This is why KC companies need to step up and be more committed to Downtown. Look out for Nashville... (Kansas City: hotels, house)

[shindig]

kcmo, not sure why you always pick on KC...lol. Denver has built a couple new high rise hotels and a couple condo towers, but I haven't seen any new Commercial towers go up since the early 1980's. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of any. Neither has St. Louis. Both are both bigger than KC and have more Fortune 500 companies, but you seem to give both those cities a pass. I agree that KC needs a larger corporate presence downtown, just not sure why you choose this forum to always point it out?

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by shindig

kcmo, not sure why you always pick on KC...lol. Denver has built a couple new high rise hotels and a couple condo towers, but I haven't seen any new Commercial towers go up since the early 1980's. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of any. Neither has St. Louis. Both are both bigger than KC and have more Fortune 500 companies, but you seem to give both those cities a pass. I agree that KC needs a larger corporate presence downtown, just not sure why you choose this forum to always point it out?

Somebody asked and I answered. Just like I always "pick on" kc, why is St Louis always the bar for KC? KC should be blowing away StL economically and even so, Downtown StL has actually fared much better than Downtown KC over the past decade. So while StL may have have added little new office space, they didn't empty out what they have the rate KC did either. And Clayton is downtown StL biggest competitor. At least they have another urban business center in the same state, using the same light rail system and generally contributing to the urban vibrancy of the metro. And Denver? Come on. Like everybody, Denver saw office construction grind to a halt during the recession, but they had far more going on in before the crash and have bounced back. Denver may not be adding a lot of skyscrapers, but they are adding space. There is demand there and office rates are are close to or above $30 a sq foot (like Nashville). Class A office space in KC's best towers can be had for under $17 a sq ft. KC has been quiet. There is absolutely nothing even in the long term pipeline for new office space in downtown KC and that's sad when you have as much suburban office space going up as KC has going up.

It is what it is. There is almost zero interest in downtown KC by the regional business community and stats have shown that downtown KC has lost more jobs than almost any other metro in the country. And as more and more office buildings empty out and and go residential, downtown will lose more jobs. That will keep demand for new construction of residential towers and hotels very low and of course office, non existent.

Just saying. A downtown has to operate on all cylinders and KC is doing better on residential, but doing terrible on office and hotel space and that will keep a lid on residential development.

A quick search and Denver had been adding around a million sq ft a year in recent years and that will no doubt pick up as the economy gets better. Last time I was in Denver there were several midrise office towers UC in the LoDo area. They may not be skyscrapers, but KC could use a million sq ft a year. That's more space than One KC Place has. In the last decade, I can only recall the H&R block and JE Dunn Buildings going up and a few small projects like HNTB expansion and Populus (which is now moving to the plaza). But not even so much as a rumor as of late that anybody is interested in downtown KC anymore.

[shindig]

You mention Clayton as downtown St. Louis's biggest competitor, but you fail to mention Crown Center (which has added the Shook tower) and the nearby Federal Reserve tower, and the Plaza, which basically acts as a second downtown in KC, which has added several mid-rises. Just sayin...

[PA650]

I cannot necessarily disagree, kcmo. A lot of people I know not from the area have had positive things to say about the downtown core, but there seems to be not much interest from the local corporate community to say the least. I kind of expected BNIM to stay within urban KCMO as most major architecture and engineering firms are located in the urban core. In the end, I hope more attention is provided to urban design as that will truly redefine many areas of the city, e.g. Portland, OR. It would not hurt to reclaim some of the past downtown vibrancy:



Missouri Valley Special Collections : Item Viewer

[KC_Sleuth]

That photo above is awesome. It would be great to recapture some of that vibe and energy from back then...

Have you ever been to Firefly in Westport or Manifesto in Crossroads? Why is it that nightclubs are recreating the speakeasy, prohibition-era experience? Answer: because it is exciting. There is a reason, and I say this particularly to doubters (luzianne, crownvic), that people yearn for that old-time experience: it was a lot of fun. It was more fun than sitting in some house in the burbs, driving to bars that close early. The live music scene is better. The people-watching is better. The arts scene is better. It's more geared to adults. Urban infill is good for those of us that crave, and will spend a premium on experience, not for just simply acquiring things and needing space to put them. At the end of my life, I will probably going to look more fondly on the exciting times and amazing experiences rather than having a bunch of stuff and a big yard.

[PA650]

Originally Posted by KC_Sleuth

That photo above is awesome. It would be great to recapture some of that vibe and energy from back then...

Have you ever been to Firefly in Westport or Manifesto in Crossroads? Why is it that nightclubs are recreating the speakeasy, prohibition-era experience? Answer: because it is exciting. There is a reason, and I say this particularly to doubters (luzianne, crownvic), that people yearn for that old-time experience: it was a lot of fun. It was more fun than sitting in some house in the burbs, driving to bars that close early. The live music scene is better. The people-watching is better. The arts scene is better. It's more geared to adults. Urban infill is good for those of us that crave, and will spend a premium on experience, not for just simply acquiring things and needing space to put them. At the end of my life, I will probably going to look more fondly on the exciting times and amazing experiences rather than having a bunch of stuff and a big yard.

Quite true. Sounds interesting. When I go for a drink, I typically end up on Mass St., but I have been meaning to head out to KCMO. And I can't disagree with the points you have brought up.

Also, the idea I was aiming for regarding urban infill:



Portland - Keep Portland Beard - SkyscraperPage Forum

[denverian]

Originally Posted by shindig

kcmo, not sure why you always pick on KC...lol. Denver has built a couple new high rise hotels and a couple condo towers, but I haven't seen any new Commercial towers go up since the early 1980's. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of any. Neither has St. Louis. Both are both bigger than KC and have more Fortune 500 companies, but you seem to give both those cities a pass. I agree that KC needs a larger corporate presence downtown, just not sure why you choose this forum to always point it out?

No new "tallest" have been constructed, although Xcel Energy recently built a 22 story tower, the 4 Seasons condo/hotel tower is 45 stories, and several in the teens to 20 have gone up in the new Union Station neighborhood. There's a proposal for a new office tower over 40 stories that is supposed to break ground before the end of the year, I believe. But most of what's been going on in Denver has been more "mid-rise".

[denverian]

Originally Posted by kcmo

No. Nothing other than some ideas for a convention hotel, but none of those are active today.

The new cordish tower is going up now. It's 25 floors. It was originally to be 35 with a hotel, but it no longer has a hotel portion.

No real hotel proposals by actual real hotel developers. There is a ten story marriott going up though.

No office what so ever. The last highrise rendering I saw for downtown that wasn't just "art" in a master plan or something was in the early 1990's for a tower at 10th and Main. That developer never got any serious interest in that project in the 15 years they have tried to do it. A rendering came out for the lot north of the sprint center for a smallish office structure (10-12 floors), but they can't even find tenant for that and it looks pretty inactive.

KC is VERY quiet compared to most major cities. There are some things going on there. Luckily, the city is helping Cordish build their first tower with some pretty hefty incentives (8 million in cash plus the normal tax breaks) or that building wouldn't even be going up. KC needs that building to see if there is anyway to get the rents higher. The Cordish tower might do that and spark more developers to take notice. KC is finally renovating the P&L Building though and rents in that also will be at the top of the KC market (but probably still not high enough to really get the attention of developers for new towers).

This is why KC needs JOBS down there. Jobs in Downtown KC are mostly government etc. Very few of KC's new tech jobs are downtown, they are all in the burbs. So you not only have a no new office construction, but less demand for housing (lower rents) and less demand for hotels. Downtown KC has high demand for apartments, but the rents are just too low for new construction and I don't think Downtown has much of a new construction condo market at all, even the plaza has not seen a condo project proposed for some time.

Looking on the bright side, If KC is lucky, Cordish might announce a second tower that could start construction within a few years. I don't know if they will need the same amount of incentives though. Other than that, KC has landed a few nice new construction low rise infill apartment projects in the River Market and Crossroads and a couple of similar projects in the plaza area.

Even the plaza only has one ten story office structure that might get built in the next five years. The plaza had a small Hyatt hotel proposal, but that fell through.

Thanks for the update! That tower looks pretty nice. Denver's apartment market is extremely tight right now, so there are a lot of apartments being built now. One proposal is for a 34 story apt. building near the river/union station area.

[raj kapoor]

The photos at the begining of this thread are amusing to those of us who live in the southeast. I can't explain why people would spend time making renderings of building that they must know will not be built but it seems to happen weekly in Nashville.
The 'vast' majority of those buildings have not been built. Many renderings are years old. Some large holes are in the ground where a start was made but without finalized commitments. Which is fairly shocking. Of the ten or so smaller buildings that were shown, most end up half the size projected. There has not been a new tallest Building there since the eighties.

So, I guess with the resources one can make much of nothing on the internet.

Many on here have been correct about the state of the country. Even the growth champ of Atlanta has half of its downtown buildings empty. No new building dt in about ten years. The growth has moved north and not much of that either. Retail is hurting and hotels are vastly overbuilt.
Nashville has hung its hat on the convention trade like Atlanta did and it is very suseptible to recessions. At least Nashville has more to offer as far as tourism.

Kansas City is a great town and objective people think of it that way. I will be spending some time there soon and looking forward to it.

[kcmo]

^ Never said all of those will be built, but Nashville's business community is very a major part of why urban Nashville is thriving and stats show that. Also never said KC was a bad place, but the Metro KC business community has all but turned its back on urban KCMO and KCK and ran for the suburbs. KC (all of metro KC, not just the central city) would be a much better place if that were not the case.

Like I said, stats speak for themselves and I have already summarized them in this thread.