OFFICIAL - Loews Convention Hotel (formerly Hyatt)

[bhedges1987]

Yeah, too early as design is not finalized.

I do find it curious that many seem to think a convention hotel will be a major catalyst for downtown like increasing downtown population is. There is no guarantee this will bring more conventions - Denver/Indy initially got a boost from their convention hotels but convention biz is down for them as is nationwide. While I'm for more hotel rooms because DTKC is below normal for rooms in the Loop, this project is not necessarily as good investment for DTKC as boosting DT population. Increasing population is far more important and effective and once it hits critical mass, everything else is more likely to follow (with fewer incentives).

We know that there is demand for DT residential living with consistent occupancy over 97% that would likely maintain high occupancy even if adding 10K more units. DT also hit a major milestone of a waiting list for $2+/sqft luxury hirise living, which is a big deal. The more hotel rooms you have downtown, the harder it is to keep them filled (certainly won't be over 80% daily), especially with decreasing convention industry.

The pro development side of me is for this project but the pragmatic side would rather see KCMO pursue even more residential hirises than a convention class hotel. For now anyway, maybe when there are signs of convention industry returning.

Totally agree. I wish they would hurry up with 2,3,4 light. That will be huge when and if they're all completed. My guess is only one and two light will be. Will is still nice

[JBmidtown]

y'all are some Debbie Downers.

[kcjak]

honestly, do these things ever meet or exceed initial expectations? i'm going to bet money on no more than 25 stories.

I'm usually pretty skeptical, but the more I look at this thing, the more I doubt that they're going to be able to cram the advertised 800 rooms into only 22–25 floors.

For comparison, the Sheraton at Crown Center is 45 floors and it has 730 rooms. Could you reconfigure its floor area and room count into the configuration of the new convention hotel? Let's try:

• Lop the (formerly) rotating restaurant off the Sheraton and it's down to about 42–44 floors.
• Now chop the hotel in half at its horizontal midsection, leaving two 21- or 22-story pieces.
• Notice that each piece has pretty much exactly the footprint of the short side (north side) of the L-shaped footprint of the new convention hotel—the long side of the footprint of both the Sheraton and of the new hotel's northern tower spans the short side of a standard city block, and the width of each allows for a row of rooms on either side of a central corridor.
• So put one of the pieces of our chopped-up Sheraton down along the south side of Truman between Wyandotte and Balitimore, and set the other piece down next to it, fronting Wyandotte.
• Voilà!—we have something with almost exactly the footprint of the convention hotel.

But there's a problem. The two pieces of our chopped-up Sheraton are each 20-some floors, but one of the two legs of the new hotel is supposed to be more than twice as tall as the other. Move enough floors from the lower leg to the higher leg to get the proportions close to the rendering and the higher section of the new hotel would end up at 30 floors or more, before you stick a big architectural feature on the roof.

And then there are an extra 70 more rooms you need to add somewhere—and the way I chopped up the Sheraton and plopped down the pieces means that one of the pieces would have rooms from the ground level up, while the renderings show both legs of the new hotel tower sitting on a multi-story base of parking and meeting space. ...

Anyway, that's my long-winded way of saying that after I looked at the renderings again, it became really hard to see how they could possibly cram 800 rooms into the design they showed us. So either we're going to get a 20-some-story hotel with a markedly different design (if both legs of the tower were the same height, it could work), we're going to get substantially fewer rooms (which seems unlikely, given the basic purpose of the project), or we're going to get a hotel that's more like 30 stories tall.

Actually there's one more way I could imagine making it work without a hugely different design—extend the taller tower section to be the length of the whole block between Truman Road and 16th Street. But that would make for a very long corridor that would probably require another bank of elevators, etc.

Yet the Westin has more rooms than the Sheraton and is 18 stories tall...with rooms starting on the 5th floor. So with apartment vacancies so tight, is it too cost-prohibitive for the planners to look at adding 100-200 apartments or condos in ~10 stories on top of the hotel tower? Add some fees in for parking and use of the hotel amenities like they do in other cities?

[earthling]

y'all are some Debbie Downers.

Just pointing out there are maybe better investments to make - increasing population downtown even more should have more snowball development impact that follows than more hotel rooms. Attracting outsiders into downtown (via more rooms) does bring in outside dollars into DTKC though. But with the convention industry shrinking, now may not be the time. Still support the project, but would rather see DTKC pursue more residential hirise developers - and build a new tallest!

[pash]

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[FangKC]

I wasn't advocating those specific buildings as architectural statements as much as examples of well-designed buildings that have windows on all four sides. Both buildings are hotel projects, and the second tower (bottom one) is a mixed hotel / apartment tower. They look good from all sides, and angles. In addition, they aren't just glass boxes, they have not only pleasing shapes, but texture in the design and surfaces.

[bhedges1987]

honestly, do these things ever meet or exceed initial expectations? i'm going to bet money on no more than 25 stories.

Well their saying 30-35 could possibly go up to 40... That's better than them saying it could drop to 25-20 . I'll keep my hopes up that in 3 years we will have a huge hotel with 3 brand new apartments added to down town. Tons of cranes. I just got back from SF and it seems they have cranes on every block with tons of buildings going up

[normalthings]

honestly, do these things ever meet or exceed initial expectations? i'm going to bet money on no more than 25 stories.

Well their saying 30-35 could possibly go up to 40... That's better than them saying it could drop to 25-20 . I'll keep my hopes up that in 3 years we will have a huge hotel with 3 brand new apartments added to down town. Tons of cranes. I just got back from SF and it seems they have cranes on every block with tons of buildings going up

Cities like San Fransisco and Miami have a lot of foreign investment driving most of the new construction. Many Wealthy Persons from Asian and the Middle East put their money in U.S. Real estate. This foreign investment is something Kansas City Lacks. We should eventually market Kansas City to Foreign Investors.

[aknowledgeableperson]

" he said things are all organized to streamline this project to approval before the new council takes office"

I would hope this matter gets a proper review instead of just rushing it through the council, much like the P&L development. On many subjects of lesser financial impact on the city and its budget this council in the past have taken much more time dotting their i's and crossing their t's, doing their homework.

[FangKC]

honestly, do these things ever meet or exceed initial expectations? i'm going to bet money on no more than 25 stories.

Well their saying 30-35 could possibly go up to 40... That's better than them saying it could drop to 25-20 . I'll keep my hopes up that in 3 years we will have a huge hotel with 3 brand new apartments added to down town. Tons of cranes. I just got back from SF and it seems they have cranes on every block with tons of buildings going up

Cities like San Fransisco and Miami have a lot of foreign investment driving most of the new construction. Many Wealthy Persons from Asian and the Middle East put their money in U.S. Real estate. This foreign investment is something Kansas City Lacks. We should eventually market Kansas City to Foreign Investors.

This is absolutely a spot-on assessment. Kansas City needs civic leadership to start seeking out these types of investors. There are many new rich investors in lots of different countries--some of which have unstable or politically-unpredictable leadership--that make their money, and then want to park their wealth in the United States. They tend to do it in places like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami.

China, India, and Russia come to mind since they are producing a lot of new millionaires and billionaires. Our leaders need to educate foreign investors, and market Kansas City, to those who don't know much about our city.

For these investors, they just want stability--to plant some of their wealth outside their country of origin. They want to own solid things like real estate. Civic leaders need to make foreign investors aware of the City's recent investment. They need to know that the Metro is growing; that apartments in Greater Downtown are 98 percent occupied; and we need more multi-family apartments.

I would go so far as to say that the KCMO.gov website should revamp their economic development pages to target foreign investors, so that the videos there that tout the City are available in major languages like Spanish, German, French, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Hindu, Bengali, Japanese, and Mandarin, so those potential investors can watch them in their native languages. This would be a very smart move by economic development officials. The same goes with the Convention and Visitors Bureau on the VisitKC.com website. This is a very simple thing to do to attract foreign investment and tourism, and a thing that many cities aren't doing.

[normalthings]

We could push the fact that less goes a lot farther here. Why buy 1 home in LA when you can buy 2-4 in Kansas City. Setting up the city website with multiple languages is a start, but I believe we may need a separate website for this. What appeals to us( Americans) in a website may not appeal to them.

[earthling]

I'd like to see City press for a residential component to this hotel as well and build a new tallest in KC. Residents can use the hotel/concierge services so when hotel is not busy, they get income from residents. Should reduce risk of City investment as well. It would require a larger parking garage (and probably needs city help for garage) but may be worth it.

[normalthings]

I'd like to see City press for a residential component to this hotel as well and build a new tallest in KC. Residents can use the hotel/concierge services so when hotel is not busy, they get income from residents. Should reduce risk of City investment as well. It would require a larger parking garage (and probably needs city help for garage) but may be worth it.

From what they said, I doubt they have the money for a residential component. They wanted a 1,000 room hotel but had to scale back to 800 rooms because of the cost. If they can get more outside investment, they would probably build to 1,000 rooms before building a residential component.

[flyingember]

We could push the fact that less goes a lot farther here. Why buy 1 home in LA when you can buy 2-4 in Kansas City. Setting up the city website with multiple languages is a start, but I believe we may need a separate website for this. What appeals to us( Americans) in a website may not appeal to them.

not if they did it right. a flexible layout plus the same content in multiple languages in a CMS and then you have a way to change language like http://www.kcmo.org/ch tells it to pull Chinese text.

and yes, that's quite hard to do but worth the effort. just for Spanish language support it's worth it.

[flyingember]

If they can get more outside investment, they would probably build to 1,000 rooms before building a residential component.

A new high floor room at $200 per night is way more lucrative than an apartment at $2000 per month.

since $200 * just used 20 days per month = $4000.

[earthling]

The economics are a little more complicated than that. With hotel industry there are unknowns and ups/downs. With downtown KC high residential occupancy, there are relatively more predictable knowns. Mixed use hotels have more flexibility as the residents give a steady stream of income from services that offset hotel occupancy ups/downs.

[shinatoo]

If they can get more outside investment, they would probably build to 1,000 rooms before building a residential component.

A new high floor room at $200 per night is way more lucrative than an apartment at $2000 per month.

since $200 * just used 20 days per month = $4000.

Lot more daily expense involved in a hotel room than there is in an apartment.

[flyingember]

If they can get more outside investment, they would probably build to 1,000 rooms before building a residential component.

A new high floor room at $200 per night is way more lucrative than an apartment at $2000 per month.

since $200 * just used 20 days per month = $4000.

Lot more daily expense involved in a hotel room than there is in an apartment.

there is that, but that's just the room rate. hotels have a HUGE number of extras you can pay for these days

[Midtownkid]

Would be cool if the top was articulated with some setbacks and maybe even a 'crown'.

Maybe a bit cheesy and postmodern, but something along those lines could be cool. Zahner is a local company, remember!

The blank wall that will soon be one of the most visible structures on the skyline should either be incredibly minimalist, crisp and elegant...or have some sort of very interesting texture. It could be treated as a "billboard" for an art installation...but please no light show. We already have the Marriott.

[beautyfromashes]

Our version of the Chrysler Building?