KCRag Forum

A few of the older apartment complexes in the neighborhood have already been refurbished and updated. And as the complex grows more of the nearby housing stock will also be refurbished and updated. It will take time, afterall look at the urban core of KC and the time it has taken till now and still how much needs to be done.
I agree, the complex should have some of it set aside for new residential. Think Cerner is missing something there. Doesn't have to be upscale, just something for the singles and parents with a small one. However, that would take away from the full potential this complex could have on the surrounding neighborhoods and their redevelopment.

Does anyone know how the new ceo feels about downtown?

Hard to say, but he comes from Phillips North America, which has it's HQ outside of a town of 70,000 on northern Massachusetts. I doubt he choose that location, but that's still not great. It looks like they do have their R&D located in East Cambridge, almost in downtown Boston.

KCRAG needs to interview him.

For Reference:

The Sprint Campus is about the same size as 1 World Trade Center.

The completed Cerner Bannister Complex alone will be about the size of 1 and 7 World Trade Centers combined. Phase One is the same size as One KC Place. The other offices around the city would combine for at least 2-3 additional One KC Places.

Then add in the dozens of Condo, Apartment, and Hotel towers that would shoot up if Sprint and Cerner were downtown. Then the plethora of smaller infill projects. Kansas City would be an entirely different city. If only those in power at just 2 companies cared. :/
Sprint’s Current CEO seems like a pro downtown guy, but the bad choices were made decades before he arrived. Cerner’s new ceo is too new to tell. But in theory they can still be stopped at Bannister

On a happier note, Microsoft, Apple, and a bunch of other non KC based companies in JOCO have the money and interest to move downtown.
Ex. Swiss Re moved downtown because the big whigs elsewhere want their employees in an urban enviroment.I heard somewhere that Apple and Microsoft’s leases run out in the next few years. We could totally poach them. They probably would only need a few hundred thousand square feet each but it would get the ball rolling.

The local large companies have already demonstrated that they have no interest in investing in downtown office space.

The only two options are:
1.) speculative builds: which our local developers don't seem to want to swallow
2.) growth of more homegrown companies-- local, and state government need to create a pro-business environment.

Our best bet at this point is six light and that it leases out pretty quickly thereby encouraging other developers to take a look.

Spec building has to happen for downtown to gain the office we need. We just have no developer/bank willing to do it.

WoodDraw wrote:Spec building has to happen for downtown to gain the office we need. We just have no developer/bank willing to do it.

KC Banks and Developers are too conservative. We need to attract more outside developers

I don't know if this is fair, but I feel like every lot we care about is being banked.

Let's put a tax on surface parking lots. Or then so we just get a bunch of prefab garages. I don't know what the solution is. It feels like hotels and residential kind of broke out of nowhere. Could office be next?

WoodDraw wrote:I don't know if this is fair, but I feel like every lot we care about is being banked.

Let's put a tax on surface parking lots. Or then so we just get a bunch of prefab garages. I don't know what the solution is. It feels like hotels and residential kind of broke out of nowhere. Could office be next?

Parking Garage Landbanking could become a thing. Parking is required in this city. We don’t want to drive up the cost of a garage for someone building an office tower yet we also don’t want people sitting on lots and garages. Maybe the city would build a few big garages. Tax surface parking,empty lots, and low density garages, use those revenues to fund the public garages. The public garages could then allocate space to developments that occur in the newly filled lots. As tax revenue dries up, the public garages would then switch to a parking fee financing structure.


We have attracted a few mid/small sized companies. I still think going after Apple and Microsoft’s Joco offices would be a good idea. They have the money and will to move somewhere more urban. And they try to attract the hip young people who want to live and work downtown. I think we will have a lot better time in general attracting non KC based companies to downtown than KC ones

I think a downtown move would be very good for Sprint. A lot more visibility in KC, even national, and better ability to attract critical talent as well as a general infusion of life into a company that's been teetering. With a relatively new CEO with no ties to suburban KC, now would be a great time for them to make the move.

Doesn't Sprint own their place?

Sprint moved Virgin Mobile HQ from New Jersey to downtown KC. Moving some Sprint functions downtown not implausible like if they can lease out HQ space to others for more than renting downtown. The issue as always is free parking in burbs vs expensive parking downtown. Is why there will be very few companies over 1K moving downtown until there is metro transit many will use.

Highlander wrote:I think a downtown move would be very good for Sprint. A lot more visibility in KC, even national, and better ability to attract critical talent as well as a general infusion of life into a company that's been teetering. With a relatively new CEO with no ties to suburban KC, now would be a great time for them to make the move.

He seems like a pro-downtown guy. I'm sure he had a hand in Virgin Mobile moving downtown as well. Generally, the sprint campus is pretty divided so moving some portions of the company downtown would not be a huge jump.

It's work force too. I wonder what the average Sprint employee age and location is.

earthling wrote:Sprint moved Virgin Mobile HQ from New Jersey to downtown KC. Moving some Sprint functions downtown not implausible like if they can lease out HQ space to others for more than renting downtown. The issue as always is free parking in burbs vs expensive parking downtown. Is why there will be very few companies over 1K moving downtown until there is metro transit many will use.

The metro wide transit tax if approved will help this some.

WoodDraw wrote:It's work force too. I wonder what the average Sprint employee age and location is.

Divisions that pull in alot of young workers would benefit downtown

WoodDraw wrote:It's work force too. I wonder what the average Sprint employee age and location is.

They would adjust. KC is such an incredibly easy city to commute in. I lived in the western burbs of Houston and people changed jobs to places in the Woodlands and still took the hour + one way white knuckle commute every day without changing their domiciles. If you are in the KC metro, are you really ever more than 15-20 minutes from downtown KC at any point in the day (World Series parades notwithstanding?)? Lees Summit maybe but that's not even that bad of a commute. As someone said earlier, parking would be by far the bigger issue. B

WoodDraw wrote:Doesn't Sprint own their place?

Yes, but they could turn most of the campus into a data center, rent or sell off the rest of the space to JoCo centered companies. Then they could move the bulk of their operations downtown and return some help back to the city that could give it more visibility than a prison like campus in a cookie cutter suburb.

Ugh I hate that campus

I say we do a prison swap - we get Sprint and they get the Jackson county jail.