What Do You Think of the Kansas City Skyline? (Union: condos, motel)

[jaxontwinz]

What do you think of KC's skyline? Good, Average, or Bad? I would give it average to bad. A C or C-. KC has a lot of art deco, but also modern glass buildings. The buildings contrast too much and the skyline is very elongated (east to west). Too long and not compact enough for me. What do you think needs to happen to improve it?

[northbound74]

To improve it would mean getting companies to stay there.

I think it's pretty good for a city it's size nonetheless. My favorite view is looking north on Main Street coming down the hill near Union Station. At night, it's almost dramatic.
Another good view is heading south on 169 at night. The way the lights are sprawled out, and with the airport to the left, it looks much bigger than it probably is.
The worst looks are from 70, which is unfortunate because I'm guess most out-of-towners passing through see it from that.
From the south on 35 isn't too shabby with Bartle Hall and the new performing arts center. From the north on 29/35 has never impressed me, but that new bridge probably helps. The old bridge was neat, but not very imposing.
All in all, my opinion on KC's skyline depends on the angle quite a bit. The collection of buildings are nice. I like the art-deco stuff of course.

[Hueffenhardt]

I like the view from Park Hill South High School's parking lot.

[tzeb]

My favorite view is from afar, crossing over the BNSF rail yards on I-635, while the sun is getting low in the west. Then, the distant skyline gleams like an Emerald City seen from the hinterlands of Oz.

But, honestly, to call the KC skyline impressive would be a stretch. What child hasn't seen pictures of New York, Chicago, or Hong Kong? KC's not all that big, and downtown's just one node of significant commerce among several in the area.

What would make the skyline better? Bigger corporate egos, for a start. In Houston, the big banks and oil companies downtown competed for bragging rights by erecting distinctive, even daring, skycrapers. That doesn't seem to have happened here.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by northbound74

To improve it would mean getting companies to stay there.

I think it's pretty good for a city it's size nonetheless. My favorite view is looking north on Main Street coming down the hill near Union Station. At night, it's almost dramatic.
Another good view is heading south on 169 at night. The way the lights are sprawled out, and with the airport to the left, it looks much bigger than it probably is.
The worst looks are from 70, which is unfortunate because I'm guess most out-of-towners passing through see it from that.
From the south on 35 isn't too shabby with Bartle Hall and the new performing arts center. From the north on 29/35 has never impressed me, but that new bridge probably helps. The old bridge was neat, but not very imposing.
All in all, my opinion on KC's skyline depends on the angle quite a bit. The collection of buildings are nice. I like the art-deco stuff of course.

I agree with all of this. First off, you kind of need to keep things in perspective. NYC, Chicago and Hong Kong? Really? Why would you even mention those cities skylines in the same thread as KC?

KC has 2 million people, not tens of millions. For a city of 2 million people I think KC has a great skyline. Think Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Sacramento, Milwaukee etc. I think KC's is better than all those places and is better or comparable to many cities that are larger than KC. It has a good contrast of art deco and modern (80's at least) class towers with some really nice modern unique lowrise structures (sprint center, kc star, bartle hall, performing arts center etc) that also compliment the warehouse districts that surround the skyline. Throw in Crown Center and the city has an impressive skyline and the view of KC as you crest main at Union Hill is breathtaking as you mentioned. That view of KC makes the city look huge and impressive especially since you probably just came from the plaza which has a skyline as large as many 1 million population metros.

As you say, it's the views of the city from the east and west that that really make KC look small. I really like the view of downtown as you come into the city from kansas because of that "OZ" effect is has. It doesn't feel like you are even in a major metro area as you enter KC via 70 through KCK. It's sort of rural and industrial looking from the interstate, there is almost no traffic and it's just sort of "wide open" and there is nothing taller than a motel along the route. Then all of the sudden, you see the downtown and crown center skylines on the higher up horizon in Missouri. But the skyline from that angle looks very small, like Des Moines or something. Same with from I-70 westbound, only the drive into the city is much more built up from Grain Valley on in.

Having said all that, KC is past due for a new modern tower or two. A building over 30 floors has not been constructed in KC since the 1980's. KC could use one or two 40-50 story modern towers to really bring the skyline up to par with places like Minneapolis. But that takes a local corporate community that doesn't run off to suburban kansas office parks every chance they get and right now, KC lacks that corporate civic pride outside of a few companies like hallmark and american century.

I think KC has a great skyline. It's just too bad that most people outside of KC have never seen it.

[Okey Dokie]

After I don't know how many years, I still cannot make heads or tails out of Bartle Hall's "Sky Stations."

[xenokc]

Will be hard to build new towers given all the office supply downtown. Downtown actually has a lot of office space for a metro its size. Might not appear that way because Crown Center buildings offset it. My favorite view is when coming from the N along 169hwy. The view coming down main street is pretty cool too, but looks better live than in a pic.

Take a look at the thread below... Downtown KC has a fairly high amount of space for its size and new buildings likely won't occur unless vacancy is below 12% or some local corp consolidates downtown, which isn't likely. Granted this only lists leasable space, but there is also a lot of company/govt owned space downtown on top of this, probably same ratio or higher than other downtowns...

I also wouldn't expect new highrise residential until the market can support over $500K condos or $1.70/sqft. High end condos aren't moving downtown at the rate on the Plaza, so it will be a while. Although, the 909 Walnut building is the tallest residential in the midwest outside of Chicago, but it's a conversion, not new building.

Rentable Office Space in KC metro


Downtown Area........ SqFt...... Vacancy Absorption (since last Q)
KC......................... 15,551,859 16.5% 160,983 (includes Crown Center)
STL....................... 13,862,272 26.8% -5,813
Minneapolis.............. 23,321,130 17.5% 91,707
Cincy...................... 14,773,866 21.72% -40,746
Cleveland................ 15,974,494 23.3% -187,018
Columbus................ 10,770,662 17.4% 22,161
Indy....................... 11,524,972 19.9% 25,469
Orlando................... 7,833,906 15.4% 624,694
San Antonio............. 4,945,926 25.3% -21,278
Tampa.................... 7,354,100 17.1% 51, 134

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by xenokc

Will be hard to build new towers given all the office supply downtown. Downtown actually has a lot of office space for a metro its size. Might not appear that way because Crown Center buildings offset it.

Take a look at this thread... Downtown KC has a fairly high amount of space for its size and new buildings likely won't occur unless vacancy is below 12% or some local corp consolidates downtown, which isn't likely. Granted this only lists leasable space, but there is also a lot of company/city owned space downtown on top of this, probably same ratio or higher than other downtowns...

I also wouldn't expect highrise residential until the market can support over $500K condos or $1.70/sqft. High end condos aren't moving downtown, so it will be a while.

Rentable Office Space in KC metro


Downtown Area........ SqFt...... Vacancy Absorption (since last Q)
KC......................... 15,551,859 16.5% 160,983 (includes Crown Center)
STL....................... 13,862,272 26.8% -5,813
Minneapolis.............. 23,321,130 17.5% 91,707
Cincy...................... 14,773,866 21.72% -40,746
Cleveland................ 15,974,494 23.3% -187,018
Columbus................ 10,770,662 17.4% 22,161
Indy....................... 11,524,972 19.9% 25,469
Orlando................... 7,833,906 15.4% 624,694
San Antonio............. 4,945,926 25.3% -21,278
Tampa.................... 7,354,100 17.1% 51, 134

True, but that is mostly for spec space. When a company wants to be in the city and build a new hq, the current office market doesn't matter quite as much. Plus you see cities build spec towers in bad office markets all the time and the city eventually absorbs the new space regardless of how bad things are and it tends to work out actually better in the long run because it adds more activity to the downtown, making it progressively more attractive and gives the city more options for keeping or luring new businesses. If you never build new spec office space (which KC really has not done since the 80's), then you really never grow the office market, you just watch vacancy rates go up and down. Downtown KC has a lot of government and class B or lower office space and only a handful of modern large class A office buildings. Regardless of that though, KC just doesn't have a lot of corporate presence downtown. Law firms and multi-tenant buildings or goverment offices dominate downtown.

It could use at least a couple of signature office towers occupied by local firms with their names proudly displayed on them. Sprint, Garmen, Black and Veatch, Burns and McDonnell, Cerner etc.

As far as spec, you see cities like Dallas, Denver, Atlanta etc overbuild, but then they are the ones that land huge corporate relocations (from other areas of metro or out of town), because they have the large, sexy office buildings that need to be filled and it's a domino effect.

One of the problems with KC fighting off JoCo is the lack diverse large chunks of office space to quickly move into and a large spec building once every five to ten years would only help KC, even if it hurts the vacancy rate short term. I'm not saying that KC should go nuts like atlanta or charlotte or austin and build skyscrapers like crazy, but come on, kc is not buffalo, the city should add more than it does over a period of 25 years.

The problem is KC no longer has big urban office developers locally. The morgon enterprise, which basically built the kc skyline as we know it spec in the 1980's, is long gone and all the national developers ignore kc.

So no developers willing to take risks for spec space (even during the booming 90's and early 00's) and no companies willing to invest in something other than subsidized suburban office parks for private non spec development and you have a stagnant skyline.

Had Sprint built 4 million sq ft of space in downtown towers rather than OP in the early 2000's, Downtown would probably be poaching companies from Kansas (or from out of town) as Sprint downsized rather than the other way around. They wouldn't just sit empty.

At least KC's downtown has changed dramatically at street level, which is more important anyway.

[knke0204]

Im from Minneapolis and recently drove through KC on my way to Oklahoma City. I thought that KC's skyline was decent. It reminded me of St. Paul's skyine. -Dense, decent, not super tall... It doesn't have anything on MPLS' though.


Nice cute skyline... I like all the hills around KC though, that was impressive.

[xenokc]

Downtown KC has quite a few more buildings than St. Paul. Space wise, downtown KC is essentially somewhere between Mpls and StP. Hard to say since not all buildings are tracked by any one source.

In terms off leasable office space and vacancy...

Minneapolis... 23,321,130 17.5%
St. Paul CBD... 7,594,192 21.3%
KC................15,551,859 16.5% (includes Crown Center)

Before the major conversion from office to condo, there was about 20M sqft space in downtown KC, not including company/city owned buildings.

And just to neener neener, KC has the tallest residential building in midwest outside Chicago (909 Walnut building). Mpls has one just a fraction shorter (Carlyle) - when not including the spire. Just a little elbow jab with a smile.

That said, Mpls has a nicer looking modern skyline, KC's leans more art deco.