KCRag Forum

https://cityscenekc.com/new-office-towe ... ince-1991/

I wish CityScenceKC would take over the KC Star

Another look from cityscene

Looks like at least half the block....probably to the alley?

Isn't this off topic? Should be under H&R Block 2nd tower.

So those are small floor plates for the office portion after all. That probably won't attract a single company, and not enough for a large one. Seems designed as a co-working space on top of a large garage, like a glass version of the brick Plexpod in Xroads. I kind of like the erratic design but too bad it doesn't take up the whole square block.

Downtown direly needs a true large floor plate office tower to attract a major employer with hundreds of employees.

First post talked about five light going in the same spot as h&r second tower....as this was more recent just put it here....but yeah both topics talk about the same physical location.

I like the design aesthetic better than both the Light buildings. Green cutaways, floor level jutouts (help with fire suppression), modest height and slight material changes. Hopefully, it all stays when moving from design to construction.

The parking portion will dominate the block. If you're standing on the SW corner you'll see all the parking and maybe the top 3-4 floors of the offices.

Standing under it on Main it looks like the parking is slightly cantileevered so that will largely hide the building above

250k makes it 14k per floor so the building is about 1/3 of the block. the rendering are from the angles to make it look bigger than it is

earthling wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 4:57 pm Seems designed as a co-working space on top of a large garage....Downtown direly needs a true large floor plate office tower to attract a major employer with hundreds of employees.

Office design is changing with this next generation. No one has offices now, it’s all coworking space. Many times it’s even just one big bullpen table and employees have a locker to hold their personal items. Lots of couches/chairs and only separate space is for private calls. I’m not sure big floor plans are as vital as they used to be.

No car hole on Main!

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 5:06 pm Office design is changing with this next generation. No one has offices now, it’s all coworking space. Many times it’s even just one big bullpen table and employees have a locker to hold their personal items. Lots of couches/chairs and only separate space is for private calls. I’m not sure big floor plans are as vital as they used to be.

The smaller the floor space the easier it is to waste space. Businesses want floor that work for growth.

Imagine you have three departments in KC for a financial services company. They move into a building with 20k usable per floor, mostly open plan. You have a call center, accounting and Ops (management, IT, etc). If adding space for growth the call center needs 11k, accounting needs 7k of space and Ops 4k of space who moves to a new floor? Does management need to go up and down floors to accounting or the call center? Do you get stairs put in? What if you're leasing 3k on a new floor and you need to wait on an existing tenant to move? If your current lease is for three more years do you keep it partly empty or split a group between floors?

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 5:06 pm

earthling wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 4:57 pm Seems designed as a co-working space on top of a large garage....Downtown direly needs a true large floor plate office tower to attract a major employer with hundreds of employees.

Office design is changing with this next generation. No one has offices now, it’s all coworking space. Many times it’s even just one big bullpen table and employees have a locker to hold their personal items. Lots of couches/chairs and only separate space is for private calls. I’m not sure big floor plans are as vital as they used to be.

The focus today is more on column location and creating larger unobstructed areas. The older downtown office buildings struggle because their floorplates are generally litered with columns.

Why not wrap the podium with some apartments? Looks like there could be enough space given the 13th Street set back. But I'm no architect. Nor a parking architect or "Parkitect".

Ideal height for the site. Will add density to skyline but not block the deco setbacks on the upper KC Place.

Are they not wrapping the whole block for structural reasons from when they originally built the support or for economic reasons?

I like the design mostly.

kcjak wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 2:33 pm With there being a need for new office space downtown, wonder why Cordish never ventured into a mixed use tower, especially given the incentives they were (previously) getting to help with the parking garage. Nine or ten stories for a garage with some of the spaces shared between office and residents, ten stories of office and 25 stories for residential. Does the extra height make it financially prohibitive to insert office space that would provide some nice revenue?

Yes, it does get more expensive to build higher.

I'm guessing the reason is that the additional residential floors would require additional parking spaces, which means you have to add more levels to the garage, which makes the project more expensive.

The ideal situation would be the apartment residents would also be the office tenant workers. One parking space is needed for both office/residential tenants--since they are the same. The commute would be by elevator. The problem in mixed use is that rarely happens. You need a parking space for most workers, and also one or two parking spaces per apartment for residents. If the all the residents worked in the building, then there would be less need for so many parking spaces.

It can happen though. I lived for several years in a 35-story rental apartment building where most of us worked for the same employer. Our building was owned by a medical center, and had a garage. So the residential tenants parked their cars in the garage, and walked across the street to work at the hospital. I said most of us, since certainly people had spouses that worked elsewhere.

Since it was New York City, there weren't as many parking spaces in the garage as residential tenants in the building. Most of us lived without cars.

I don’t think we need to fill the entire block all the way up. The streetfront is built out so the walkability is already there. The height is good. I’d prefer more buildings like this filling underused lots with moderate sized buildings than having packed blocks or even one huge tower. It would be good to get a new high rise but more buildings does more to help DT than one structure.

Could someone with the skill and inclination superimpose this on a skyline view?

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 5:06 pm

earthling wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 4:57 pm Seems designed as a co-working space on top of a large garage....Downtown direly needs a true large floor plate office tower to attract a major employer with hundreds of employees.

Office design is changing with this next generation. No one has offices now, it’s all coworking space. Many times it’s even just one big bullpen table and employees have a locker to hold their personal items. Lots of couches/chairs and only separate space is for private calls. I’m not sure big floor plans are as vital as they used to be.

Don't count on it as a long-term trend. I've seen several articles recently saying the open office plans are being found to not be productive and are actually very distracting for employees. I've worked in both. I was more productive when I had my own space where I could close my door.