KCRag Forum

crazywarriorman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 9:39 pm A larger issue is a majority of Cerner's employee's (especially the ones at this campus) are young professionals or new grads straight out of college. They're young, no families, dealing with student loans, and they sure as hell don't want to buy a house in Raytown. They want apartment living that has amenities and is close to entertainment. The closest thing that offers that would be over the state line in Overland Park. I talked to many people who worked at this campus and none of them lived closer than 15 minutes away.

I've heard from many friends that I worked with at Cerner that they've been relocated to this campus, and that the company planning to sell their Legends building - the Continuous Campus - and move everyone over to the newly completed towers. I assume this is due to MO incentives and minimizing headache with taxes in two different states.

Interesting news but makes sense. Sell an asset you have, that you shouldn't have trouble selling. I'm sure those buildings will find renters, maybe multiple companies and not a single tenant. Does make it easier to keep workforce in one state for taxes, and any incentives. But I think if the HQ is in MO you are considered working for a MO company and don't worry about multi taxes. I might be wrong on that. But overall getting the workforce into those towers may help spur other development. We shall see. I do agree that Cerner being one of the biggest players in the city needs a Downtown presence of some sort. Same with Garmin. Even if it's just Executives and other specific jobs so you can spread them out, would be nice to see major players like that downtown. Let them use there huge campuses for other needs perhaps

Cerner will acquire Kantar Health for almost $400 million.

HQ at 3 World Trade Center. Around 600 employees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantar_Health

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/merger ... h-division

Drove by this a couple of times. Still think it should have been put in the city. Now I think that more than ever because that office space has done nothing for the area.

The towers look nice, but everything around them still looks like shit. The space between the buildings and 435 looks terrible. I don't know if the rest of the campus will be built now or not, but it would be nice if they built some apartments on that land between the campus and the freeway.

Or at the very least turn it into a park or something.

Maybe Whataburger.

^ Maybe Whataburger HQ ?

Maybe it’s not too late to eventually plop some mixed-use at their campus.

Was the suggestion that Cerner should’ve built a downtown tower instead?

So I think the reason why a company like Cerner went to a stupid suburban location is because of their mindset- they’re ultra-conservative. They don’t like urban areas. Those types of people are dead set on “wherever the tax break is the lowest, I shall go.” They don’t think of modern things like where the young people would want to work, or better yet what would be good for the community. They think in antiquated terms like everyone is still rushing for the suburbs like it’s the 1950’s. Garmin may have been the same way. It always angered me that our biggest company has straight up neglected downtown when they could save it.

Really curious if the new Price Chopper being built in the shell of the old K-Mart on the south side of Bannister actually makes it. There is an extremely sketchy Price Chopper at Blue Ridge and Bannister that looks like a fortress (which I assume the new one will replace, further eroding the Blue Ridge corrider). The Cerner campus looks completely out of place in this area...

AlkaliAxel wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 12:28 pm Maybe it’s not too late to eventually plop some mixed-use at their campus.

Was the suggestion that Cerner should’ve built a downtown tower instead?

So I think the reason why a company like Cerner went to a stupid suburban location is because of their mindset- they’re ultra-conservative. They don’t like urban areas. Those types of people are dead set on “wherever the tax break is the lowest, I shall go.” They don’t think of modern things like where the young people would want to work, or better yet what would be good for the community. They think in antiquated terms like everyone is still rushing for the suburbs like it’s the 1950’s. Garmin may have been the same way. It always angered me that our biggest company has straight up neglected downtown when they could save it.

This is the dumbest thing I've read that you've ever posted. Many of the tallest towers in the world were built by the conservatives that you seem to fear and loathe. Cerner built where it did because they were given over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds to do so. It's literally that simple.

im2kull wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:44 am

AlkaliAxel wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 12:28 pm Maybe it’s not too late to eventually plop some mixed-use at their campus.

Was the suggestion that Cerner should’ve built a downtown tower instead?

So I think the reason why a company like Cerner went to a stupid suburban location is because of their mindset- they’re ultra-conservative. They don’t like urban areas. Those types of people are dead set on “wherever the tax break is the lowest, I shall go.” They don’t think of modern things like where the young people would want to work, or better yet what would be good for the community. They think in antiquated terms like everyone is still rushing for the suburbs like it’s the 1950’s. Garmin may have been the same way. It always angered me that our biggest company has straight up neglected downtown when they could save it.

This is the dumbest thing I've read that you've ever posted. Many of the tallest towers in the world were built by the conservatives that you seem to fear and loathe. Cerner built where it did because they were given over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds to do so. It's literally that simple.

Thank you!

I'm really not understanding the big deal about Whataburger. It's just another run of the mill fast food chain. KC already has just about every fast food chain. More fast food chains are in the KC market than most. I think KC needs to set is bar a little higher lol.

Seriously build that area out between the office buildings and 435 with market rate apartments. Multi billion dollar development and so far it has spurred a taco bell. Jesus.

GRID wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:38 am I'm really not understanding the big deal about Whataburger. It's just another run of the mill fast food chain. KC already has just about every fast food chain. More fast food chains are in the KC market than most. I think KC needs to set is bar a little higher lol.

Seriously build that area out between the office buildings and 435 with market rate apartments. Multi billion dollar development and so far it has spurred a taco bell. Jesus.

The development is progressing as I expected (a complete lack of any 3rd party follow-up investment). KCMO doesn't understand the concept of critical mass. As much as I do not like the Legends area, KCK did a much better job at creating a critical mass than I've ever seen happen KCMO. Had they simply ended up with a NASCAR track, the results would have been the same as Cerner in SE KC. But they were able to line up NASCAR, a shopping center, Cabella's, NFM, a couple of sports stadiums, a Cerner office, restaurants, hotels etc..... They had a lot of luck, geography (access to Johnson County) and state support on their side and I am not especially fond of the place but it has been relatively successful.

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 12:16 pm

GRID wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:38 am I'm really not understanding the big deal about Whataburger. It's just another run of the mill fast food chain. KC already has just about every fast food chain. More fast food chains are in the KC market than most. I think KC needs to set is bar a little higher lol.

Seriously build that area out between the office buildings and 435 with market rate apartments. Multi billion dollar development and so far it has spurred a taco bell. Jesus.

The development is progressing as I expected (a complete lack of any 3rd party follow-up investment). KCMO doesn't understand the concept of critical mass. As much as I do not like the Legends area, KCK did a much better job at creating a critical mass than I've ever seen happen KCMO. Had they simply ended up with a NASCAR track, the results would have been the same as Cerner in SE KC. But they were able to line up NASCAR, a shopping center, Cabella's, NFM, a couple of sports stadiums, a Cerner office, restaurants, hotels etc..... They had a lot of luck, geography (access to Johnson County) and state support on their side and I am not especially fond of the place but it has been relatively successful.

So true. I have always thought that is was a good thing the nascar track did not go up by the airport. It would have done far more harm than good by actually slowing growth in Platte County up there.

The stars aligned for KCK (and so did "star" bonds lol). There is no reason for KCMO to publicly fund millions of sq ft of retail by KCI or even by the sports complex when there is already retail in those areas. Wyandotte County was super underserved and like you said, they have much of JoCo to pull from too. You have to give KCK credit for what they did. They took advantage of a situation. It's just too bad they couldn't leverage some of it for development in the actual existing parts of the city east of 635. They put EVERYTHING out there by the speedway.

The Cerner campus was a joke from day one. I too have screamed about that forever. The city should have forced Cerner to do a better design for the amount of money they are getting. To have a secured, walled off single use office campus there does NOTHING for the area. It doesn't even aesthetically look better because the surroundings are so bad. It's like flowers sprouting out of an overgrown lot.

Cerner could have changed the entire image of South KC with that project with a mixed use development that embraced the community and gave the community a fresh new start. Instead SKC got a massive parking lot with pretty towers in the middle that you can't even get within a mile of unless you work there.

One of the largest corporate welfare projects in the history of the USA and it's by far the worst implemented from an urban planning perspective.

GRID wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:38 am I'm really not understanding the big deal about Whataburger. It's just another run of the mill fast food chain. KC already has just about every fast food chain. More fast food chains are in the KC market than most. I think KC needs to set is bar a little higher lol.

Seriously build that area out between the office buildings and 435 with market rate apartments. Multi billion dollar development and so far it has spurred a taco bell. Jesus.

Actually, it would be one of the VERY few fast food places that is open 24 hrs you can go to. You wouldn’t believe how annoying it is to get some drive-thru food around here if you’re awake past 10-11pm at night.

But I think the main reason is because of the exclusivity. You hear about it all the time in the south more than almost any food place but never get to use. Only a few can have it, and we’re one of them now. And that’s not something that KC usually ever gets. So I get that people are excited for that too. I tried it in Phoenix this year and thought it was great.

Different parts of the country have mostly the same stuff but some different. I really feel like KC has almost everything now except In and Out and White Castle.

Here in the DC area we don't have half the fast food chains KC has and the few we do have outside of McDonalds and Burger King have very few locations compared to KC. There are like a few sonics and a few Freddys in the entire region for example so they are like an hour apart. No Culvers, Whataburger, Jack in the Box, Lions Choice, Back Yard Burgers, Raising Canes, Slim Chickens, Taco Johns and I'm sure a lot more.

Pretty sure Blue Springs alone has more fast food places than my entire county of 500k people. I certainly don't know of any streets like route 7 with so many places in a small area. And very few are open 24 hours here, a mcdonalds once in a while.

If you like fast food, it doesn't get much better than KC, unless you are downtown of course, then the opposite is true. Central DC is at least represented by most fast and fast casual places that are in the metro. Central KC has very little.

Not saying that's a good or bad thing. I think urban fast food is fine and a needed retail so long as it's not drive throughs, but you have to have the sidewalk traffic to support it so it co-exists with all the local and non chains and sit down places. Most big cities have everything in downtown areas.

OH and while KC is gaining a run of the mill chain whataburger, they are loosing a true local place that I think is (or at least was) much better.

RIP Winsteads.

And Goodcents might be the best sub chain the country. Only Jersey Mikes competes IMO. KC probably has both lol. I wish we had Goodcents.

Winsted isn't going anywhere. They got a sweet bankruptcy restructuring deal.

Theirs a lot of chains not here.

IMO Winstead's has been crap for at least 15-20 years now. Dirty interiors, rude waitstaff, long waits for food, shrinking portion sizes, QC non-existent.

Freddy's coming to town had to have hurt them. Similar food is delivered more consistently, efficiently, and often with better customer interaction. The interiors are a far cry from Winstead's but at least they're clean.

Hopefully Winstead's can reinvent itself and return throughout the metro.

On the topic of In-N-Out...

I did some research earlier this year on acquiring one. The rules are that all locations must be within 500 miles of one of the three distribution center, so that they can deliver the food without having to freeze it.

They just put a distribution center in Lancaster, TX (south of Dallas) recently. On a radius map, KC is *just* within a 500 mile radius of this location. Theoretically, they could put an In-N-Out here at some point. We'd be the only midwestern city to ever get one though, unless you count Wichita.

horizons82 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:51 pm IMO Winstead's has been crap for at least 15-20 years now. Dirty interiors, rude waitstaff, long waits for food, shrinking portion sizes, QC non-existent.

Freddy's coming to town had to have hurt them. Similar food is delivered more consistently, efficiently, and often with better customer interaction. The interiors are a far cry from Winstead's but at least they're clean.

Hopefully Winstead's can reinvent itself and return throughout the metro.

That sucks. I always had good food there but I have heard they went downhill. I thought they closed all but the plaza location. I think Freddys is pretty good though out of all the smashburger/shake shack type places. We don't have those either. There is one in fairfax va which we have driven the 45 min too. Sometimes you get a craving lol.