KCRag Forum

I'm tired of waiting on a rowhouse I want to be built so now I have this pipe dream building my own but I have no idea how to go about this other than securing a piece of land. Who would someone even talk to about doing something like this? I probably could find 3 to 5 other buyers that would go in with me.

Just cold call a builder? Realtor? Is this just an unreasonable idea?

Based on what I know from doing some things here in STL, I would call a realtor first to find a piece of land to build on (in your case: row homes). After that, I would advise on getting, your case, the 3-5 other people to write letters of intent (or something like that) and present these letters, and yours, to a builder as well as your piece of land. Tell the builder what you'd like to see and they can try to make it work on your piece of land. From there, it most likely then goes through the approval process but buyers would have to put down down payments and other things to insure that the project can happen.

If you go your own route after buying the property, then go talk to an architect, hire a contractor, and go through the whole approval process. You'll also have to get down payments and other things from the buyers to get a loan from a bank to build. This takes a bit more effort than the home builder company path though.

Either way, I wish you luck on getting your own row homes built.

Reasonable land is going to be the roadblock I think.

Do you have a specific area in mind to build?

Walkable to current streetcar

I was thinking of places where rowhouses might already be approved through zoning.

The two places the jump to mind are along Wyandotte between 4th and 5th and Columbus Park mostly north of 5th Street. You might approach the developers and tell them what your group wants. Isn't Kite Singleton involved in the Columbus Park project?

Saw my parcel suggested on Wyandotte. Still have 6-7 planned here to fill out that row BUT also still messing with legacy parking agmts that prevent development from occuring - at least reasonably. In process

KCPowercat wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:35 pm I'm tired of waiting on a rowhouse I want to be built so now I have this pipe dream building my own but I have no idea how to go about this other than securing a piece of land. Who would someone even talk to about doing something like this? I probably could find 3 to 5 other buyers that would go in with me.

Just cold call a builder? Realtor? Is this just an unreasonable idea?

The best way to actually get something built is to show up with land. The construction process goes a lot quicker when you have a place to build. The idea is because you're the property owner if your developer stops being responsive you pick a new one and keep moving. If you are reliant on a developer to own the land they can sit on the project for years and you're waiting on them.

When we built our house (infill project) this is what we did. Our developer handled most of these steps for us except the bank portion and of course we didn't need to form an HOA


Talk to an attorney to form a corporation/HOA

Get a loan to buy the land if in the name of the corporation.

Hire an architect to design the project

Get bids and pick your developer

Find a bank that will give commercial loans and get this preapproved.

Go to the city for project approval

Get individuals to get their loans/pay for their unit and join the HOA, funding the units. (their loans pays the corporation loan down)

The bank finalizes the loan and the developer builds the project

Sounds like 3D Development is going to build some next year. I'd still start looking into building your own though.

normalthings wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 1:33 pm Sounds like 3D Development is going to build some next year. I'd still start looking into building your own though.

any idea as to where? I got caught up on the first step, trying to find some land that it would fit. Nothing so far except on on the far westside.

There are four lots for sale at 34th & Baltimore.

Doesn'teet my criteria of walkable to current streetcar line. I can't become a midtown guy lol

KCPowercat wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 6:26 pm Doesn'teet my criteria of walkable to current streetcar line. I can't become a midtown guy lol

If you seriously want to do this talk to a real estate agent.

My guess if you're looking at $750k+ for the land to meet your criteria. There's a reason no one has proposed row homes close to the streetcar except for a single project in the river market. The land is better used with multi-story multi-family

The homes at Oak/Missouri predate the current projects and they go for $500k each

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1800 ... 2463_zpid/

Not sure if this one is big enough

Riverite wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:12 am https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1800 ... 2463_zpid/

Not sure if this one is big enough

LOL that price necessiates a $3-5MM house to make any sense. Would be nice for sure.

Maybe you could approach some building owners about buying a portion of their lot. That way they lose some tax liability but probably not enough parking spaces to make a difference

Ok, based on that I was low on $750k within walking distance of the streetcar. Double that.

$8-10 million for a four unit structure isn't an unrealistic floor.

You could approach the company that owns the parking lot at the corner of 3rd and 2nd in front of gym KC. They might not use all of their parking especially now with Covid and be willing to part with some of the parking lot for extra cash

Riverite wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:42 pm You could approach the company that owns the parking lot at the corner of 3rd and 2nd in front of gym KC. They might not use all of their parking especially now with Covid and be willing to part with some of the parking lot for extra cash

It's parking for the residential lofts at 201 Wyandotte. Owners are a large investment company in Chicago
Odds are they're using more parking right now with more people at home full time

A local take on rowhouse design

https://eldo.us/slender-house