KCRag Forum

So do you think they are moving the panels that the mural is painted on the cover the garage!!? or is that just a rendering thing? Or maybe it will be repainted?

Midtownkid wrote:So do you think they are moving the panels that the mural is painted on the cover the garage!!? or is that just a rendering thing? Or maybe it will be repainted?

However they do it, I like it!

When will someone besides cordish build a new tower downtown

Well, it will add some public parking in the garage as well. That's part of the deal is that it will be public garage.

I wish Cordish would design and built Four Light to wrap around the Mainstreet Theater. It would fill up a vacant lot, as well as provide a little visual difference in the building shape--distinguishing it from the others by being an L-shaped building. I would like to see a retail space on Main past the Mainstreet Theater as well.

If the lower part of the building will be the garage facade, it might be neat to install big electronic LED billboards covering the garage part of both the Two and Three Light buildings. It would add some visual variety and activity to the Truman Road frontage. It would also enhance the Power & Light aspect to the district in that it would provide stimulating visual stimulus and the sense of destination. It would be all for this is part of the advertising revenue went to reduce the City's bond deficit for Power & Light. Maybe a big news zipper would be cool as well.

FangKC wrote:If the lower part of the building will be the garage facade, it might be neat to install big electronic LED billboards covering the garage part of both the Two and Three Light buildings. It would add some visual variety and activity to the Truman Road frontage. It would also enhance the Power & Light aspect to the district in that it would provide stimulating visual stimulus and the sense of destination. It would be all for this is part of the advertising revenue went to reduce the City's bond deficit for Power & Light. Maybe a big news zipper would be cool as well.

Maybe... some flying people animations?

No, obscure French films.

The building may look pretty similar to One Light, but I believe that it has a different architect. One Light was designed by Humphreys and Partners in Dallas. The rendering of the common area for Two Light has part of the logotype for an architectural firm called SlaterPaull | Hord | Coplan | Macht out of Baltimore.

KCDowntown

Not tall enough,design sucks, looks lke it blongs at 159 and black bob, wasted opportunity, not enough ground floor retail or not the right ground floor retail, poor materials, looks like prison/projects, needs sky floor retail, wish there was no parking included, should be a different color glass, don't like the signage, should have bike lanes instead of elevators, kcragcetera.

Apologies. Yes, I mistook the capped 670 for that old parking lot.

If there are this many truly willing to pay over $2/sqft, this should attract more hirise developers downtown. Would hope downtown council/boosters are getting the message out to outside developers.

Benjamin said the project was accelerated by the high demand for apartments at One Light. More than 1,500 people have signed the building's waiting list, he said, and 35 percent of the apartments are fully pre-leased. The first tenants will begin moving in seven months from now.

Construction of the new apartment building is expected to begin in early 2016 and be complete in early 2018.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

This place is going to have killer views of downtown. It sits back just far enough to the south to give a panoramic view. No wonder the design, as a block wide, fronts the skyline. A good use of the top of the garage as an outdoor space. Noticed the angle at the top mirrors the wedge look of the KC star building behind it.

you can't please everyone. replacing a surface lot in a highly visible location with 300 residential units which is 83% privately paid, public parking so yet more people will come downtown, it's one of the tallest buildings in the city and will by itself increase the downtown population by 2%

Agree completely.

Interesting that the office space is "required" for the use of incentives - I was hoping it was already spoken for, and would represent at least a small amount of demand for new Class A space downtown. That is really the next frontier.

Sure, any use of incentive can and should be called into question

Here however, is classic 'oh ain't it gawd-awful' Yael. I swear he would manage to complain about a wet dream.

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-c ... 05788.html

rxlexi wrote:
Interesting that the office space is "required" for the use of incentives - I was hoping it was already spoken for, and would represent at least a small amount of demand for new Class A space downtown. That is really the next frontier.

That and capping the loop. And extending the streetcar. And higher occupancy on the east side. ..and bus shelters

As discussed in other threads... The incentives and long term City maintenance for this project are likely small potatoes compared to the 30-50 year City maintenance of a sprawled 300 single family home development. Factor cost of city to maintain sewer, water, roads, lighting, etc to a one block 300 unit hirise for 30+ years and it's likely tiny compared to same count in sprawled suburbia. Would love to see a CBA comparing the two over 30+ years.

I support incentives for infrastructure (including parking if also includes public spaces) but beyond that, now that new buildings are successfully leasing at over $2/sqft (a major milestone for downtown housing momentum) and 1500 people on waiting list for luxury units, hirise developers should be able to fund the rest themselves at this point. The city doesn't need to artificially entice developers anymore with incentives with apparent growing demand for $2sq/ft luxury units downtown. Developers should be wanting to get in on the action now. The downtown boosters need to get the word out to hirise residential developers across country about the demand, not dangle incentives anymore (outside infrastructure help).

earthling wrote:As discussed in other threads... The incentives and long term City maintenance for this project are likely small potatoes compared to the 30-50 year City maintenance of a sprawled 300 single family home development. Factor cost of city to maintain sewer, water, roads, lighting, etc to a one block 300 unit hirise for 30+ years and it's likely tiny compared to same count in sprawled suburbia. Would love to see a CBA comparing the two over 30+ years.

I support incentives for infrastructure (including parking if also includes public spaces) but beyond that, now that new buildings are successfully leasing at over $2/sqft (a major milestone for downtown housing momentum) and 1500 people on waiting list for luxury units, hirise developers should be able to fund the rest themselves at this point. The city doesn't need to artificially entice developers anymore with incentives with apparent growing demand for $2sq/ft luxury units downtown. Developers should be wanting to get in on the action now. The downtown boosters need to get the word out to hirise residential developers across country about the demand, not dangle incentives anymore (outside infrastructure help).

I believe the city is already contractually obligated to provide these incentives. These were locked in ten years ago if I'm not mistaken.

I agree with pretty much everything you say though.

The mayor said recently that half the new projects that have been announced since 2013, or are being built, are being done without city incentives. So we are slowly getting there--at least with smaller projects.

High-rise residential is a different animal though, and it may continue to require various types of city incentives, because it's so much more expensive to build than three or four story apartment buildings. However, in the long run, as Earthling stated, it's much a more efficient type of housing when you factor in long-term city costs.

However, as far as high-rise residential goes, as a city we can't really support that many high-rise apartment buildings. This is mostly the case because we are encouraging parking garages be built with the project as opposed to a high- or mid-rise with a surface parking lot. We are a lower-cost residential market. Rents are very cheap here compared to other larger cities. There are only so many people that can afford to pay higher rents here.

Things might be a bit different if more of our higher-paying employers were already downtown. If Cerner were building all their towers near downtown, say in the Paseo West industrial district, and other employers like Garmin, BATS, and Waddell & Reed were already downtown, there would probably be more residents who could pay the higher rents in a high-rise building. So for now, the market will be limited for awhile.

That is not to say that we cannot increase density though in many areas of the city just buy increasing the number of low-rise apartment buildings that are three or four stories, building more row houses and townhouses, and by changing zoning to allow more small "mother-in-law" apartments on existing lots, and in new single family home construction. There are also many situations where we could reduce set-backs from the street to allow residential to front the sidewalk, and free up enough space on the back of the lot to build a second "in-law" apartment or house.

I remain convinced that there needs to be more row and townhouses built on individual lots, but that aren't part of a formal or legal condo or co-op association. This is a situation where you own your individual townhouse or row-house, with shared walls separated by a firewall, and the land under you house. No fees are assessed on your property for common shared maintenance, landscaping, property taxes, insurance, or utilities. I think this would appeal to more people because you wouldn't be forced into a situation where you have to pay association fees, which in many cases increases your monthly financial obligation over your mortgage. I think many people avoid townhouse living for this reason. The other reason is because of lending rules on condo type housing. Many people cannot get financing if the townhouse or condo complex isn't 50 percent owner-occupied. I think many people are forced into buying single family houses because of this. I also think many more people would opt to live in townhouses if they didn't have this obstacle, and if they were required to pay association fees.

Townhouses can be designed to be stand-alone structures. Often townhouses built today aren't. They share a roof, a consistent facade, and grounds. However, in many larger cities, older townhouses don't have this arrangement. They are stand-alone structures sitting side-by-side that front the sidewalk. They are owned individually, and owners take care of their own insurance, taxes, and maintenance. It is easier to purchase townhomes this way because they aren't restricted by condo lending rules.

Townhome owners in condo arrangements often also feel constrained by restrictions imposed on them, and their financial life affected by fee increases, or assessments, that are passed by other property owners in the association.

There are some advancements being made to make taller buildings more affordable to build. Pre-fabricating sections of the building is one method, and in some places, a return to building with wood timber frame construction. If we can bring down the per sq. ft. building cost for high- and mid-rise residential buildings, then they might become a more common solution to rebuilding density in Kansas City.

FangKC wrote: I remain convinced that there needs to be more row and townhouses built on individual lots, but that aren't part of a formal or legal condo or co-op association. This is a situation where you own your individual townhouse or row-house, with shared walls separated by a firewall, and the land under you house. No fees are assessed on your property for common shared maintenance, landscaping, property taxes, insurance, or utilities.

I agree it's time for KC to develop individually owned rowhouse (2-3 level with stoop and perhaps retail half underground like often found in NYC) and not tied to association fee for entire building. However I could see this in Columbus Park, Beacon Hill, Union Hill, W Side, not really the Loop/Xroads. I'm not too crazy about the Quality Hill psuedo-rowhouses, as it could've been denser and more mixed use but was appropriate project for the time and situation.

The Loop needs to Vancouverize as much as it can with hirise residential. I say Vancouver because they kicked into gear with relatively more residential population than workforce in downtown (compared to most cities) when the money from Hong Kong hit. KC obviously not anything like that scale but as long as there is demand for luxury apts, the target should be hirise residential in the loop and the rest will follow. When the Loop residential base improves, the Class A office demand should eventually return (which happened in Vancouver in '90s). The downside for KC is that despite streetcar (even if expanded twice), parking will be required downtown especially for luxury units but once a critical mass hits downtown (30K or so pops), downtown should have enough full services that fewer would need to leave downtown and ZipCar type services would be sufficient to cover weekend errands/suburban trips. Taking the city bus to airport from downtown is fine if you can plan in advance and as downtown pops increase, airport bus should likely run more often.

Downtown will unfortunately still have to cater to the car culture for quite a bit longer, not just for office, residential too. With a big chunk of downtown KC's boost coming from those not accustomed to urban/pedestrian/transit lifestyle, it's going to take a little longer to change. On the flipside, urbanized people from large cities may be even more attracted to downtown KC once critical mass for full services hit - some will likely be less interested in needing a parking spot. Even so, bottom line is that hirise development needs enough garage parking for every unit for foreseeable future. And given garages are expensive, city help for garage is fine if also including public spaces.

I wonder how solid that Cordish wait list is for 1500 luxury units. If true and along with 98% downtown occupancy, that is a very very good driver for more residential hirise if more developers will bite. Downtown boosters need to get the word out about the demand and current vacancy.

Does anyone have recent number of downtown Loop population? Article says 21K for Greater Downtown with another 5K after projects complete but am curious about just the Loop.

Rendering shows some masonry on the projecting part of the northeast end. Hoping this element is repeated on the south elevation to keep it from being just a slab.