Troost developments

[flyingember]

ALWAYS want to put 311 tickets in for issues. Even if they don't do something more tickets and more people reporting gets tracked and gets used when determining what work to do.

[rxlexi]

ALWAYS want to put 311 tickets in for issues. Even if they don't do something more tickets and more people reporting gets tracked and gets used when determining what work to do.

Thanks for this. Duly noted.

[chaglang]

This is so sad. Not sure why there isn't a better system in place to, at a minimum, require/incentivize upkeep on structures like this. An impending building collapse is a potential public safety issue - would like to see more regular inspections and heftier fines for lack of upkeep in these situations.

On another note - I continue to be amazed that Troost is such a dead-zone for any kind of retail development. I keep waiting for something along the lines of a mini STL Cherokee Street kind of vibe to pop up somewhere - maybe 31st, maybe nearer Hyde Park, maybe by Mike's and the universities. But there has just been zero movement in any of these areas, at least that I'm aware of.

There's a bit of movement, but it's small. When we did the Overlay we studies the population density in a radius around Armour and Troost and found that it's well in excess of getting retail in there. So that's probably going to be the first place to develop. The secondary issue is with dilapidated buildings and landlords who don't want to rent because it's easier to do nothing. Overcoming both of those is a challenge. All that said, there are developments in the works at 24th, 27th, 30th, 31st, Linwood (maaaaaaybe), and Armour.

[flyingember]

wait until you see what the 2017 reassessment does. The last two years saw a lot in this area.

A lot of deadbeat owners won't want to pay more in taxes for empty buildings. They'll sell or they'll not pay and start the process to lose their property.

It's one reason why every new development hurts some but helps more. The colonnades on 27th should bump the area in value over what was/wasn't there even partially finished. The new homes north of 25th. New Beacon Hill homes, etc, etc.

It's a chicken/egg cycle. Unfortunately the city needs higher selling prices along Troost to bring new homes which brings more shopping money to the area before too much more will want to come.

Look at Briarcliff/Crestview/NKC. Higher income residents brings benefits for everyone in the area.

[chaglang]

Yeah, I honestly hope that happens. The taxes over here are so stupid cheap that it wouldn't surprise me if they doubled and landlords still sat on them.

[JBmidtown]

wait until you see what the 2017 reassessment does. The last two years saw a lot in this area.

A lot of deadbeat owners won't want to pay more in taxes for empty buildings. They'll sell or they'll not pay and start the process to lose their property.

It's one reason why every new development hurts some but helps more. The colonnades on 27th should bump the area in value over what was/wasn't there even partially finished. The new homes north of 25th. New Beacon Hill homes, etc, etc.

It's a chicken/egg cycle. Unfortunately the city needs higher selling prices along Troost to bring new homes which brings more shopping money to the area before too much more will want to come.

Look at Briarcliff/Crestview/NKC. Higher income residents brings benefits for everyone in the area.

I would rather see more multifamily infill along Troost to fit in with a retail resurgence than low density single family houses. There's plenty of infill lots not on a major transportation vein in Manheim and Squire parks, etc.

I can attest the some movement happening on Troost (I live on Troost). There's some small retail spaces being restored and advertised for lease at the corner of 41st and Troost. For while I've noticed slow work on the building on the northeast corner of 40th and Troost. Some property owners are moving on properties between 42nd and 43rd. I hope momentum sustains and picks up. A significant retail resurgence/presence on Troost from 27th to 55th would do a lot to bridge the gap between west and east of Troost and attract population to the inner core.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

84 units coming to 30th and Troost. Anyone with a BizJournals account want to provide more details?

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... lofts.html

[flyingember]

It's owned by a director at Foutch Brothers. The ownership address, agent and name all match.

That's a good sign for the project.

[JLowe2018]

84 units coming to 30th and Troost. Anyone with a BizJournals account want to provide more details?

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... lofts.html

Here's the full article copy and pasted:

On a corner of Troost Avenue where Wonder Bread used to be baked and distributed, a local development partnership is cooking up a redevelopment project called Wonder.

Exact Wonder LLC bought the roughly 115,000-square-foot bakery building at the northeast corner of 30th Street and Troost about a year ago and plans to convert 80,000 square feet of it into 84 market-rate apartments. An additional 35,000 square feet will be leased for restaurant, retail and office uses.

The historic bakery building at 30th Street and Troost Avenue is slated to be converted into Wonder, a project featuring 84 apartments plus commercial space.
Enlarge
The historic bakery building at 30th Street and Troost Avenue is slated to be converted… more

ROB ROBERTS | KCBJ

Built for Campbell Baking Co. in 1915 and added onto five times through the years, the long-vacant brick building had attracted few prospective buyers, allowing partners Caleb Buland of Kansas City and Ilan Salzberg of Denver to snap it up for just a little more than $500,000, said their incentives consultant, Bob Mayer of MR Capital Advisors.

But conversion of the historic property, the oldest portion of which predated sliced Wonder Bread by 15 years, is expected to cost nearly $15 million, Mayer said.

Therefore, the developers plan to seek public assistance via a property tax abatement next month from Kansas City’s Planned Industrial Expansion Authority. Mayer said the site is in a PIEA district, meaning the area already has been declared blighted. A financial analysis to determine the size of the financing gap the developers need to fill via the abatement already is underway, he added.

Buland is a partner with Exact Architects and has worked on the design of several historic preservation projects for Foutch Brothers LLC and other developers, Mayer said.

Elizabeth Rosin of Rosin Preservation completed the research necessary to get the so-called Campbell-Continental Baking Co. Building listed on the National Register of Historic Places earlier this year, making its redevelopment eligible for state and federal historic tax credit financing, as well.

Campbell Baking moved its headquarters to the corner of 30th and Troost in 1915 and expanded its plant there in 1922. During the same year, the company became part of the United Bakeries Corp., which became part of the Continental Baking Corp. in 1925, Rosin said.

Campbell Baking retained its original name and continued to produce some of its locally recognized baked foods under Continental’s ownership. But the 30th and Troost plant was used largely to produce Continental products, which included the signature Hostess and Wonder Bread brands it obtained via the 1925 acquisition of Indianapolis-based Taggart Baking Co.

In 1995, Kansas City-based Interstate Bakeries Corp. acquired Continental and took over its facilities, including the building at 30th and Troost, where manufacturing continued until the plant was shut down in 1997.

Mayer said the repurposing of the property as Wonder will add to the development momentum that’s been building along Troost — Kansas City’s former racial dividing line.

With nearby redevelopment projects like those at Beacon Hill and the intersection of Armour Boulevard and Troost, the area is starting to resemble the Crossroads Arts District in its fledgling days, Mayer said.

Located adjacent to Kansas City Public Schools' new administrative offices, Wonder will be a trendy project that millennials will want to be a part of, he added.

Close to workplaces like Hospital Hill and entertainment hot spots like Martini Corner, the project will include one- through three-bedroom units with surface and structured parking and lots of amenities.

"The building will feature large loft apartments with huge windows, boutique commercial/retail spaces on the corner of 30th Street, and an artisan and services business incubator," Buland said. "Amenities will include indoor secured parking, large outdoor patios, a green rooftop, public fitness club and the mixed-use services on site.

"I think we are the first major construction on that block in 30 years, and we can’t wait to break ground."

The developers hope to start construction before the end of the year and have units ready for occupancy by late summer or early fall next year.

They had a couple renderings that didn't show too much of the project but I couldn't get them to post on here.

[macnw]

Hopefully they can integrate some resources for the neighborhood. Doesn't make sense to just plop down overpriced apts, even if along Troost. Maybe something like a farmers market could help improve relationships within the area.

[flyingember]

Hopefully they can integrate some resources for the neighborhood. Doesn't make sense to just plop down overpriced apts, even if along Troost. Maybe something like a farmers market could help improve relationships within the area.

So you want them to tear down part of the building?

[JBmidtown]

Hopefully they can integrate some resources for the neighborhood. Doesn't make sense to just plop down overpriced apts, even if along Troost. Maybe something like a farmers market could help improve relationships within the area.

So you want them to tear down part of the building?

or maybe use part of the surface parking lot directly south?

I have a feeling that the more projects that come online like this on Troost, the more people that were previously saying they want to see more investment in the east side (and thus blocked TIF for projects in the Crossroads) will change their stance and call all development on the east side "gentrification" (even if the project isn't forcing anyone out of their homes because KC has nowhere near the density to see block busting gentrification). They'll do this because at the end of the day they have to exploit and exacerbate class and race tensions in KC to keep their political careers intact.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I have a feeling that the more projects that come online like this on Troost, the more people that were previously saying they want to see more investment in the east side (and thus blocked TIF for projects in the Crossroads) will change their stance and call all development on the east side "gentrification" (even if the project isn't forcing anyone out of their homes because KC has nowhere near the density to see block busting gentrification). They'll do this because at the end of the day they have to exploit and exacerbate class and race tensions in KC to keep their political careers intact.

People in the East Side are already saying this about every project going on, including the urban baseball academy which is in a park. So, yes, every project that isn't exclusively affordable housing or some sort of neighborhood-only business incubator will be considered gentrification. And, don't forget that they can only use construction firms from the East Side that only employ people from the East Side to build it.

[FangKC]

Doesn't the Nazarene Publishing House, that owned this former bakery building, also own a lot of other properties in the area that can now also be redeveloped (surface lots, grass areas)?

Does NPH still operate in one of the remaining properties?

[chaglang]

Believe the Nazarines sold all their holdings on Troost to the KCMSD.

I'm not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that HUD has moved away from supporting affordable-only buildings in favor of mixed affordable/market buildings. Any truth to that? IIRC New York City has/had something like an 80/20 market/affordable program.

In February, Governing Magazine ran a study and article on gentrification (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/censu ... eport.html). By their methodology, only a few census tracts in KCMO were gentrifying: some Northeast and the South Hyde Park tract. IIRC all the tracts west of Troost had either already gentrified or were in the process. Every tract east of Troost/south of Indy Ave were still eligible to gentrify (meaning it hadn't happened yet) and none were in the process of doing so. These were based on 2010 census numbers, so the 2016 reality may look different.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I know the school district at least bought the empty lots at 29th and Harrison. They asked Longfellow what the neighborhood would want built from developers.

Here were the top responses from an online survey:
1) Single Family Homes - # of votes 29, 13%
2) Mixed Use (Residential Units & Retail) - # of votes 22, 10%
3) Mixed Use (Residential & Community Services) - # of votes 22, 10%
4) Shared studio space for independent artists - # of votes 19, 8%
5) Restaurant - # of votes 17, 7%

EDIT: I forgot to mention that people could select 6 items out of probably about 20 options. So, the 22 votes for the two mixed use options are probably the exact same people.

[cubsmike33]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... pdate.html

Chicago-based Antheus Acquisitions LLC was granted redevelopment rights for properties at Armour Boulevard and Troost Avenue on Thursday after presenting a plan to dilute its project risk by stacking four stories of apartments over new retail at all four corners of the blighted intersection.

The redevelopment rights were granted to Antheus, a partnership affiliated with MAC Properties, by the board of the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority.

The PIEA recently voted to use its power of eminent domain to acquire three parcels at or near Armour and Troost for a catalytic public-private project that also will involve sites that the PIEA and MAC Properties already own.

[FangKC]

The article gives the impression that they plan to demolish the market building on the SW corner of the intersection, which I thought was going to be preserved.



I approve adding that number of new apartments to that intersection. It will hopefully begin the process of developers being willing to do projects east of Troost. I would prefer they build around the market building though, and save it.



The City needs to concentrate on the major intersections along Troost. If we can get those developed, I think the in-between blocks will fill in as well. If we could get a developer to create new housing at Troost and Linwood, and Troost and Brush Creek, with what is already happening on Beacon Hill, I think the Troost barrier can be broken.

I think there is a market for new apartments to serve UMKC students and staff, and Hospital Hill workers.

And it can. I will give an example. When I moved to the East Village of New York City, I was advised not to rent in Alphabet City, which consists of the area between 14th Street and Houston and avenues A-D. In many respects, it was dangerous and had empty buildings occupied by squatters and rampant drug dealing. This was in the early 90s.

The area:

http://tinyurl.com/jkdq3rv

It was mostly gay men who ventured first into renting in Alphabet City at first. Now it has been gentrified, and is a mixed neighborhood with long-term residents in rent-controlled buildings and a lot professional people paying high rents.

Now a new Target store is being built along 14th Street near Avenue A.

http://ny.curbed.com/2016/8/1/12340774/ ... rification

[Cheffreygo]

I work closely with a nonprofit who has been attempting to buy and rehab the old Firestone building at Linwood and Troost (the "Great Deals" building on the NE corner) to use as its headquarters. They were originally looking to relocate from their current non-KCMO HQ by November, but in negotiations for the building and in doing due diligence, they found many significant structural problems with the building and its garage that are complicating things. Apparently they have donors and city reps that really want this deal to happen, so it's not "dead", but currently on hold until they can figure out if the building can be saved. Meanwhile, they're moving into the city, but not to as prominent of a location until they can work through these complications in hopes of eventually rehabbing the building.

Apparently the building has some sort of ramp that allows cars to be driven to and parked on all levels of the building. The current owner reportedly has accumulated a massive amount of inventory, so even getting through the building to find all of the flaws has been a challenge.

If this ends up happening, it will add to the positive developments along this section of Troost.

[chaglang]

Quick roundup:
Haven't seen the proposal for apartments at 30th yet, but I hear very positive things about the developer. Believe that's the developer who will be getting 3200 Gillham from Land Bank.

Fang, you're not alone in wondering about that building at the SE corner of Armour and Troost. The renderings from PIEA are actually much older, and predate the neighborhoods asking MAC if they could PLEASE save the building. A friend at MAC made it clear that no decision has been made on that existing building.

Linwood and Troost is insane right now. There are at least two developers and an unknown number of individual buyers jockeying for buildings/land in the 3100 block of Troost, and on Linwood between Campbell and Forest. The trick is sorting out who is legitimate and who isn't (think multiple people claiming to have contracts on the same building), but it's a nice problem to finally have.

If nobody's driven past 40th and Troost lately, go have a look. Oliver Abnos, for all his many faults, has got that building looking good. Don't think the interiors are finished yet. But there are windows in the building for the first time in the 30+ years I can remember looking at it.

The 27th and Troost project seems to be back, which is also good news. And I guess the hotel is going to go in at 24th, but that's been out of the news for a while.

The only disappointment is that there's been zero movement in new tenants in many of the commercial buildings. All of the new money is coming in the form of big projects.