KCRag Forum

Oops, I was thinkin' Zona Rosa...another project slow to get started.

QueSi2Opie wrote:Oops, I was thinkin' Zona Rosa...another project slow to get started.

Zonarosa is going nuts now.

i took pics of zona rosa and boardwalk 2 days ago if anyone would like to see lemme know.

yeah let's see

do i just put them in the photo album or what- im new to this

what is up with this place? i guess they are just waiting for someone to knock on their door?

I read somewhere that whoever was heading up the town center portion was in legal trouble shortly after its hyping in the late '90s.

La Belle Vita, the stalled retail component of Briarcliff West has been reborn as Briarcliff Village. Development has been outsourced to the ubiquitous RED. It's described 130,000 sqf of retail/restaurant/office. Renderings suggest two-story buildings.

http://www.briarcliffkc.com/retail.htm

130,000 sq. ft. is about the size of a large Target building or a small Walmart.

Not very much for all the pictures they show.

where are we at on this?

Beermo wrote: where are we at on this?

Dude, it's going to Independence.....Briarcliff's development keeps getting scaled back.  I thin the original plan was a huge new urbanism development and it's been whittled down to a 130,000 sf RED strip center.

Just a Tuscan-themed strip mall, but some of it will be two stories, with offices on top.

The company I work for is going to be relocating offices early next year.  One of the locations they are looking at are the new office buildings going up in the southern part of the Briarcliff office park.

I hadn't driven down through that area, so I took Mullberry through the residential area and then down the bluff into the retail/office area.  I hadn't realized that construction is well underway on Briarcliff Village.

The website still doesn't list any tenants, but it looks to me like this thing will be up and running within months.  Anybody heard any recent rumors as to any stores that have signed on?  It looked rather nice to me.

Tivol jewelers and Piropos Argentino restaurant.

Here's a whoooooole buncha info :

Not the same ol’ same ol’

Northland’s Briarcliff Village will skip chains and focus on local businesses

By JOYCE SMITH - The Kansas City Star

“We will serve the Northland’s growing affluent market, but the destination stores also will serve the whole metropolitan area,â€

Wow that's a lazy and/or fawning reporter who just accepted Garney's spin about a local focus at face value.  Joyce should know better since this is her beat.  The reason Briarcliff Village is so far behind schedule is that they spent years trying attract the national chains they are now criticizing. 

The local flavor is great and will probably be very successful, but they didn't set out to have it.  They got it by accident when locals were the only tenants they could get.

Yep...just a few years ago at ICSC they were pimping La Bella Vita big time.  Everywhere you'd turn was another La Bella Vita poster.

They've settled....I'm pretty sure the new age crystal around his neck told him it was ok to settle.

dangerboy wrote: Wow that's a lazy and/or fawning reporter who just accepted Garney's spin about a local focus at face value.  Joyce should know better since this is her beat.  The reason Briarcliff Village is so far behind schedule is that they spent years trying attract the national chains they are now criticizing. 

The local flavor is great and will probably be very successful, but they didn't set out to have it.  They got it by accident when locals were the only tenants they could get.

I agree with all of this...she should've at least mentioned this project used to have a different name and bigger scope. But I do think it is an interesting to ponder the future of local tenants with national ones. I do think many shoppers are sick of seing the same names and same experiences in every shopping center everywhere.

dangerboy wrote: La Belle Vita, the stalled retail component of Briarcliff West has been reborn as Briarcliff Village.  Development has been outsourced to the ubiquitous RED.  It's described 130,000 sqf of retail/restaurant/office.   Renderings suggest two-story buildings.

http://www.briarcliffkc.com/retail.htm

Tuscan seems to be the new trend for everything these days. Shopping centers, houses. Whats next Tuscan clothing.
I checked out the web-site, it is not being developed by RED. RED Brokerage is an indpendant arm of RED that does retail leasing for other developers and shopping center owners.

www.redbrokerage.com

dangerboy wrote: Wow that's a lazy and/or fawning reporter who just accepted Garney's spin about a local focus at face value.  Joyce should know better since this is her beat.  The reason Briarcliff Village is so far behind schedule is that they spent years trying attract the national chains they are now criticizing. 

The local flavor is great and will probably be very successful, but they didn't set out to have it.  They got it by accident when locals were the only tenants they could get.

Nothing against locally owned businesses, but it is a documented fact that 90 percent of small businesses fail in their first year. I predict at least half the tenants that open initially will close within a year. Not that there is anything wrong with the small business owner, it is just that they don't have the deep pockets like the nationals do to weather the unavoidable downtowns in the retail and dinning business. After that they will be replaced with mid-range national chains of not quite the same cachet. It is the fate of all kansas city area super-upscale developments that try to fill its stores with small business owners when the national super-luxuries decline. It is inevitable.

The Kansas City trade area can only support one area of super luxury retail/dinning, and it just happens to be the plaza. However, even on the Plaza the super luxury retailers are few and far between with Gaps and American Eagles which are quite obviously run-of-the-mill mid-range nationals filling out the majority of the Plaza's space. We just aren't New York or Los Angeles. Or even Denver for that matter. A day may come when that is different, but not today.

When Kansas City area developers talk about "upscale" retail developments, they aren't referring to the stores in the development they are referring to the building materials, landscaping and amenities like fountains, statues, etc. Too many people on this forum have the misconception that when they hear the word upscale on the lips of a Kansas City area retail developer, they are talking about the stores. That is never the case.