Manhattan, KS Development

[longviewmo]

Manhattan has quite a few projects going on right now. Not sure how many get coverage in KC, so I figured I'd post a bit about stuff going on:

NBAF - National Bio and Agro Defense Facility
- Located on NW side of KSU campus
- Congressional budget has $714M in funding ready for it
- Construction is underway on $80M power plant currently
- Land was recently handed over to US Gov't
- Completion = ?; have heard anything from 2017 - 2020
- Pretty pics/ more info: http://www.kclifesciences.org/news/life ... d-k-state/ ; http://mcmjv.com/

Downtown Redevelopment
- Mostly completed - happened 2010 - now
- 2 areas; a few blocks on both north and south side of mall
- Ripped out a lot of old buildings, including some that were housing viable businesses
South End:
- Flint Hills Discovery Center opened last year, awesome building. http://www.flinthillsdiscovery.org/ ; http://www.ci.manhattan.ks.us/index.aspx?nid=1060
- A couple new hotels near FHDC (Candlewood Suites, Hilton Garden)
- New park next to FHDC
North End:
- Few block long strip center that brought tons of new retail and dining that you can't get between Topeka and Salina.
- 96 unit apartment complex being built burnt November 2011 in arson. $4M in damage, has been completely rebuilt http://themercury.com/photo-video/galle ... llage-fire ; http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Excl ... 02123.html
- Plans and stuffs: http://www.ci.manhattan.ks.us/index.aspx?nid=264

Sunset Zoo
- New $3.5M education building opened last year. Can't find any pics. http://www.wibw.com/community/headlines ... 25555.html

Campus stuff
- Overview of everything type video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwCOXT9u3o
- West Stadium Center. $75M press box/luxury suites. Poke around this site and there's live construction cams- http://www.kstatesports.com/weststadium ... tails.html
- Engineering building addition - ~$40M - breaking ground either this year or next year. Detailed plans: http://www.da.ks.gov/fp/AEPrograms/KSU_ ... hase_4.pdf
- College of Business Administration building - Fall '16
- Redoing Old Stadium. West side will have a theater opening next spring - http://www.k-state.edu/theatre/PM%20Renderings.html. East side will be a welcome center at some point before 2025. http://www.found.ksu.edu/welcome-center/
- $23M renovation/addition at recreation complex; new tennis and volleyball courts outside. http://recservices.k-state.edu/expansio ... plans.html

Residential Development
There's a few neighborhoods being actively developed:
- Area between Seth Child and Scenic
- In/around Colbert Hills
- 24 at Green Valley

[longviewmo]

Oh, and this. A hotel right at the edge of campus and Aggieville. Ground level retail... also the only retail on the north side of Bluemont. http://bluemonthotel.com/

[mgh7676]

It is pretty crazy to hear about all the development going on in Manhattan. Being from that area, I use to love that the town had managed to keep an identity, but unfortunately, outside of aggieville, most of the new development is cookie-cutter, chain stores.

For those interested, Manhattan's chamber of commerce president was on the local talk radio station this morning with a list of new developments. This list goes on for 15 minutes...there is more development than anytime I can remember.

http://1350kman.com/infocus-081513/#

[longviewmo]

It seems like everything in Aggieville is turning into bars and restaurants. The churn is already ridiculous for the bars especially, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a bunch of empty spots in the next couple of years.

[mgh7676]

Agreed. Was in Aggieville last weekend, I know most of the college kids are gone for the Summer, but the bar scene seemed much more dispersed than when I was in college. Even the "busy" bars weren't that busy.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

Agreed. Was in Aggieville last weekend, I know most of the college kids are gone for the Summer, but the bar scene seemed much more dispersed than when I was in college. Even the "busy" bars weren't that busy.

Aggieville is always dead during the summer.

[longviewmo]

Renderings are up for the hotel. Right now, they only have the parking ramp built. http://bluemonthotel.com/gallery/

Almost done with streetscape stuff in downtown. This pic doesn't show the bumpouts, but they have quite a few of them now too.


I'll try to go around and get pics of stuff going on around town later this week.

Rec Center stuff is almost, almost done.
NBAF's power plant and the new KS Department of Ag building are steel frames.
KFC and McDonalds are building new restaurants and screwing up all sorts of stuff on 3rd.
New dorm groundbreaking next spring.
One side Memorial Stadium is being renovated into a theater and is getting gutted.
GTM's K-State Superstore is building a huge new retail store in front of Menards.

Two things competing for being the crown jewel of 2013 development:
1. We're now a two Dollar General town.
2. Pizza Ranch is being built in front of Menards.

[moderne]

Been wanting to get out and see the tallgrass prairie museum. Anyone been there?

[longviewmo]

Been wanting to get out and see the tallgrass prairie museum. Anyone been there?

This? http://www.flinthillsdiscovery.org/

If so, yeah. A lot of it is definitely geared towards kids, but it's still pretty neat. Learned a bit and it beat my expectations for a museum about a bunch of grass.

[chingon]

Been wanting to get out and see the tallgrass prairie museum. Anyone been there?

Every time I decide to, I just go to the prairie instead.

[mgh7676]

How is the Civicplus building coming along?

[longviewmo]

How is the Civicplus building coming along?

These pictures are from https://www.facebook.com/aggieville.archives.

Bluemont Hotel: https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 2419_n.jpg

Civicplus building: https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 6579_n.jpg

4th and Houston: https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 8421_n.jpg

[mgsports]

Topeka has more Food/Retail then Manhattan/KU-area and so on near by but at least Menards is in Manhattan.

[mgh7676]

Topeka has more Food/Retail then Manhattan/KU-area and so on near by but at least Menards is in Manhattan.

Topeka has a population roughly equal to MHK and Lawrence combined...so yes...it does have more food/retail. And Menards really isn't that cool.

[longviewmo]

Aggieville Archives posted this hour long video of Manhattan in 1955 on their page today. Seems pretty detailed.

http://youtu.be/lZmwxz32aSo

[mgsports]

Pizza Ranch coming.
http://themercury.com/forums/viewthread/367/#2124

[longviewmo]

It's a momentous week in MHK. Why? KFC and McDonalds both open this week.

In other news, everything's still moving forward strong. The KS Ag building is moving very fast, while Bluemont Hotel and CivicPlus look like they've reached final height.

Dara's is undergoing some changes. They converted one into a Taco Casa, demolished another one, and changed banners at a third.

[longviewmo]

Webcam for the addition/demolition (camera doesn't show that side) of the Engineering Complex is now up:

http://www.engg.ksu.edu/phaseiv/camera/

[longviewmo]

Another update.

CivicPlus is really coming along great. https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 2079_n.jpg
Marshall Theater renovation is done. It didn't look terrible before, but it looks great now.
Starting to stone Bluemont Hotel. https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5778_n.jpg. They also seem to be done with blocking three out of the four westbound lanes at that intersection, so that's great.

[longviewmo]

Here's a bunch of pictures:

Kansas Department of Agriculture.



Various views of the CivicPlus building.





Bluemont Hotel



The ground's being cleared for Wefald Hall



Engineering building is in site prep mode now. (see webcam link from a couple posts ago)