OFFICIAL - Power & Light Apartments

[Demosthenes]

That being said, of course everybody values convenience. I have no doubt that people fought for the closest, easiest parking spaces. That sounds like human nature. Did people move out of the building because parking was too big of a hassle? I would like to hear more of your experiences with this.

Obviously there will be parking needed for the p&l building, and this is especially true if it ends up going condo. I think the young generation of Kansas City is more willing to share a garage a block away though, and I see this being catered towards a younger crowd.

[im2kull]

Think about how many times you get out of your car carrying something. Now ask yourself if you'd really like to make trips back and forth over a block or more while carrying those same items. Odds are you wouldn't want to do that. Everyone on here with cars, who does their own shopping will understand the point I'm trying to make. It's not very convenient to have to make multiple trips 20 floors up, down, and a quarter mile to half mile walk while holding something heavy or oddly sized in your arms. Who cares if they want to build more parking, would it inconvenience us to have more parking?

I agree, there's plenty of parking. But there's nothing wrong with more parking, especially when it's garages and not surface lots.

[Highlander]

Think about how many times you get out of your car carrying something. Now ask yourself if you'd really like to make trips back and forth over a block or more while carrying those same items. Odds are you wouldn't want to do that. Everyone on here with cars, who does their own shopping will understand the point I'm trying to make. It's not very convenient to have to make multiple trips 20 floors up, down, and a quarter mile to half mile walk while holding something heavy or oddly sized in your arms. Who cares if they want to build more parking, would it inconvenience us to have more parking?

I agree, there's plenty of parking. But there's nothing wrong with more parking, especially when it's garages and not surface lots.

This project isn't going forward without some plan for an adjacent dedicated garage. The developer would never be able to lease the apartments. The amount of surplus parking in the area is inmaterial; it would be developer suicide to make that investment without a guarantee of parking. In an ideal world, it shouldn't matter but in this world, it matters very much.

[DaveKCMO]

i walk to work and get my daily needs at cosentino's or CVS on the way, so i rarely carry things to the car (which i don't even have access to during the weekdays). i gave up my work parking space for a bus pass. blah blah blah... that's the appeal of living (and working) downtown.

maybe they won't build a garage. 1006 grand is affordable housing, so maybe that's a different calculation for sherman. if they do build a garage (clearly there are adjacent parcels), it had better not be one of those faceless things with fourteen curb-cuts and no street-level retail. make drivers enter through the existing alleys.

and YES, there is something wrong with building more parking when a structure would require incentives and studies recently confirmed there is a SURPLUS (especially at night). does not compute.

[pash]

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[Highlander]

I'm not saying that everybody would need a convenient parking spot, but I believe most would want it. Most will have cars. Many won't work in the CBD.

I don't know how that shakes out. But all else equal, it would be preferable—in terms of efficiency, in terms of achieving density that permits yet more people to break the car dependency—to cater to true downtowners rather than to people who drive in and out every day, worsening traffic and deadening the neighborhood with the garages and surface lots they require.

Precisely why downtown needs to keep and attract jobs and not become primarily a residential community. The reservoir of people like DaveKCMO is limited because the number of downtown jobs is pretty limited and the latest string of departures to JoCo just doesn't help. At the very least, the P&L District provides some employment to the types of people that would be interested in market rate apartments.

[loftguy]

1006 Grand is low/moderate income lofts. Those who qualify, get great space for far below market. Most renters in 1006 are parking 2 or 3 blocks away.

Sherman has had some difficulty in leasing there, because of the parking "problem". Because of demand for low/mod housing downtown, they ultimately filled up and remain essentially full, but they have experienced the KC renter reluctance with auto separation.

[pash]

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[Highlander]

Precisely why downtown needs to keep and attract jobs and not become primarily a residential community. The reservoir of people like DaveKCMO is limited because the number of downtown jobs is pretty limited and the latest string of departures to JoCo just doesn't help. At the very least, the P&L District provides some employment to the types of people that would be interested in market rate apartments.

Yes. I don't think downtown is in any danger of becoming a residential district, though. There's, what?, about ten times as many people who work downtown as who live there.

Evening out that ratio, by the way, would be a good thing, I think. The idea of a "central business district" has been carried to a ridiculous extreme in American cities, to the point that it creates big problems. When people live in one place and work in another, you end up with residential districts that are dead week days and business districts that are dead evenings and weekends. Shops and restaurants in each district do less business and are likelier to fail. People must travel (read: drive) back and forth between where they live and work, creating traffic. Infrastructure costs rise because streets must be widened to accommodate the one-way blitz during rush-hour; parking is required on both ends, and of course half of it is completely empty at one time or the other. Etc., etc.

Basically, there are big potential efficiency benefits to evening out the number of people who live, work, and play in a given neighborhood. The discussion in this thread is a good example—because the garages near the P&L building are filled mostly by downtown workers, they're occupied during the day when downtown residents who work elsewhere don't need them. Workers empty out of the garages in the evenings, just as downtown residents return. The same complimentary pattern goes for weekends. So it should be possible to share garages between residential and commercial buildings fairly efficiently.

And if you don't see the benefit, here it is: if the developer of the P&L project didn't have to build any of its expected 1.25 parking spaces per apartment, each unit would cost about $60,000 less. That means either significantly lower rents or much higher ROI for the developer, or some combination of the two. In other words, it would be a whole lot easier to make money building apartments downtown so we'd probably have more of them, with fewer tax-payer-funded sweeteners.

That's fine as long as we even out the ratio by adding residents - not by losing jobs. Downtown jobs make it easier for all the things on your wish list.

[Demosthenes]

Well put Pash. All we need is a few projects to work on this philosophy to get the ball rolling. Right now there isn't much precedent for garage sharing such as you illustrated in Kansas City, so no doubt developers and citizens are wary of doing this.

Dave, you also made a good point. People that are moving downtown should at least make some effort to break away from the suburban lifestyle. Don't go shopping every 2 months and spend hundreds of dollars there. Instead pick up a few things every few days. Walk or ride your bike to places that are within the downtown area. Take the bus if you're going into midtown. It really isn't that hard, it just takes a lifestyle change. Isn't that the whole point of living downtown?

[pash]

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[pash]

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[KCPowercat]

Shouldn't be negative on such a great project but rentals?? Hope they go to condos at some point...I'd love to live in this building.

[FangKC]

I have a feeling they have to do rentals to get some of the investment money to do the project, and then it will be condos later after the city/state/federal incentives expire.

[smh]

Shouldn't be negative on such a great project but rentals?? Hope they go to condos at some point...I'd love to live in this building.

I suspect they are destined to go condo eventually. But the rental market is where it's at in downtown at this moment.

[FangKC]

For the developer, it would be foolish to do condos at this time. Most buyers have to get a mortgage, and lenders will not give a loan on a condo until it is 50 percent pre-sold.

[KC-wildcat]

Downtown needs apartments, not more condos.

[KCPowercat]

I'm well aware of the rent/own situation downtown....I'm simply stating for such a majestic building, it seems weird to think of it as apartment rentals.

[FangKC]

Doesn't 909 Walnut do rental?

[KCPowercat]

Doesn't 909 Walnut do rental?

Good point...Yes....with the intent to go condo from the beginning of the project. Its been pushed back given the economy and demand for rentals.