OFFICIAL - Power & Light Apartments

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[FangKC]

The reason I asked about the cost of constructing a new home garage on a single family house lot, is to get some comparison to the cost of providing a single parking spot in a structured parking garage.

People don't balk at paying extra for a garage on their house, since most new homes have them nowadays. They don't really consider the extra cost of the garage in the home price.

The other thing we need to consider is the cost of renting a similar new apartment in the suburbs--most of which don't have a garage with the apartment but a surface parking spot. Are luxury rental apartments in Overland Park cheaper to rent partially because they don't include the added cost of building any type of covered garage parking? I'm not talking about a parking garage, but a separate garage building. If the new luxury apartment comes with an enclosed garage, how much does it add to the cost of renting the apartment?

If we consider this aspect, are the rents in the P&L Building project, or the One Light tower, excessive in that they are providing a structured garage space? The other question is are people simply willing to pay more rent because they are getting parking in a garage setting with their housing, and because of the location downtown. Are they paying more because they are renting closer to their jobs downtown, and don't have to pay for gasoline and mileage to drive to work from Overland Park, Liberty, Grain Valley, or Lee's Summit? Are they paying for convenience of not losing an hour a day driving back and forth to work? Since they are currently using their vehicles primarily to drive back and forth on work days, will they also save money because they don't have to buy a new car as frequently?

The other thing to consider--especially with downtown parcels--is the opportunity cost. Is a garage parking space cheaper in the long run than a surface parking lot simply because the that land could find a more productive use? If you don't have to provide so many surface parking spaces downtown within a short distance of a worker's employer, wouldn't that land produce a lot more in wealth through commerce, or higher density residential?

Let's say your have five square blocks of downtown surface lot parking. If one takes one block and builds a parking garage that can park the same number of cars as the five sq. blocks of surface parking, or more, then those remaining four blocks are available for generating wealth through commerce and residential living. Will spending $27,000 to $47,000 for a parking spot in a garage actually generate more wealth for a city because those former surface lot spaces (and the air above them in a multi-story building) are available for people doing productive work that generates many thousands more over years and years on that same land?

Imagine a 30+-story building constructed atop a block of surface parking. A cubicle or office takes about the same space as a parking space. Roughly 30 workers could produce wealth on the same spot of a surface parking spot (x30+ floors) When you put it in this context, the cost of a garage parking spot is less prohibitive.

If you have workers who can walk to work, you also have less need to provide that employer-provided garage space, so the need for so many employee garage and surface lot spaces is reduced as well.

None of these factors are figured into the cost of a parking garage space.

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[aknowledgeableperson]

The major difference between the cost of a garage space with a suburban or even a garage space with a downtown or even the Plaza condo compared to rental is that the residential owner will generally recover that cost of the garage space when the property is sold. And one must also factor that in many cases it is easier to rent a downtown apartment with a garage space as opposed to renting without a garage space. And don't forget those downtown residents who reverse commute to jobs outside of downtown and must have a car.

And for quite a few suburban homes that garage space is not used for a car. Boat or wave runner storage is one use. A place to store a motorcycle or two with or without a trailer in another use. Workshops is another usage. Also know quite a few that have the space for car usage but the car is a classic or a special car for special or limited use.

[flyingember]

You know what would make a great "smart city" project? Real-time sensors hooked up to a public API that provides a count of open parking spaces in every garage downtown.

And put all this information on signs.

In Charleston every city garage showed how many spots there were by level so you could tell if there was space before entering it.

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[Eon Blue]

Anything to help out the suburbanites who follow their GPS to the Sprint Center and then get in trouble when the adjacent garage is full. That crush is the only thing approaching "traffic" that most of downtown sees.

[flyingember]

You could do a lot better than that if the data were available on the web. A nav app could could steer you straight into the garage nearest your destination. A parking app could suggest a convenient garage while giving you the option to select an alternative that's either farther but cheaper or nearer but dearer.

Those are the sorts of things that help you start solving the biggest problems with parking downtown, which are that (a) people don't know where garages are, which ones are open to the public, and what they cost, while (b) garage operators aren't able to price their spots to clear a market with constantly shifting demand.

absolutely. but you cannnot assume everyone has a phone that can run a specific app or even wants too or should be. need on the ground guidance too.

[FangKC]

Business Journal of Kansas City article:

NorthPoint celebrates kickoff of $63M Power & Light project

On the flip side, Power & Light apartment residents will have access to room service from the Hotel President.

Other luxury living features will include a club room with kitchen and bar/lounge on the 31st floor of the Power & Light tower and a rooftop pool and hot tub on the Power & Light North building.

Other amenities will include a theater, fitness center, dry sauna, massage therapy, tanning, a billiards room, and a bike storage and repair area.

http://tinyurl.com/n74zr6h

[im2kull]

You know what would make a great "smart city" project? Real-time sensors hooked up to a public API that provides a count of open parking spaces in every garage downtown.

And put all this information on signs.

In Charleston every city garage showed how many spots there were by level so you could tell if there was space before entering it.

They do this overseas as well. Usually the garages are smart enough that they even print you a ticket with a specific spot on it. You either park there or get ticketed. Plus every level and every turn lane, and even ever spot in some instances, displays a Green "Open" arrow, or a Red "Not Available" cross. It works extremely well. You can just keep going up ramps until you see Green. There's IR sensors above each spot to detect a car in that spot.

[mean]

You could do a lot better than that if the data were available on the web. A nav app could could steer you straight into the garage nearest your destination. A parking app could suggest a convenient garage while giving you the option to select an alternative that's either farther but cheaper or nearer but dearer.

Those are the sorts of things that help you start solving the biggest problems with parking downtown, which are that (a) people don't know where garages are, which ones are open to the public, and what they cost, while (b) garage operators aren't able to price their spots to clear a market with constantly shifting demand.

This is almost so obvious that it's painful and I'm ashamed to not have thought of it, but yeah. It shouldn't be a huge undertaking to filter one's chosen, say, Google Maps navigation route through a database of nearby public parking structures with associated costs, allowing a driver to choose where they wish to park. I think the problem would be getting access to an existing nav app's route data or the nav app's code; building a whole new GPS nav app just to incorporate parking is too much reinventing the wheel.

It would probably also be a bit of a trick to keep an accurate running tally of the spots in use at any given moment and dynamically updating the route as needed, or even better allowing an incoming driver to reserve a specific spot before even arriving, but it all seems totally doable so long as one has access to the necessary systems/data. I'm actually surprised this isn't a thing already (in fairness, it may already be a thing I haven't heard of).

Anyway, in terms of tech this is a fairly simple problem. In terms of funding, perhaps less simple.

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[Highlander]

According to this KCBJ article from December 2014, the developers had a pretty aggressive schedule for getting people into the P&L Building - I think it said Jan 2016?

Is anything even happening with this? It's nearly summer now - so I question their schedule regarding 2016, particularly with the new construction. With so much going in downtown with respect to apartments, is project in jeopardy now? It was one of the first advertised but it seems to have slipped to the back burner on the rag.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

[hgascoigne]

This photo was posted on their Instagram three weeks ago.

[Eon Blue]

They've been doing demo inside the tower for a long time now. I've seen at least one truckload of new construction material queued up on 14th in the last few weeks.

[flyingember]

from seeing a large amount of the work on the Union Carbide building, you would never know a building is being renovated inside if there weren't construction barriers.

a large amount of the work is things like you don't see outside and shouldn't. like the building main electrical equipment is a few days of deliveries and weeks of hookups and testing.

[moderne]

Scaffolding up on side of the lantern on top. Would be terrifying to be working up there!

[moderne]

It is too bad that this design plan did not continue one of the few good design features of the P&L District---the mid-block pedestrian alley. It would have been nice if they had continued it between Baltimore and Wyandotte, making a nice pedestrian link and line of sight between the convention center and Sprint Center.

[DaveKCMO]

It is too bad that this design plan did not continue one of the few good design features of the P&L District---the mid-block pedestrian alley. It would have been nice if they had continued it between Baltimore and Wyandotte, making a nice pedestrian link and line of sight between the convention center and Sprint Center.

has the alley been vacated or something?

[KCPowercat]

Yeah I thought they were keeping that alley concept going. There will be a sky bridge over the alley from original building to new.