KCRag Forum

Berger Devine Yaeger architects has left Uptown Theater for Overland Park

Berger Devine Yaeger architects has left the historic Uptown Theater in midtown for Overland Park.

"We had simply outgrown our space," Carl Yaeger, the firm?s president, said in a statement.

The 50-employee firm now occupies 20,000 square feet in a building formerly used by the Internal Revenue Service at 7780 W. 119th St., near the Rosana Square Shopping Center. The building had been vacant since 2007.

Its previous digs were upstairs at the Uptown, at Broadway and Valentine Road.

Their style will change from inspired, urban design to bland badge boxes...

Uptown TIF- the worst one in the city, if not the country.

Yuck, I just looked at their website.  They were already into badge boxes.

They designed Village West and some Casinos.  Sucks to loose any company to JOCO...but it's not like El Dorado is leaving

http://bergerdevineyaeger.com/index.html

Well, OP landed a longtime midtown architecture firm and their 50 employess.

Berger Devine had been in Missouri for 36 years, but Kansas development officials made it ?very attractive? for the firm to relocate,

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1405972.html

But just to keep things even and justify this move to all you Kansas supporters.   KCMO got the other half of a QuikTrip on SW Blvd....

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1405654.html


If this doesn't sum up the last 40 years of development in KC.  I don't know what does.

Architecture firm being discussed here:  http://forum.kcrag.com/index.php?topic=16074.0

The QT move is not insignificant since it is largely motivated by wanting to pay KCMO taxes rather than WyCo.  I wager the city of KCMO sees more economic benefit from the QT moving a few feet to the left than OP sees from the 50 architects - half of whom probably already live there.  

Neither move is really significant on a grand scale of things, but my point was how ironic the two stories are and how it really does fit the overall pattern of business migration in metro KC.

KCMO gets sales taxes from a convenience store and KS gets 50 high paid employees and the status symbol of having another white collar business located there.  Plus incentives were used to move from KS to MO.

Sounds like a pretty fair deal to me.

The moral of the story is that if you multiply this out by the 1000's, it does make a major impact and pretty much desribes the economic MO-KS migration over the past several decades.

Y'all think the sales taxes on cigarettes outweighs earnings taxes on 50 highly paid professionals?

Remember, the day after local leaders unveiled the One KC campaign we learned that Quintiles was getting tax breaks to move hundreds of jobs from KCMO to Overland Park.  Funny how when a suburbs sticks up for itself it's considered good-natured competition, but when KCMO sticks up for itself it's considered divisive and in poor taste.

As long as businesses and cities have incentives to do this, it will continue.

dangerboy wrote: Y'all think the sales taxes on cigarettes outweighs earnings taxes on 50 highly paid professionals?

I suspect the sales of tobacco, booze, and gasoline alone at that location probably yield a very eye-popping tax base.  Volume probably stands to improve that much more when the missouri gas prices start popping up on the sign.

I really struggle with companies like this moving to the suburbs. Don't they have problems recruiting bright creative class candidates? Do people really not care about driving to the 'burbs?

staubio wrote: I really struggle with companies like this moving to the suburbs. Don't they have problems recruiting bright creative class candidates?

not necessarily.  plenty of architects and other members of the "creative class" live in JoCo or places like it. 

staubio wrote: Do people really not care about driving to the 'burbs?

perhaps not - especially if they already live there. 

chrizow wrote: not necessarily.  plenty of architects and other members of the "creative class" live in JoCo or places like it. 

perhaps not - especially if they already live there. 

Exactly - given the relativly tiny core population in KC, simple statistics would have to lead towards a probability that the vast majority of the creative class in KC does indeed reside in the burbs. 

staubio wrote: I really struggle with companies like this moving to the suburbs. Don't they have problems recruiting bright creative class candidates? Do people really not care about driving to the 'burbs?

Right now people live in the urban core is such a minority of employees at most suburban companies, that I don't think it makes a big difference.  For every employee who complains about College Blvd. being too far from Downtown, the probably have three employees complaining that it's too far from Gardner or Harrisonville.

sometimes in this echo chamber it's easy to forget that a 15-minute auto commute is completely A-OK with 99% of kansas citians, including most members of the "creative class."  not everyone regards a suburban workplace as a soul-crushing, dehumanizing proposition.  

staubio wrote: I really struggle with companies like this moving to the suburbs. Don't they have problems recruiting bright creative class candidates? Do people really not care about driving to the 'burbs?

Many creative firms such as architects and advertising,etc... have made the decision to locate in the downtown area/urban core, so as to provide ready access to the candidate pool from all areas of the metro, in a somewhat equal manner.  Many of them have sought out cool facilities such as lofts, or ultra moderns, to make themselves attractive to those same potential employees.

There are other firms that are run by selfish dicks that just want to move their offices closer to their home in the burbs and shorten their own commute.

We can go around and around this discussion, but it fundamentally comes down to what do you do when you have kids?  At some point in the large majority of people's lives -- even architect's lives -- they reach a point where they have to ask themselves "where is little Ruby going to go to school?"  We've had lots of discussion here about the quality and relative merits of KCMO's charter schools and lower-cost private schools.  And I personally am frustrated by the vicious circle of "only people who don't care about their kids' education send their kids to KCMO schools" therefore "only people who don't care about their kids' education send their kids to KCMO schools." 

But the fact remains that even lower-cost private schools are a bite and many people are not willing to take a risk on their children's education and therefore future, by stepping out and being educational reformers.  They want a school that they know will be good that will not be an arm-and-a-leg.  It is not inconceivable that an architect or a graphic designer or some other creative type might run the numbers and figure out that for the price of biting the bullet, adding 30-45 minutes a day in their car, and moving to the suburbs, they can maybe afford to send their kids to college. 

It's a terrible set-up and I wish people didn't have to (or feel like they had to) make the choice between living in the urban core and living in the suburbs.  Until they get the school district mess fixed, though, it will be part of the circle of life.  Just be glad that Roeland Park, Mission, and Fairway are still an option.

loftguy wrote: There are other firms that are run by selfish dicks that just want to move their offices closer to their home in the burbs and shorten their own commute.

You should take your blinders, and your blindfold, off.  You make an assumption that "all" creative types want an urban lifestyle.  But evidently there are creative types that are not solely urban-minded with regards to a lifestyle or even regards to workplace.  This country, region and city are made up of all different types in all the generations.

GRID wrote: Neither move is really significant on a grand scale of things, but my point was how ironic the two stories are and how it really does fit the overall pattern of business migration in metro KC.

KCMO gets sales taxes from a convenience store and KS gets 50 high paid employees and the status symbol of having another white collar business located there.  Plus incentives were used to move from KS to MO.

Sounds like a pretty fair deal to me.

The moral of the story is that if you multiply this out by the 1000's, it does make a major impact and pretty much desribes the economic MO-KS migration over the past several decades.

When you move to the DC area please keep us informed of the businesses shifting in the area and the economic incentives involved.

As they say, "All is fair in love and war".  And I would add "economic development".  Yes, incentives are tossed around like rolls at Lambert's but I would rather have the rolls instead of the incentives.