Downtown office vacancy

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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FangKC
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by FangKC »

UMKC Roo wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 1:57 am
Chris Stritzel wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:06 am
hartliss wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:02 am

Any other details? Seems like big news…
I personally believe it’s the EPC one on Broadway in the Crossroads. That’s the only one I know of that could be getting closer to an announcement.
What's EPC?
https://epcrealestate.com/properties.html
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

Have found these reports interesting, so posting for another snapshot in time. No surprise, took a dip late Dec/first week of Jan but had an average of 48.4% in December.

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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

earthling wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 7:53 am CBRE Q3 shows negative absorption for Q3 essentially in Jackson Co and rest of metro positive absorption. With a slight net metro gain overall for first time in a while.
http://cbre.vo.llnwd.net/grgservices/se ... 718aa02b15
CBRE Q4 shows negative absorption for the entire metro, with the Plaza being the lone exception. And I guess Kansas City, KS which had 0 sq. ft. net absorption.

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https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/k ... es-q4-2022
Last edited by Cratedigger on Tue Jan 17, 2023 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
earthling
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by earthling »

^The CBRE report doesn't show the Oracle/Cerner space dumped.

The JLL Q4 report does and it's not pretty. Almost 3.2M sqft negative metro absorption for 2022 with Northland and WyCo of course taking hardest hits from Oracle. Downtown shows Class A at a not so good 24% total vacancy.
https://www.us.jll.com/content/dam/jll- ... s-city.pdf
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

https://blog.google/inside-google/mess ... y-update/

Google to lay off 12,000 workers. Is fiber impacted?
earthling
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by earthling »

^Layoffs never good news but Big Tech has been on a hiring binge since pandemic and the cutback is relatively not as much as recently hired. Google added over 35K jobs since early 2021 so a 12K cutback globally maybe not as bad as it sounds. Tech job postings still strong so might not be a major impact with several Big Tech layoffs, perhaps just a shuffle.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-t ... 1674251270

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TheUrbanRoo
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by TheUrbanRoo »

Love to see jobs going from Metcalf to Downtown...

Accounting firm CLA will depart Overland Park for Town Pavilion
Phil Hayes, managing principal of CLA’s Kansas City office, said in a release. “This move will help us better recruit and retain talent from Kansas City and the surrounding area.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ilion.html
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Highlander
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Highlander »

UMKC Roo wrote: Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:02 pm Love to see jobs going from Metcalf to Downtown...

Accounting firm CLA will depart Overland Park for Town Pavilion
Phil Hayes, managing principal of CLA’s Kansas City office, said in a release. “This move will help us better recruit and retain talent from Kansas City and the surrounding area.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ilion.html
Nice to see the acknowledgement that downtown locations help attract and retain talent.

How employees are making the move?
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

Highlander wrote: Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:00 pm
UMKC Roo wrote: Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:02 pm Love to see jobs going from Metcalf to Downtown...

Accounting firm CLA will depart Overland Park for Town Pavilion
Phil Hayes, managing principal of CLA’s Kansas City office, said in a release. “This move will help us better recruit and retain talent from Kansas City and the surrounding area.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ilion.html
Nice to see the acknowledgement that downtown locations help attract and retain talent.

How employees are making the move?
8,000 sq feet so probably what - 25-50?
TheUrbanRoo
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by TheUrbanRoo »

Highlander wrote: Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:00 pm
UMKC Roo wrote: Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:02 pm Love to see jobs going from Metcalf to Downtown...

Accounting firm CLA will depart Overland Park for Town Pavilion
Phil Hayes, managing principal of CLA’s Kansas City office, said in a release. “This move will help us better recruit and retain talent from Kansas City and the surrounding area.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ilion.html
Nice to see the acknowledgement that downtown locations help attract and retain talent.

How employees are making the move?
Based on the sq ft I'd say 25-50.

I hope this starts becoming a trend of JoCo offices realizing talent recruiting is easier to do downtown and we reverse the trend. Then maybe we can start building some spec office downtown..
missingkc
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by missingkc »

The company has 18 cpas plus some admin and support staff, I guess. They intend to grow.
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

Hearing some rumors about a 10% reduction at SS&C in KC. Has anyone else heard this?
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

Office occupancy rose above 50% for only the second time since the pandemic, even with the Presidents' Day holiday. Curious to see how this continues as we move into Spring.

Kastle has also started releasing results by day of the week. Unsurprisingly, Tues-Thurs is significantly higher than Monday and Friday.

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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

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Holding steady at 50% pre-pandemic occupancy. Expect this number to drop over the next couple weeks as families travel for spring break. Following that, maybe a push as the weather improves?
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by trailerkid »

Out of curiosity, is downtown office vacancy something that any civic group in KC is tracking outside of the real estate folks? Is it important to the Mayor? Council? Downtown Council? Chamber of Commerce? Are there groups actively using this metric as their success metric?

It is a huge deal covered by the media in other cities, but I never got that impression in KC that there was an active civic effort to fill office buildings.
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Anthony_Hugo98
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Anthony_Hugo98 »

trailerkid wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:39 pm Out of curiosity, is downtown office vacancy something that any civic group in KC is tracking outside of the real estate folks? Is it important to the Mayor? Council? Downtown Council? Chamber of Commerce? Are there groups actively using this metric as their success metric?

It is a huge deal covered by the media in other cities, but I never got that impression in KC that there was an active civic effort to fill office buildings.
We have a pretty steady trend of office conversions, and have been doing them since before covid, so that could explain the lack of publicity of it? The fact that we’re just keeping on with the trend, if maybe a little more expedited now.
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TheLastGentleman
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by TheLastGentleman »

Maybe our downtown is less dominated by office space than other downtowns? We really only have, what, 5 multi-tenant office towers in the loop? Everything else got turned into apartments
TheUrbanRoo
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by TheUrbanRoo »

'Veeva Systems sets sights on 100 new KC jobs — at least — in preparing downtown engineering hub'
Global health IT company Veeva Systems intends to make Kansas City one of its worldwide engineering hubs, planning to hire at least 100 people in the next five years and signing a new lease in the Lightwell building in Downtown.
"People are really excited," said Meredith Meyer, Veeva's vice president of global workplace. "I would say, more than any of our other U.S. offices that we're opening, I get questions all the time about Kansas City: 'I want to go into the office. When's it opening? We need that space.' ... I think it's going to be one of our best ones in the next few years."

Veeva joins Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City and Kansas City Southern on a small but growing list of companies expanding their offices in Downtown.
Been seeing more of this lately
Meyer said Veeva explored locations in the Country Club Plaza and Overland Park before landing on a more centrally situated hub in Downtown.
"The vibe of downtown Kansas City is great," she said. "It just had the positive and forward-looking energy that we were looking for.
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... -jobs.html
atticus23
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by atticus23 »

I truly hope more companies share Veeva's and Ms. Meyer's point of view about the vibe and moving to DT
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Cratedigger
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Re: Downtown office vacancy

Post by Cratedigger »

Even with warmer weather, office vacancy struggles to break 50%. Guessing spring break vacations and recent holidays are playing a big part

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