjacent 24-room boutique hotel in an annex. The ambitious project, which foiled previous renovation attempts, was made feasible by a public financing agreement reached earlier this month.

Work on the historic 21-story tower — vacant and deteriorating since the Fed relocated in 2008 — is expected to start in August and it will be ready to accept guests by spring 2018, according to Doug Stone, an attorney for the developers.

DaveKCMO wrote:http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 95497.html

Aside from the convention hotel, the biggest downtown lodging project in the works is a $146.5 million rehabilitation of the former Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City tower at 925 Grand Blvd.

Developers are forging ahead with plans for a 301-room Embassy Suites plus an adjacent 24-room boutique hotel in an annex. The ambitious project, which foiled previous renovation attempts, was made feasible by a public financing agreement reached earlier this month.

Work on the historic 21-story tower — vacant and deteriorating since the Fed relocated in 2008 — is expected to start in August and it will be ready to accept guests by spring 2018, according to Doug Stone, an attorney for the developers.

Is this Embassy project still on track?

yes.

I'm hoping to see the start of the renovation sometime this month. I work at UMB and want the pigeon poop to go away.

Agreed on the pigeon poop. Was running through crown center, south on grand, and see they've done a good job cleaning up under the trees. That was really bad for a while, I'm surprised the city doesn't see it as a health issue more than anything and make a better effort to power wash the sidewalks.

oh no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0wwPNdo9UA

ThorsteinVeblen wrote:Agreed on the pigeon poop. Was running through crown center, south on grand, and see they've done a good job cleaning up under the trees. That was really bad for a while, I'm surprised the city doesn't see it as a health issue more than anything and make a better effort to power wash the sidewalks.

The city doesn't own the sidewalks across >99% of the city. And there's thousands of miles of sidewalks. This would be a huge project to identify and clean them. It would be never ending and it's money better spent elsewhere like sidewalk curb cuts.

I could see an ordinance in certain zoning types (at least UR and commercial) to require cleaning up sidewalks of animal droppings of all kinds and people reporting issues triggers reviews like other issues.

Flyingember,

Don't disagree with you and I wouldn't expect that across the whole city, however, Crown Center seems like a logical place to keep clean of abundant bird feces, same with the central business district. Doesn't really hurt anything on a suburban or low density street area but, from all outward appearances, would seem to be reasonable and worth the money within city centers.

Save the Pigeon Shit.

ThorsteinVeblen wrote:Flyingember,

Don't disagree with you and I wouldn't expect that across the whole city, however, Crown Center seems like a logical place to keep clean of abundant bird feces, same with the central business district. Doesn't really hurt anything on a suburban or low density street area but, from all outward appearances, would seem to be reasonable and worth the money within city centers.

But why should the city do it? Crown Center is privately owned.

This seems like exactly the kind of thing they should have a maintenance staff for.

It's a great idea for something to require, since there is a health aspect involved, but I don't get why the city should be who does basic cleaning of a privately owned sidewalk.

.

We're talking about something different than that level of maintenance. there's two areas

1. who keeps a sidewalk there and usable in a it's a usable sidewalk sense
2. who keeps the sidewalk functional in a practicable people can use it sense.

Number 1 is paving, curb cuts, sign placement, utility permits, temp construction sidewalks, trees, etc
Number 2 is not putting a sidewalk café or a business sign in the path. It's keeping it clean of trash. It's not letting people parking on it. It's snow removal, limb removal and such.

Look at the scope between those two. One is on the scale of months or years. The other is on the scale of hours or days. There's no way the city can keep up with the tens of thousands of things on the shorter schedule but they should be able to handle the long-term.

I would like to see there be an ordinance with increasing fines that charge building owners for items in the short term bucket and the city takes over funding and doing everything else.

And back to the Federal Reserve/Embassy Suites project...