KCRag Forum

Are they going to blow up the rocks on the site or incorporate them into the design?

flyingember wrote:

KC_JAYHAWK wrote:So Cleveland got that Hilton for $272m and it's a much better design and is 32 floors? What am I missing here? And it just opened.

Cuyahoga County issued bonds to pay for it, the port authority owns it and they hired Hilton to operate it. It's a public project.
This first article claimed they couldn't find a developer interested in more than a parking lot.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... g_tog.html
https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/ohio-cou ... lton-hotel


Whereas (off the top of my head) the KC hotel is privately funded, privately owned with some city allowances to help make the numbers work, like free land, the catering deal and a TIF.
KC found a developer interested in taking on the risk and building something as a private project.

That's your difference.

And to me, that speaks volumes about our city. We should be happy and proud that people believe in it!

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He's not wrong.

That's not remotely realistic as a replacement design. It shows a lack of understanding of basic structure design.

There's avg of 45 rooms per floor in the current design. The taller mockup needs 22 rooms per floor, but you increased the percentage of space dedicated to non-room uses.

Elevators will take away 2x the amount of space. with any design you need X elevator capacity to serve the hotel so you get a car quick enough and there's space in it. Say that's 4 cars, two in each wing. You stack the two wings, imaging you have a left wing on top of the right wing and you have four cars side by side now So for the left wing both the left and right elevators are taking up space and for the right wing above you have the left and right elevator taking up space. So the elevators remove double the rooms as a shorter design.

Utilities take up more space. Look at piping. Say the fake maximum sewer needs is 50 gallons at once per floor on average (1.8 gallon toilets all flushing and some padding) With 20 floors you need big pipes on the first floor to move 1000 gallons at once. Double the height and that's 2000 gallons at once.
So every floor for the bottom half in a taller skinner design needs to support increasing utility sizes, the top half is scaled the same. No matter the actual size the space needs are bigger.
You have the same for water in where water pipes start bigger.
Electrical and other wiring isn't as bad since they can do sub panels on every floor with any design but you need more space to get cabling to those panels all the same.
Hvac im not worried about, most hotels go per room for this.
You need the same capacity in fire stairwells. Can't have everyone getting stuck halfway up because twice the people would be using less number of stairwells.
And then there's the total structure without any of that. Basic logic says to support the extra weight on the point loads, the greater sway and so on you need a more substantial structure. This is different materials than a shorter building. At the very least it's more stringent design.

The 800 person room dropped in total rooms with this mockup and it costs a lot more to build.

fyi; article where the architect explains the design.

http://kcur.org/post/developers-unveil- ... l#stream/0

$310 million project

KC has committed $35 million from convention taxes and the land value of $4.5 million
$42.2 in TIF bonds, which would be paid from taxes not paid
$82.3 million in bonds paid only by taxes the building generates with no city backing to need to pay them
$51 million in private equity
$95 million private mortgage
(Close enough)

I would say it's fair to say the city gave up is land valued at $4.5 million and $35 million in future taxes that come from tourism. Thats like 12% the cost that's a true loss.

The other losses are taxes we don't have today and we still wouldn't if not built. Not a direct payout in any form but that doesn't matter,

175,000 room nights each year (60% full is good) is a lot of generated value for the city with all the other things visitors spend money on. Over the 25 year life for the $35 million that's 4.3 million room nights. That's $8 per guest. Each visitor will spend more than that in taxes easily.

If you add the other items that's $164 million. That's $38 per room night in taxes lost over 25 years. It's not impossible to recover all that and then some from just this hotel's guests, especially when you remember about inflation.

Break down the math, because big numbers are just made up of a bunch of small numbers, and those numbers can plug into other equations like meals purchased, souvenirs, museums, car rentals and such.

flyingember wrote:Break down the math, because big numbers are just made up of a bunch of small numbers

Thank-you internet.

flyingember wrote:That's not remotely realistic as a replacement design. It shows a lack of understanding of basic structure design.

You can't even see the other side to know whether or not there's enough engineered flushing.
Thank you for the comment but it's not intended to be a "replacement design."
It's just an idea of how cool the building could look if taller.

Lot of unnecessary water carrying in this thread.

KCPowercat wrote:Lot of unnecessary water carrying in this thread.

Wouldnt want to build it poorly and the hotel needs a sewer overflow control project.

pash wrote:To clarify flyingember's misleading post, the city is contributing grants, tax abatements, and financing worth more than half the cost of this project. This is a public project, period. And we are getting this in return.

Everyone at City Hall who helped to make this project happen should be ashamed of what they have done. When taxpayers pay most of the cost of a major construction project downtown, it should set an example of what we want built in our city. Instead, this hotel is a dismal grab-bag of worst practices, an econobox of blank walls and car caves at street level and an insipid blot on the skyline above it. Rather than bringing the energy and eclecticism of the Crossroads to the convention district, it brings the bleakness of the convention district into the Crossroads.

It's even more disappointing that this drab hulk is being built adjacent to the Kauffman Center, adding another stultifying approach to one of the city's best pieces of architecture. You have your choice of unlovely routes to this grand theater, whether putting Denny's at your back to scurry past the speeding traffic on Broadway, or meandering by Bartle Hall's dumpsters, or hastening along 17th Street in the shadow of a $100 million garage, or—soon enough—hopping off the streetcar to walk briskly by the blank stucco facade of this embarassment of a hotel.

Disgusting.

Disgusting is the amount of public funds, from you and I, being used to build out Cerners bannister campus. You know, the one that nobody without a Cerner ID badge will be able to access anyway. If you're going to talk about fraud and waste, begin there. The amount of public money on that project could build us 10 of these convention hotels downtown. Or a couple copies of the worlds tallest building, with change to spare.

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Somebody needs to present an alternative financial picture that includes a walkability score. Monetize that shit. Pedestrian experience increases viability and success of project, yielding more monetary return for said project. The streetcars ability to attract pedestrians and the accompanying tax receipt increase is recent proof.

LCDSI wrote:fyi; article where the architect explains the design.

http://kcur.org/post/developers-unveil- ... l#stream/0

I pulled up Google maps and read the description. It appears the hotel may enhance the streetscape to the north, northeast and west but the south and southeast experience will be totally neglected. Will there be any surface parking on the block? The surface plan shows a large hachured area with no explanation as to what it is.

Anybody know when construction will begin?

I am not a lawyer but the agreement the city is proposing between all parties appear to have some emphasis on design and pedestrian requirements.

http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/LiveWeb/Docum ... YF6A%3d%3d

A few more pictures from the KCDowntowners luncheon.

There appears to be a glass overlay on the south side, similar to the one on the north side - it definitely helps break up the monotony of the stone and windows, and I like the mirror effect from the eastern wing that juts south. Still not my favorite building, but marginally better than the previous renderings.

Is it just me, or do the small, dark windows evoke the old Safdie-designed BR building on the Plaza?

A couple of other tidbits:

- I asked why a local architecture firm wasn't used. Mr. Burke stated that HNTB started this project and pulled in Cooper Carry to finish it out as they have extensive experience with convention center hotels. Their portfolio isn't bad as the Cleveland Hilton looks sharp so I am not sure what gives on the design...
- Process started in 2011, by the time it supposedly will open looking at 8 years in the making (2019 opening; late in the year).
- Third party restaurant will sit at ground level on the corner of Truman and Baltimore.
-Main entrance on Wyandotte
- 801 rooms to be exact
- 44 foot grade; but will work to their advantage when building it as they won't have to do any major excavations
- Anticipated groundbreaking is September but it seems to me that there is still a lot to do that could push it out (Title clearance, max construction price, financial closing, etc)
- At the time when Burke's team came to the city, there were three other proposals also in the city's hands: Marriott, Omni and Hilton.