KCRag Forum

A developer bought a 1980's era garden apartment complex in my neighborhood that was primarily voucher tenants. He is simply not renewing anybody's lease,thus slowly emptying the building without evicting anyone and after this will renovate and go market rate.

alejandro46 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:45 pm Often unscruplous landlords discriminate against voucher holders too. Need good oversight and attorneys to help monitor and enforce laws.

Why do you think this is? Racism? Is there some financial reason? Does it hurt the ability to rent to other people? What's the additional risk to rent to a voucher holder instead of someone else?

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:57 pm

alejandro46 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:45 pm Often unscruplous landlords discriminate against voucher holders too. Need good oversight and attorneys to help monitor and enforce laws.

Why do you think this is? Racism? Is there some financial reason? Does it hurt the ability to rent to other people? What's the additional risk to rent to a voucher holder instead of someone else?

From what I’ve gathered from the opinion of real estate investors, it requires a fair bit more legwork in regards to paperwork, inspections, tenant base (not necessarily the tenants themselves but the folks that hang out at the unit with said tenant). Given I know a couple that have primarily section 8 because they know that it’s consistent income, and that they’ll always get paid every month, that and one genuinely just loves helping these folks have a nice place to live. Given he’s a smaller operation, only around 30 units, but he goes all out for these tenants. Honestly just a case by case thing too.

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:57 pm

alejandro46 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:45 pm Often unscruplous landlords discriminate against voucher holders too. Need good oversight and attorneys to help monitor and enforce laws.

Why do you think this is? Racism? Is there some financial reason? Does it hurt the ability to rent to other people? What's the additional risk to rent to a voucher holder instead of someone else?

Additional complication of dealing with an agency/case worker on top of the tenant. Inspections can be hard to get scheduled and can cause weeks-long to months-long vacancy over a minor issue that the landlord could get fixed in a day but then has issues scheduling a follow-up inspection. People on vouchers are probably on average not going to meet a landlord's general qualification standards, even ignoring income, so is the voucher providing any insurance for taking on that additional risk, whether that's bad credit, past evictions, criminal history or whatever? Probably not. One bad tenant in a multifamily building can cause all of the other tenants to move out and then a landlord's stuck trying to fill the entire building at the same time.

It's basically higher risk and more headache and the only real benefit is rent is guaranteed to be on time and depending on the property, that risk of late/no rent could be fairly low. And I don't even think section 8 pays market rent. Paying market rate, having enough inspectors on staff to get inspections done within a couple days, providing some sort of insurance for potential property damage and a guarantee that the agency will quickly move a tenant out if they're breaking the lease is probably what's needed to make it really attractive to landlords.

First Planning Commission meeting for this is set for December 6th.

We have elevations! I like the way things look so far. I get Troost and Armour as well as 4711 Belleview vibes from this one.

Additional site plans show that parking will be located behind the new structures in the form of surface parking and a 2-story garage. I count 194 parking spaces in the plans. Parking will be accessed from 36th and Baltimore. The buildings on Main stand 120ft tall with Armour's standing 110ft. It appears there will be walk-up units on Armour and amenity/retail spaces along Main, but it's hard to tell. The buildings will be mostly clad in metal panel with a few exceptions here and there.

Holy shit this is gonna be a game-changer. Please please let it pass.

Next the Burger King site and the former auto dealer self-storage. More services, shops etc, for all the residents of the Armour corridor.

Visually, this will have a major impact and change perceptions on a level not really seen before. Sure, Troost and Armour and the Light towers change things, but activating this much frontage on Main and building structures that tall will really change perceptions in the area. This more or less takes a quiet and forgotten block and adds hundreds of residents and neighborhood amenities.

Wow. And the best thing is Mac has a track record for actually building what they say they will build. It won't just stay a rendering. This should really spark other developers to take a look at Main Street.

It really infuriates me that the price brothers got the buildings at 31st and main rather than someone like MAC

moderne wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 11:29 am Next the Burger King site and the former auto dealer self-storage. More services, shops etc, for all the residents of the Armour corridor.

Hopefully MAC eventually acquires the other 3 corners and redevelops further that is more TOD oriented. Have posted before this intersection is an opportunity to give Midtown a more pronounced identity with its own town center so-to-speak. Ideally that would involve taller buildings at each corner that visually projects a Midtown identity but could be hard to pull off with neighborhood (and financially).

This is a good start for the intersection and all corners eventually at about this scale could still mostly accomplish a midtown center - Midtown Station. And while it's not really needed, would be nice to see a notable Midtown skyline even if just a few buildings standing out.

Yea, I think there would be problems with the neighborhood with anything taller on that SE corner. But the other 3 corners would still compose a significant TOD urban node.

Could stair step the buildings at each corner a bit taller, proposing only one at a time. The next corner being a few floors higher than this project, then next corner a few floors more than that and final corner a few floors more. Will be a challenge but this approach might have a better shot of gradual acceptance when spanned over years. Public rooftop bar/restaurants with both downtown/Plaza views might make it more appealing to neighborhood.

Sent the drone up today...

Wow those look great. Everything I would have hoped for for this corner. I hope it goes ahead smoothly. Fingers crossed.

The spaces between each of the three buildings, would they allow access for the houses on Baltimore to walk through to Main? That section of street is a bit sad due to fronting the backside of Main buildings. It'd be nice to improve the view and connection of that block.

Isn't there also a pretty good chance that something similar in scale to this is built at Main and Linwood? Main Street will be a totally different place.

GRID wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 1:18 am Isn't there also a pretty good chance that something similar in scale to this is built at Main and Linwood? Main Street will be a totally different place.

I hope. Sunflower got the old funeral home and the GMC dealer is for sale. There’s the potential that something much bigger can go there.

I have always thought that Linwood and Main would be a good spot for some high-rise development. Armour is more centrally located to Midtown, but Linwood is a wider intersection with more open space and the likely E/W streetcar line location. I think there would be less NIMBY opposition to high density there. Plus it could offer some nice downtown skyline views.

With Pancho's (Rancho's) apparently moving into the old Subway spot, that corner likely won't be redeveloped soon, but maybe if and when the E/W line gets going, things could change.

Hopefully they build something of a good scale on the NW corner.