KCRag Forum

..Plus done with more modest tax incentives.. Strata and Bravo are asking for way too much. "Hey, business entails risk. Don't ask the public to be your hedge."

I am hoping there are a bunch of people at the Copaken-Brooks conference room having a "come-to-Jesus" session. If the Strata had not been so "risk adverse" (that is, the preponderance of risk is levied onto the City); they would be "in the game". At this moment, Strata is sitting outside the ballpark.

I hope that, with the believe most contributors in this forum would concur; this Muehlbach advancement will open the gates for additional developers to follow with their projects; absent onerous subsidy requirements.

A few questions about this project:

- Is it still receiving city funds for the parking? I did not see this mentioned in the story, but my understanding is those direct incentives were signed and sealed.

- Has the retail component been abandoned? It isn't mentioned in the article and is not clear from the renderings.

smh wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2019 9:14 am A few questions about this project:

- Is it still receiving city funds for the parking? I did not see this mentioned in the story, but my understanding is those direct incentives were signed and sealed.

- Has the retail component been abandoned? It isn't mentioned in the article and is not clear from the renderings.

1. Incentives are a go
2. There is ground floor tenant space

earthling wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2019 7:54 am

Loews Jr.

Not my nickname but one given by a user on here. Don't know his username though.

DEAD! yes yes it is.

The new design fits the site a million times better than the old one.

Do enjoy

Wow, nice redesign. That fills out that block so much better. This will be really nice.

Ever since my grade school bus pulled up to take us to the old KC Philharmonic at the Music Hall I have felt there was something missing on the east side of BA Plaza. This is one place that a wall of buildings will finally complete. Really like that the height and scale of it fits the rest of the block and that here the all glass facade will add some variety. The new design handles the sloping site much better than the first proposal. Think this is a better design than the same architectural firms design for the Penn Center going up on the Plaza.

I like the new design.

Agreed. This project is looking good.

If it turns out close to rendered. Won't be surprising if the facade along 13th turns out to be drab light concrete slabs. A lot of nice variation going on otherwise.

Will the retail space be sidewalk facing or indoors? Doesn't appear to be the former.

Maybe time to move to a new thread... when it actually gets a name.

An old warehouse, the Pabst & Pendergast, and an old office building, the Fairfax, have both been turned into very nice hotels. The old Federal Reserve and the Scarritt buildings are planned to become hotels. Does anyone, besides the Last Gentleman, think its odd that the greatest, most famous hotel in the history of Kansas City, is being turned into apartments?

Since we haven't heard many details about the Muehlebach itself, it's probably still nowhere near a complete design. Perhaps it could become a mix of apartments and hotel rooms? The Hotel Indigo up the street is like that, with apartments occupying the top floors.

I've always been puzzled why the Muehlebach isn't being renovated into hotel rooms. The lobby is already connected to the Marriott buildings, and they were using some of the meeting rooms. It would be an obvious candidate for one of the Marriott brands.

I recall being told that it was mothballed because the rooms were too small, but the President combined its' small rooms into larger ones when it renovated. Surely that would be less invasive than creating apartments.

I'm 95% sure I've seen in some of the incentive documentation that the people doing this project won't actually close on the Muehlbach portion of this project until 2Q of 2020.

KCDowntown

TheLastGentleman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:56 pm Since we haven't heard many details about the Muehlebach itself, it's probably still nowhere near a complete design.

FangKC wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 7:48 pm I've always been puzzled why the Muehlebach isn't being renovated into hotel rooms. The lobby is already connected to the Marriott buildings, and they were using some of the meeting rooms. It would be an obvious candidate for one of the Marriott brands.

I recall being told that it was mothballed because the rooms were too small, but the President combined its' small rooms into larger ones when it renovated. Surely that would be less invasive than creating apartments.

Neighborhood was told it had to do with tax credits/incentives. Turn hotel into apartments: Credits. Turn apartments into hotel: Credits.

So turning a hotel into a hotel wouldn’t get credits? I don’t understand

25 years ago today the Muehlbach tower was imploded.

https://youtu.be/B9t5pzRKGp0

I witnessed that implosion -- it was at the depths of the downtown; as the Marriott was applauded for actually investing in their annex building.

Sadly, The Kansas City Star had a sarcastic editorial the following week (the implosion was a Sunday early morning) -- suggesting the city implode buildings every weekend to attract people from the suburbs to the downtown.

My, how things changed!