urbanSTL

USDA picks Kansas City as the new home of USDA ERS and NIFA(600new Jobs). The new research facilities will join the over 5,000 existing KC USDA employees. https://www.usda.gov/media/press-relea ... s-and-nifa

Site Selection: Downtown appears to be the primary focus of the site search ( City Center Square, Crown Center, Quality Hill, etc) The City Center Square listing was very recently removed from the Loopnet map.

Sites in Kansas are also in play (Sprint HQ, etc)

Those folks are outraged to be living in Kansas City, though.

BellaVilla wrote: There's no agriculture to speak of in DC. The finest Agricultural schools in the country are in the midwest and the plains, not the mid-atlantic.

It sounds like more than a few of the people working there are from small town, mid-America. They evidently didn’t like that life and moved to a big east coast city instead. I wonder if some of these folks don’t know KC and assume this is a move back to rural life.

KansasCitian wrote: Those folks are outraged to be living in Kansas City, though.

The objections I read were based mostly on the idea of moving research away from the DC, especially research which may not jive with the current administration's policies.  More of trying to hide/ignore certain things, rather than "punishing" people by making them move to KC.

This is just parallel to a company moving a HQ from Downtown to the suburbs. Even if employees live in denser Kansas City proper they will inevitably live a lifestyle that encourages and subsidizes car dependency. They're trading in their WMATA pass for a two car garage in Johnson County... congrats?

Also... at the end of the day, this is what USDA wants. The best of the best will leave their position, go private, save tax payers, some will be replaced with good midwestern (cheap) talent. This is a strategy to consolidate and slash.

1. Proposed Hotel at Uptown Theatre is a Go - Midtown KC


95-120 room Boutique Hotel to break ground this year in mid-town. This project is located in the parking lot of Uptown Shopping Center and soon to be Uptown Lofts. Uptown Lofts to break ground in the next few weeks.

Per filed site plan, the hotel will be a Moxy. A removed rendering on CitySceneKC appeared to confirm this.

https://cityscenekc.com/uptown-hotel-p ... idtown-kc/



2. WeWork to take 2 floors at the Lightwell office tower.


Floor Plans only show the center amenity areas, the main open working spaces are off to the sides(not shown).



Renderings

ldai_phs wrote: 1. Proposed Moxy Hotel at Uptown Theatre - Midtown KC


95-120 room Moxy Hotel to break ground this year in mid-town. This project is located in the parking lot of Uptown Shopping Center and soon to be Uptown Lofts. Uptown Lofts to break ground in the next few weeks.

https://cityscenekc.com/uptown-hotel-pr ... idtown-kc/

I don't see Moxy mentioned in the article. Looks like a Vib hotel to me. Will be a good addition though.

chriss752 wrote:

ldai_phs wrote: 1. Proposed Moxy Hotel at Uptown Theatre - Midtown KC


95-120 room Moxy Hotel to break ground this year in mid-town. This project is located in the parking lot of Uptown Shopping Center and soon to be Uptown Lofts. Uptown Lofts to break ground in the next few weeks.

https://cityscenekc.com/uptown-hotel-pr ... idtown-kc/

I don't see Moxy mentioned in the article. Looks like a Vib hotel to me. Will be a good addition though.

Moxy was shown in the project site plan. Additionally, the article had a second rendering that showed an angled view of a Moxy sign on top of the hotel. This rendering was removed from the article.

I will edit my post to reflect that the Moxy brand was not officially announced.

1. Strata Office Tower

• Copaken Brooks has confirmed a Q4 2019 Construction Start - Q4 2021 Completion
• The project has grown from 250k SF to 262,656 SF as shown on CB and BNIM websites
• KC City Council filed an accelerated ordinance last week for this project's incentives. 

2. KC Streetcar Phase 2 - Retiring Councilman Jermaine Reed filed an accelerated financing ordinance last week for the project.

City Transit Committee - Ordinance 190510:

• “City Council intends to finance a streetcar system expansion project in an amount not to exceed $185,000,000.00, establishing the Special Obligation Series 2020B Fund for development costs, accelerates effective date, approves cooperative agreements with KC Streetcar and TDD, etc” - 
• This ordinance provides advance approval for the eventual bond sale for the project, appropriates $9.1million for predevelopment costs, and authorizes the execution of new agreements between KCMO, New TDD, And KC Streetcar {see below}.
• It is expected that approval of this ordinance will push the Federal Funding application forward.

Per the recently filed “Cooperative Agreement for Streetcar Phase 2”:

• “The cost of planning, design, acquisition, and construction of the Phase 2 Line is presently estimated to be approximately $330,000,000 including contingency budget(~33%) as required by FTA.
• “The FTA has allocated appropriate funding for the Phase 2 Capitals Costs in the amount of $163,350,000.”
• “Jackson County is considering and may present to voters, at some future date, one or more funding mechanisms for the purpose of designing and constructing a commuter rail system that may terminate or otherwise stop at a location services by the project.... City to try and gain a financial contribution from the county if the county is successful”

3. Hotel Bravo - New Rendering

TIF Commission delayed their vote for a second time to July. Recommended Action: Approval of the plan and forwarding to City Council, Recommending Do Pass to the city council, etc.

A specific flag has not been announced but rumors are that this is a Hyatt, likely Park Hyatt. Hotel Bravo would be the second Hyatt project under construction in downtown KC after years away from the market.



4. Loews Convention Center Hotel

A few recent photos:





More Photos

ldai_phs wrote:3rd Delaware Office Project. -$25 million; 5 floors; 64,000 SF

Something like this would go good on Laclede’s Landing

Lots of office action this week...


Washington Square Park Office Redevelopment - Phase 1 (KC’s Version of Nashville Yards)

This is along the tracks just north of Crown Center, east of Union Station.



Washington Square Park is a planned office development located in Kansas City, Missouri. The 5.51-acre site will be home to two office buildings, totaling 390,000 square feet. The west building will have 10 stories and 150,000 rentable square feet. The east building will have 8 stories and 240,000 rentable square feet. The parking ratio for both buildings is 4 cars / 1,000 SF for a total of 2,066 spaces in a structured parking garage. Anticipated incentives include sales tax exemption and property tax abatement. Anticipated groundbreaking is early 2020 with a 24-month design-build schedule with core/shell completion expected during the summer of 2022.

https://vantrustrealestate.com/propert ... uare-park/

^What is driving the demand for additional office buildings in KC?

DogtownBnR wrote:^What is driving the demand for additional office buildings in KC?

A few things... KC’s business community left downtown in bigger droves than STL’s. We are now seeing a lot of small- midsized firms return.

KC has recently been passed up by a few national firms looking to place multi thousand job operations in downtown KC (Starbucks is a public example) due to Lack of available or under construction space.

Looks like HOK's been upping their game lately. 

The Mayor wrote: Tower crane is up for 46 Penn Centre on the Plaza, I live a block down from here.  Finally, something new is coming down here.

Leasing Update:  RSM has announced it will move from its current location at 4801 Main St. to 46 Penn Centre in 2020. Although the company currently has 220 local employees, it plans to grow its Kansas City office up to 400 employees over the next several years.

Kansas City Business Journal Jun 25, 2019, 3:58pm EDT

Construction Progress Update: Steel is slowly making its way into place.

ldai_phs wrote:Tracks 215 Apartment Project (Freight House District - South Crossroads):

$98 million. 250 units. Project TIF was approved by the KC City Council.

Nice height and size. At least they show the correct color of the brick so that there is no “surprise” like Arterra.

1. Children's Mercy Research Tower





2. 1800 Walnut (REVERB)



3. City Club Apartments








4. LOEWS Convention Center Hotel