KCRag Forum

At least we got 931 parking spots out of the deal. Even if they don't build the building at least the parking structure is nearly complete. That should make it so much easier to safely park downtown.






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smh wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:49 pm At least we got 931 parking spots out of the deal. Even if they don't build the building at least the parking structure is nearly complete. That should make it so much easier to safely park downtown.






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May be the street car racers can use it as some sort of indoor, multi-level drift track.

DColeKC wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:24 pm

smh wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:49 pm At least we got 931 parking spots out of the deal. Even if they don't build the building at least the parking structure is nearly complete. That should make it so much easier to safely park downtown.






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May be the street car racers can use it as some sort of indoor, multi-level drift track.

The building will be completed as planned. No Waddell and Reed, but in due time, a tenant will reside there.

shinatoo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 2:13 pm SO a shitty building that has too much parking, no street interaction, that tore down an existing building that we just all held our noses on because of the potential for high paying earnings tax revenue is going to be empty.

Is that the development equivliant of getting a "top shelf"?

The development agencies on both sides of state line need to be more cognizant of the long range viability of the companies they are dealing with. Waddell Reed was in rough shape before the downtown deal. Applebees was another company that was telescoping their likely departure and still got incentives 2011 (gone by 2015). Overall, the metro has had some bad fails with incentives.

I was always nervous about any deal that involved Waddell & Reed.

We can hope that they can find another tenant in time.

FangKC wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:38 am I was always nervous about any deal that involved Waddell & Reed.

We can hope that they can find another tenant in time.

This may have already been covered, but were there any corporate guarantors for the development/leasing of the building? If the payments are still flowing from somewhere, that should be good enough to keep this project solvent while incentivizing the search for new tenants.

snigglefritz wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:16 am

FangKC wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:38 am I was always nervous about any deal that involved Waddell & Reed.

We can hope that they can find another tenant in time.

This may have already been covered, but were there any corporate guarantors for the development/leasing of the building? If the payments are still flowing from somewhere, that should be good enough to keep this project solvent while incentivizing the search for new tenants.

There may have been, but they weren't in the ordinances

The payments that I saw were coming from the e-tax paid by the company.

kcexpress wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:33 am The building will be completed as planned. No Waddell and Reed, but in due time, a tenant will reside there.

The situations are different but this is giving me Sprint Center flashbacks.

chaglang wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:14 pm

kcexpress wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:33 am The building will be completed as planned. No Waddell and Reed, but in due time, a tenant will reside there.

The situations are different but this is giving me Sprint Center flashbacks.

At least we make money from Sprint Center?

Yeah the arena is a highly profitable activity center.

well hopefully we can find a new company or multiple companies who would like to move. I'm happy to hear it will continue to be built. This along with some of the other recent plans, recent as in 2019 planned, will come to fruition as soon as possible. Let's hope or economic leaders are looking to grab talent from outside the metro and focus on using this news to drum up business from outside our hometown. This was the last of the "border war" deals. I think the focus has shifted to getting companies from outside the region to look here, but also develop & cultivate businesses that started in our area to build them into bigger & better entities.

According to the mayor, the new owners of W&R are still contractually obligated to lease the building or sublease it. I’m going to guess a settlement is reached that will involve a pile of cash going to the developer as a lease buyout and it buying them time to shop the building.

This entire situation will likely push back the Strata project months or years.

It could be a net positive if it shows spec works downtown. Looking for any glass half full here.

so are all of the W&R jobs being cut in KC? I assume of those jobs will be left. Why wouldn't the new company want to occupy, even a part of the building and take advantage of the incentives they will have on the table now? True it may be better to find a major tenant to lease the finished building but I would think there might be a way to use the building, get their incentives on the jobs being in KCMO, and generate revenue off leasing other parts of the building. Maybe it does not work that way but just reading the various news outlets on this it appears there will be options

WoodDraw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:51 pm It could be a net positive if it shows spec works downtown. Looking for any glass half full here.

This will be a great test for downtown spec space with notable long term uncertainty (like what % of WFH sticks long term). Hard to say what could happen but if it's not say 50%-75% leased up after completed, we probably won't see more spec space downtown for a while. OTOH, great sign if it leases up before completed.

On W&R, a bigger concern is if there will be a loss of higher income employees over the next year+. The KC economy is better than US avg in many ways and appears to be recovering faster than US but one big problem indicator that stands out is that KC metro's per capita GDP is well below US avg, has been for a decade. KC being on the losing side of mergers/acquisitions is likely part of the problem. STL has same issue, per capita GMP is even lower than KC despite several F500 companies. I think only retirement heavy metros are lower than STL (Miami, Tampa, Vegas).

snigglefritz wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:16 am

FangKC wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:38 am I was always nervous about any deal that involved Waddell & Reed.

We can hope that they can find another tenant in time.

This may have already been covered, but were there any corporate guarantors for the development/leasing of the building? If the payments are still flowing from somewhere, that should be good enough to keep this project solvent while incentivizing the search for new tenants.

The Business Journal reports that, per a city spokesperson, W&R is obligated to either lease or sublease the space.

earthling wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:09 pm

WoodDraw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:51 pm It could be a net positive if it shows spec works downtown. Looking for any glass half full here.

This will be a great test for downtown spec space with notable long term uncertainty (like what % of WFH sticks long term). Hard to say what could happen but if it's not say 50%-75% leased up after completed, we probably won't see more spec space downtown for a while. OTOH, great sign if it leases up before completed.

This is my hope. If the now spec building leases quickly maybe Copaken will start pulling the trigger on some of their proposals without huge pre-build lease commitments (twisty tower in particular). I’m a bit worried that covid will decrease office space needs for quite some time though.

generally best to take an opposing party's comments to the media about someone else's contractual obligations with a grain of salt.

The city is an opposing party?