KCRag Forum

It amazes me how slowly KC development moves. Scheduled to open in 2020 for a 10-15 story building? Could they put a rush on this...?

Block Real Estate Services will break ground Monday for what Managing Principal Ken Block thinks will become “the icon of Kansas City.”

“When Monday Night Football is in New York City, their camera crews go shoot the Empire State Building,” Block said. “But when they come here, hopefully this is the building they will focus on.”

Is this guy delusional? The building looks okay, but it won't even come close to being considered iconic.

how is a building of this size built with just 4 columns?

tower wrote:

Block Real Estate Services will break ground Monday for what Managing Principal Ken Block thinks will become “the icon of Kansas City.”

“When Monday Night Football is in New York City, their camera crews go shoot the Empire State Building,” Block said. “But when they come here, hopefully this is the building they will focus on.”

Is this guy delusional? The building looks okay, but it won't even come close to being considered iconic.

The 'Sweep' is clearly superior to the Library Memorial / Union Station / Kauffman PAC / Power & Light building quad-fecta (?) of KC icons... oh yeah, better than the Nelson + lawn too

I'd love for it to 'sweep' me off my feet (heh), but the design of the building itself, while fine, does not by itself seem 'iconic'.

It's great to see a class A spec building started in urban KCMO, although it's still quite smallish. But Ken Block is exactly what is wrong with KC developers. He actually believes this building will be some sort of icon. I don't think it will even be more visible or stand out any more than the American Century Towers. It will hardly be something out of town photographers gravitate toward. WTF.

Add 40 floors to it and put it downtown and it would be much better, but even then I wouldn't call it an "icon". Other than having LED lighting, what's the big deal?

It will be a nice addition to the plaza. Good to see it being built finally.

Speaking of iconic, Look at what they just proposed in Denver:

grecobs wrote:It amazes me how slowly KC development moves. Scheduled to open in 2020 for a 10-15 story building? Could they put a rush on this...?

Yeah, I've been traveling to ATL a lot over the years and they build 30+ story buildings in less time than 10 floors in KC, not sure why KC takes so long.

Wow. Denver is in a different class than KC with proposals like that. Impressive.

As everyone has already stated, Block is out of his mind over the top delusional thinking that building will be anything close to iconic in KC.

That said, I am glad this building is getting developed. It still irks me that half this "building" will just be a parking garage. 8 stories of building over 8 stories of parking. Its an absurd waste and adds sooo much cost to development in KC. People in this town simply cannot draw the connection b/w development incentives and parking subsidy. If you are anti-incentive you must be pro-transit or you haven't a clue what you are talking about.
-side rant over-

Over the next several months there will be quite a bit of dense infill scheduled to actually start construction around the plaza...and that is a good thing overall:

47 Madison (15 stories)


46Penn (15 Stories)


Hotel/Apartments at 46th and wornall/broadway 13 stories (not sure if this is latest renderings)


Plus a 6 story 170 unit apartment complex at 48th and Belleview that I couldn't find any renderings for.

earthling wrote:

grecobs wrote:It amazes me how slowly KC development moves. Scheduled to open in 2020 for a 10-15 story building? Could they put a rush on this...?

Yeah, I've been traveling to ATL a lot over the years and they build 30+ story buildings in less time than 10 floors in KC, not sure why KC takes so long.

Once something actually breaks ground, I don't think it's that much slower than any place else if you are building the exact same thing.

In DC, they throw up 15 story buildings like dandelions and it only takes about 12-18 months to build them. But they don't have near the parking that KC's buildings do, if any parking at all.

This building in KC is only an 8 floor office building. The rest is parking. Digging out and building the parking is by far the most time consuming part, especially if any of it is underground. Many apartment buildings in Atlanta are towers on parking pedestals (like 2 Light) so they can go up a little quicker, but even above ground parking takes much longer than the actual floors of the tower.

The bigger problem with KC is how freaking long it takes for things to actually break ground and KC doesn't even build very large buildings. (office, residential or hotel). But they probably have twice the parking that most cities have which is the main reason they need so much TIF and other incentives.

^ sorry kboish, I see you basically said the same thing I did at the same time about parking. It's pretty crazy how much parking buildings need in KC. In this case it's probably not even needed. The garages under both the Lockton tower and 700w47h are HUGE and too big for the buildings and rarely filled. When I worked on the plaza, those garages were not fully needed. Those two buildings are like trees with the amount of underground parking they have and that's why they needed so many subsidies to build. To build 4-6 levels of underground parking for 10-12 story building just doesn't make economic sense in low rent city like KC. But they would never be able to lease without "excess" parking under the building. Plus, I think KC has some pretty bad parking requirements forcing developments to have more parking than needed. This 8 story office tower has more parking than that million sq ft 90 story tower in Denver. (although it's not office)

As an example of office compared to office, the new 40 story office tower opening in Denver will have 840 parking spaces. This 8 story building will have close to 700.

https://denverinfill.com/blog/2015/06/c ... ate-2.html

kboish wrote: Plus a 6 story 170 unit apartment complex at 48th and Belleview that I couldn't find any renderings for.

I believe that would be 4711 Belleview:



There is also 4400 Washington - 188 units- (although I think it still needs approval and other proposals had previously been shot down due to density):



46 Summit - 67 unit apartment building:


Mirabelle II (Phase I is currently under construction) - 70 unit apartment building. Here is phase 1:



Artisan Apartments - 98 Units:


Plus

The Tudors -a 16 unit town home development

Springhill Suites currently under construction (yuck)

We will probably get a proposal for the Neller Peters apartment site soon.

Despite 46 Penn not being all that "iconic", it's great to see all the infill in the plaza area still happening even with Downtown having so much going on. The Plaza is still a very strong and desirable neighborhood.

I actually like the 46 Penn office tower. I think it fits in well in the Plaza. I just thought Block was exaggerating it quite a bit. It will probably be the last large office building on the plaza to go up. People are tired of giving incentives to plaza development and the parking they need (to compete with JoCo) make it impossible to build something without incentives.

Agreed that the current Plaza development is good for the area. I had thought the development at 46th and Wornall had stalled out, anyone have any news on this?

I think another factor that is contributing to Plaza area momentum is the small lot development that is happening, particularly in West Plaza. I know of 10 different houses that are either just finished, in active construction or are about to break ground in the West plaza area. Many of the these are being built on some of the worst properties in the neighborhood, which is great for the neighborhood. I personally like the mix of architectural styles and house pricing as well, KC could benefit more from neighborhoods like this.

Does anyone know what is being built at 45th and Summit?

http://tinyurl.com/y7bt475g

KCtoBrooklyn wrote:

kboish wrote:
There is also 4400 Washington - 188 units- (although I think it still needs approval and other proposals had previously been shot down due to density):

Regarding this development, does anyone know if the house at 4403 Pennsylvania is going to be moved to a new location, and salvaged? It seems to be a waste to demolish it.

http://tinyurl.com/y8ftksfs

And what about these houses further down the street to the south? They seem to be in good condition?

http://tinyurl.com/yabjmtnt

Aerial of the site:

http://tinyurl.com/yctr4g2l

FangKC wrote:Does anyone know what is being built at 45th and Summit?

http://tinyurl.com/y7bt475g

More new townhomes. The plat can be found on the city development tracker map. They are not being built by the same developer as the ones to the north.

I haven't seen any renderings of them but IIRC they are being designed by NSPJ.

KCtoBrooklyn wrote:

kboish wrote: Plus a 6 story 170 unit apartment complex at 48th and Belleview that I couldn't find any renderings for.

I believe that would be 4711 Belleview:

I was poking around on NSPJ's website and I found these renderings of this project.




It looks like it'll be a very handsome project, aside from the from the dead groundfloor and the now three curbcuts---but hey it is located on a car sewer so what can you expect? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh and I guess its name is Dylan?

Also as an FYI, I found some new and really good looking renderings on NSPJ's 47 Madison tower on their website.

Here's the link to the page (because I'm too lazy to post all of them and I don't want to spam this topic that's probably already gone a little too bit off topic): https://nspjarch.com/portfolio/47-madison/

JLowe2018 wrote:

FangKC wrote:Does anyone know what is being built at 45th and Summit?

http://tinyurl.com/y7bt475g

More new townhomes. The plat can be found on the city development tracker map. They are not being built by the same developer as the ones to the north.

I haven't seen any renderings of them but IIRC they are being designed by NSPJ.

I found a rezoning request for this parcel and it mentions 11 new townhomes.

JLowe2018 wrote:

KCtoBrooklyn wrote:

kboish wrote: Plus a 6 story 170 unit apartment complex at 48th and Belleview that I couldn't find any renderings for.

I believe that would be 4711 Belleview:

I was poking around on NSPJ's website and I found these renderings of this project.




It looks like it'll be a very handsome project, aside from the from the dead groundfloor and the now three curbcuts---but hey it is located on a car sewer so what can you expect? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh and I guess its name is Dylan?

Don't know if this project is dead or not, but the renderings above can no longer be found on NSPJ's website. Any updates on this project?