KCRag Forum

http://www.kmbc.com/money/27139515/detail.html

Interesting perspective between P&L and Village West.

I'd be very curious to actually see the financials side by side to compare.  My guess is that the retail portion (mainly NFM and Cabelas) are why Village West has been so successful.  Sort of underscores the importance of retail and why P&L might not be living up to its billing.  

What a joke.

cityscape wrote: http://www.kmbc.com/money/27139515/detail.html

Interesting perspective between P&L and Village West.

I'd be very curious to actually see the financials side by side to compare.  My guess is that the retail portion (mainly NFM and Cabelas) are why Village West has been so successful.  Sort of underscores the importance of retail and why P&L might not be living up to its billing. 

Also, look at the cost differentials between greenfield and urban.  The cost of a square mile or more of surface parking vs underground garages requiring extensive excavation.  Land acquisition costs..downtown vs rural Wyandotte County.  It's a stupid comparison.  Again, there's no way you put NFM and Cabelas downtown; the land cost are too high.  The curmudgeon and insular portion of the local population will eat this stuff up but it's about an illogical comparison as I've ever seen.

A more apt pair of comparisons might be

Village West : Zona Rosa

Power & Light : 8th & State Ave

KCPowercat wrote: What a joke.

maybe it is, but then, maybe it isn't.

aknowledgeableperson wrote: maybe it is, but then, maybe it isn't.

Exactly.  Shocking you rush to this site any sign of a story such as this.  Even you aren't this naive.

Yes, it's a stupid comparison.  Power & Light required a lot more expense to develop. Buildings had to be demolished. Old infastructure taken out.  There are no large retailers to pay out a lot of sales taxes on big-ticket items to cover the debt.

FangKC wrote: Yes, it's a stupid comparison.  Power & Light required a lot more expense to develop.

Basically the article compares how a comparable tax subsidy amount ($300M) made a financial obligation to the governing body.  Not sure of the individual breakdowns but the article states that tax funds for both projects were used for streets and utilities so it seems to be comparing apples-to-apples in that regard.  Anyway, overall one can conclude that a government can spend $300M one way or it can spend it another way.
Of course, one can also conclude that one government used conservative numbers to justify it's project and the other government used overly optimistic (or deceiving, or even outright lying) numbers to justify its numbers.  Or that the latter government rushed the project through it's governing body without doing their due diligence.  If that due diligence was performed the project could still have been done but completed on a smaller scale, other sources of revenue identified and used, and it's partner required to furnish more equity.

KCPowercat wrote: Shocking you rush to this site

Didn't rush.  In fact wasn't going to comment until you made your joking statement.

Maybe next time don't bother to comment in the downtown forum. Instead post this in the Kansas farmland forum.

aknowledgeableperson wrote: Basically the article compares how a comparable tax subsidy amount ($300M) made a financial obligation to the governing body.  Not sure of the individual breakdowns but the article states that tax funds for both projects were used for streets and utilities so it seems to be comparing apples-to-apples in that regard.  Anyway, overall one can conclude that a government can spend $300M one way or it can spend it another way.
Of course, one can also conclude that one government used conservative numbers to justify it's project and the other government used overly optimistic (or deceiving, or even outright lying) numbers to justify its numbers.  Or that the latter government rushed the project through it's governing body without doing their due diligence.  If that due diligence was performed the project could still have been done but completed on a smaller scale, other sources of revenue identified and used, and it's partner required to furnish more equity.

My apple is so much better than your orange.

Matter of fact your orange is the worst apple I have ever seen.

They should just quit making oranges since they make such bad apples.

KCPowercat wrote: Even you aren't this naive.

maybe he is...but, also, maybe he isn't.

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Anyway, overall one can conclude that a government can spend $300M one way or it can spend it another way.

Comedy gold.

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Of course, one can also conclude that one government used conservative numbers to justify it's project and the other government used overly optimistic (or deceiving, or even outright lying) numbers to justify its numbers.

Yeah, you know, I didn't really buy the P&L numbers as realistic when they were originally being pushed. Because they weren't. I'm torn between whether it was better to knowingly push BS numbers in order to get something done that obviously needed to be done, or whether it would have been better to tell the truth and scale it back a little.

mean wrote: I'm torn between whether it was better to knowingly push BS numbers in order to get something done that obviously needed to be done, or whether it would have been better to tell the truth and scale it back a little.

of course, these aren't the only options. our negotiator could have made a deal that was a little less one-sided. that would not have involved scaling back the scope of the district. in this scenario, we would likely have ended up with the same tenant mix we have now.

DaveKCMO wrote: of course, these aren't the only options. our negotiator could have made a deal that was a little less one-sided. that would not have involved scaling back the scope of the district. in this scenario, we would likely have ended up with the same tenant mix we have now.

exactly what part needed to be scaled back? I'd guess it's 80% full. I'd also say the tenant mix has improved each year its been open. 

Cordish needed a retail partner like CBL or RED that actually had dealt with national retail tenants. That was the main problem with the leasing activity.

As a guy who is happy about both developments, this is a stupid comparison. It might be a legit comparison if the Royals were downtown or there was an NBA/NHL team in Sprint, but still probably not. The Village West area is quite a bit bigger than P&L as well. And just because Village West is booming doesn't mean that P&L was a bad idea. I think both have been a net benefit to the two cities and the entire metro.

admb4ku wrote: As a guy who is happy about both developments, this is a stupid comparison. It might be a legit comparison if the Royals were downtown or there was an NBA/NHL team in Sprint, but still probably not. The Village West area is quite a bit bigger than P&L as well. And just because Village West is booming doesn't mean that P&L was a bad idea. I think both have been a net benefit to the two cities and the entire metro.

There is a good chance that you are too cogent and reasonable to this forum.

.....but, welcome!

DaveKCMO wrote: of course, these aren't the only options. our negotiator could have made a deal that was a little less one-sided. that would not have involved scaling back the scope of the district. in this scenario, we would likely have ended up with the same tenant mix we have now.

In a less one-sided deal "the numbers" may not have worked for Cordish.

On the other hand, they may have worked for Cordish. There are always two distinct and opposite possibilities, which in all cases are equally likely...

Seems to me like PnL was scaled back.  Isn't there a hotel, condos, and apartments missing?  i know that was phase 2/3 or whatever, but is that not included in the initial numbers? 

I don't get this.  Most of the money issued for the P&L district didn't go directly to power and light district, it went to all kinds of other other things that really needed to be done anyway.

Purchasing land, demolishing buildings and clearing land, relocating and rebuilding underground utilities, rebuilding streets, sidewalks etc, installing street lights, traffic signals, landscaping, fire hydrants etc, constructing underground and above ground parking structures that are also used by H&R Block, Sprint Center and downtown visitors and residents.

I don't know the numbers, but I believe the actual cost of building the buildings for the district (KC Live and other buildings) was under 100 million dollars and I'm pretty sure that Cordish funded a good chuck of that, if not all of it.

The city basically rebuilt from below ground up, many city blocks and restored the Midland theater, built two very expensive parking structures etc.

The city just didn't have the money to do this and so it hoped to use money generated by the district to fund that massive infrastructure rebuild.  That has fallen short.  But it's not like the city is dipping into their general fund to bail out Cordish, they are simply paying off debt used to rebuild a huge chunk of downtown infrastructure.  How many other debts does the city pay every year on projects that rebuilt streets, underground utilities, traffic signals, sidewalks etc.  Why is this any different than those other than it's tied to the P&L district?

The money that went to the district is not just helping Cordish, it's helping the Sprint Center, the Convention Center, the Arts Center, the office towers are easier to lease because of what south downtown is like now vs the parking lots and haunted houses that were there before.

The money spent on the P&L district was an investment in the city that was needed by the city regardless of what would have been developed there.  Had the city not spent the hundreds of millions to get downtown ready to accommodate 75 million worth of retail shell buildings, nothing would have been done.

The city had to get creative with financing.  It hasn't worked out from that perspective, but it's far from a failure or waste of money.

Now lets look at Village West.  It's the exact opposite as it's a greenfield development.  That means that most of the incentives from the city/state etc went directly to the developer to build the development.  Even the roads around there were financed by the state via different sources.  KDOT rebuilt State Ave with transportation money.  That project is so different from the P&L it's not even funny.

Now, both projects have been excellent additions to the metro and both have created mass amounts of investment in their respective areas, but I don't agree with KCK putting all their eggs west of 435 while the rest of the city rots away.  All they did is build themselves a nice little suburb out there.  They should have found a way to do both (create the suburb and invest in central kck).  Cerner should go downtown, the stadiums should go downtown etc.  Use that STAR bond money to fix the city east of 435, 635, 18th Street.  KCK is a freaking joke now.  They don't even have a walmart in the built up part of the city east of 435 now.

So, when I look at both of these projects, one of them stands out as far more impacting and successful than the other.  Regardless of what the city has to dig up for the P&L debt service, it was well worth the money and the short and long term impact of the P&L and downtown is difficult to even measure.  Clear success story of urban revival, rebuild and investment.  Then you have what is truly nothing more than corporate welfare out in western wyco that seems to get all the praise.

I have nothing against Village West as a development.  It's a nice suburban shopping area.  But the state and the city should be ashamed that they didn't do more than just build a state funded shopping center in the middle of nowhere.  They should have been more creative with all that STAR bond money to do more east of 435 and the KC press is riding this like there is no tomorrow because the people of the KC area are just eating it up.