OFFICIAL - Waddell & Reed - 14th & Baltimore

[FangKC]

The new owner of W&R still has to have a place to house the current employees. I think their current lease is up soon.

If W&R backs out, Americo/B&M might lease it out to multiple tenants instead of one tenant. This might cause competing, yet unbuilt office building plans to go on the shelf, or instead go residential: the project at 13th and Wyandotte, the Strata project, and the Copaken project at 13th and Grand.

Doesn't the family that controls Americo also have part ownership in Waddell & Reed? Maybe I'm thinking one of the earlier family members who owned Americo also helped found W&R. If the Americo family still have a stake in Waddell & Reed, they probably benefit more from the sale of W&R than any losses from a building tenant.

Still it's sad to lose another hometown firm to a buyout.

[shinatoo]

Every time I think about driving to the top of a ten story parking garage and then driving back down again, every day, over and over, it makes me want to take a bus.

All that so I could sit in traffic for 30 to 45 minutes every morning and night.

I guess some people have diffrent views of success.

[alejandro46]

It's almost like this building should have been designed to be more flexible and adaptable in the event of say, a global pandemic or a out of town buyer changing the direction of the principle tenant. I just hope we don't end up with a big vacant building sitting downtown for years.

[Chris Stritzel]

If no jobs come to this building and the garage is mostly built, as has been said, just turn it into residential.

If you use Mass Timber, like they're doing in Milwaukee, you could get a fairly tall Mass Timber building built on top of the garage without needed to redesign the structural supports or anything. Wood is lighter than steel or concrete (whatever they were going to use for the office floors). But the sacrifice here would be losing the view of the Power and Light building from the South.

I still assume that some jobs will come to this building from WR being bought out, but I doubt it will be the full amount like was intended. We will see though.

[KCPowercat]

Jesus. KC just can't catch a break. This could easily end up getting stalled mid construction and sitting for years.

We aren't down on our luck. Things have honestly never been better.

[normalthings]

I think this really sums up the possibilities minus residential or hotel conversion.



A. Unlikley. WR is going to be split between LPL and Macquarie. These firms only have 4,000 and 2,000 employees by themselves so I have doubts that they will need to keep another 1,000.

B. More likely than Option C. Their current HQ is about 250,000 feet and in the heart of NYC. An investment bank moved from NYC to Nashville not too long ago so it's not impossible but very very unlikely.

C: Not likely. Macquarie only has 2,000 or so employees in the US. Hard to imagine that they would have much need for a sizable back office. It also sounds like a big piece of the business will be sold to LPL financial. LPL already has back offices in Austin and Charlotte.

D: Possible. B&M has been growing quickly. They did just open another 140,000 sqft building at their Bannister campus.

E: Possible. KC has been missing speculative office space. This could be just what we need to start hunting jobs.

F: Worst case scenario.

G: Extremely unlikely. City wanted to build a garage hear and Americo appears to have access to capital. At minimum option F occurs.

[DaveKCMO]

Option F should result in the cancellation of all incentives.

A new garage is simply not needed anywhere in the loop (unless the city decided to punt on reconstructing Barney Allis Plaza as an underground garage, but the W&R structure is probably too far from BAP stakeholders like the Marriott and Bartle Hall).

[Walker]

I doubt that this project halts. The new owner would have to pay big $$$ to get out of the contract. The new owners would be better off subleasing to cover some of their expenses.

[flyingember]

They owe their property tax incentive back each year if they don't meet their employment numbers agreement based on payroll taxes paid.

The numbers are super high, more than $1.17 billion in total payroll needs to be paid in total over 15 years before this clause stops being in effect otherwise payroll targets need to be met every year


ordinance 190930, agreement document
item 5b

The major problem with leasing is they're required to provide minimum payroll rates and give information proving this to the city

Their total leases would need to have 900 workers with a payroll above $99,000 average, not be contract or temps and they would likely need to be brand new jobs to KC.

[earthling]

Regardless of whether the company's initially pledged 919 workers still move to Downtown, its headquarters building almost certainly will see construction continue, said Tim Schaffer, president of AREA Real Estate Advisors.

With the fluidity of today's corporate world, he said, a savvy property owner like Americo Life — a subsidiary of Financial Holding Corp., controlled by the Merriman family — will have protected its investment and accounted for an acquisition scenario in the underwriting of its construction loan.

"There's no way that construction is going to cease on the (Waddell & Reed) project because the credit is still there," Schaffer said. "In fact, the credit may be better today than it was when they started the project."

Gib Kerr, director of capital markets in Cushman & Wakefield’s Kansas City office, agreed that construction presumably would continue.

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... rters.html

[langosta]

City needs to start pitching this sit to coastal business as soon as Reed announces their intent to break the lease

[FangKC]

What about Cordish buying the property and building residential on top of the garage before they do Four Light across the street on the MainStreet Theater block?

[DaveKCMO]

City needs to start pitching this sit to coastal business as soon as Reed announces their intent to break the lease

And what's our hook?

[GRID]

Jesus. KC just can't catch a break. This could easily end up getting stalled mid construction and sitting for years.

We aren't down on our luck. Things have honestly never been better.

I guess compared to the KC of the 80's and 90's, but that's not a very high bar. I know KC has lots going to and lots to be proud of, but it just seems like the city can never really get any real momentum going without a major setback or setbacks. KC Star building, the Hyatt Hotel, the Embassy Suites etc. Three Light taking forever to get off the ground. Taking way too long to rebuild downtown highways and get some recreation infrastructure. Not getting any office buildings started before the pandemic and now none are likely to be built. Even little things likes replacing the interesting Broadway bridge with a boring girder bridge or tearing buildings down like the board of ed and having another empty lots blocks from the CBD is just nuts. This giant parking garage could turn into the front door of KC's convention center district if it's not built as originally planned.

KC has to figure out a way to sell itself to the coasts like places like MSP, Charlotte, Nashville, Austin, Denver etc do. KC is still thought of as the Buffalo of the midwest to most people. A has been city. that's not true, but till the city starts getting some serious national attention, it will continue to chug along with lackluster local developers and losing out to mergers etc.

The new airport will be a great start. Not sure how you could even begin to sell KC when the first and last place people see is KCI airport. Nothing screams more "has been" than KCI.

KC is VERY lucky this building even got started and should take advantage of it by making sure it's built to class A corporates HQ standards. It will get leased. But it has to get built first.

[KCPowercat]

Okay

[GRID]

Okay

Okay what? KC is a great city. But it just lacks national appeal and it really needs that if it ever wants to really get going. Correct me if I'm wrong but some of the more aggressive developers in KC right now are from Indy or something right? And the city still to this day can't get its suburban based companies all that interested in the city.

That's why this project even with all its urban planning flaws has to be finished and not just turned into something else. KC needs a new class A office building and it would have a very good chance of landing an out of town tenant for it. W&R probably would have gone back to Kansas in ten years anyway.

I still can't think of another city of 2 million with as much suburban sq ft of office space as KC has. Get this project done. If it's delayed it could also further delay decking 670 which I don't think has any more traction now than when I lived there.

I really do think the new terminal will do a lot to change the image of the city. KC is a better city than most the cities that have better reputations like Nashville. But the only things people think KC has is bbq and the chiefs and that's not enough to get people interested in actually going there.

[KCPowercat]

Agree a half finished building would suck.

[FangKC]

...Doesn't the family that controls Americo also have part ownership in Waddell & Reed? Maybe I'm thinking one of the earlier family members who owned Americo also helped found W&R. If the Americo family still have a stake in Waddell & Reed, they probably benefit more from the sale of W&R than any losses from a building tenant.
...

The land was once pitched by DST Realty as a potential site for a convention hotel. It is now controlled by the Merriman family, a very low-profile major player in the Kansas City business community whose top executive is Michael A. Merriman.

There’s also a family connection to a potential deal. Joe Jack Merriman, Michael’s father, was president of Waddell & Reed in the late 1960s.

https://www.flatlandkc.org/news-issues/ ... ice-tower/

[beautyfromashes]

Okay what? KC is a great city. But it just lacks national appeal and it really needs that if it ever wants to really get going. Correct me if I'm wrong but some of the more aggressive developers in KC right now are from Indy or something right? And the city still to this day can't get its suburban based companies all that interested in the city.

I get the dire mood, but I think we’re making good progress. We have a few high visibility national stars to be proud of. NFL champion and marketing powerhouse with Mahomes, NFL Draft, strong running for World Cup games, new airport, streetcar expansion, stronger number of hotel rooms for large events, etc. At least we’re moving in a positive direction.

[langosta]

Okay what? KC is a great city. But it just lacks national appeal and it really needs that if it ever wants to really get going. Correct me if I'm wrong but some of the more aggressive developers in KC right now are from Indy or something right? And the city still to this day can't get its suburban based companies all that interested in the city.

I get the dire mood, but I think we’re making good progress. We have a few high visibility national stars to be proud of. NFL champion and marketing powerhouse with Mahomes, NFL Draft, strong running for World Cup games, new airport, streetcar expansion, stronger number of hotel rooms for large events, etc. At least we’re moving in a positive direction.

WR subleasing the whole building upon open is a whole lot better than moving in and slowly giving up space every year. KC will now have a large speculative office building. The single biggest thing that we claim we need.