Question for kcmo (Kansas City, St. Louis, Lee's Summit: real estate, new home, tenants)

[madcam]

You stated in another thread that hundreds of people are/have moved to KC for GM jobs. (We are moving there in a few weeks as well.....not for a GM job though) You also stated that there was a news report that 75% of those people were moving to the Northland.

Here are my questions:

Are the infastructures (sp?) of these areas able to support such a huge population growth?

Are the schools becoming over-crowded in certain areas?

What is the real estate situation? Are there very many properties available? I have seen what is available online by MLS listings but I haven't really researched how long they have been on the market or looked to see if new properties are continually becoming available and thought you may know off hand.

We are looking in Liberty and any other areas in the Northland along with Blue Springs, and Lee's Summit to start but I have never been up there so I am trying to keep an open mind about other areas I may not know too much about yet. Any info....and you seem to be very knowledgable in this subject....would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!!!!

[RjRobb2]

I've lived in the Northland all my life. Things are growing up there like never before. There are tons of new housing developments and they are continuing to build houses even in the current economy.

The schools are great and they are still building new schools. North Kansas City just opened a state of the art high school and elementary school that are two of the most environmentally friendly schools in the entire country.

So to answer your question, yes, there is enough to accomodate the growth. Everything you could ever need is a short drive away and even downtown is within 15 minutes.

[kcmo]

The Northland has been absolutely booming since the late 1990's. It really took off in the early 00's and has been consistently the fastest growing area of the metro and one of the fastest in the midwest.

There are a few reasons, but the primary reason is the variety of housing and price points yet all in very good suburban areas with good schools, new shopping and relatively easy commutes into the city.

I have honestly never understood what took the Northland so long to become a hot spot. For decades the Northland grew at a decent clip, but compared to places south of the river and JoCo,KS, growth was modest.

I think the main reason is people tend to think things north of the river are far away, when it's the exact opposite. Liberty and Shoal Creek for example are ten miles closer to Downtown than Blue Springs and 15-10 miles closer than parts of Olathe or Cass County. People also think the bridge traffic is bad when it's not. It's rarely more than a 5-10 minute delay, if there is a delay at all and yet they are widening I-29 now so it will be even less congested. The other reason was a lack of shopping centers and major streets to navigate the northland which is no longer the case.

Basically, the Northland is no longer a secret.

As far keeping up with the growth...

Even though I mentioned people are moving to KC and most are choosing the Northland and the Northland is still the leader in building new homes, the overall growth is way down. So growth today is only about 25-50% what is was two years ago. Over the past 5-7 years, the Northland has built many new arterial streets, widened 152 and added several new interchanges to 152 etc. The 152 corridor is ready and there are developments that have already been approved that will add 20-30 thousand new homes in the 152 corridor. The Shoal Creek Development alone will have 30,000 residents when built out. So they are ready in that area for a while at least. One thing about the Northland is that even with all this growth, it will take 10-20 years before you even start to see development along I-435 between Liberty and KCI. There is just so much room. But in 15 years when all that land is filled up, you will have 435, not to mention 152, 169, 35 and 29, plus alt routes like 635 and 291. In other areas of town there is far less highway capacity.

Johnson County for example is built up 10 miles beyond 435 to the point that they need another beltway. They will never get one. Those days are gone.

The Northland is set up to comfortably accommodate 750k-1 million people (it has about 350k today). The only thing they would need to do is upgrade some of what's already there (widen a few highways etc).

Lee's Summit is getting huge. It's over 100,000 now. So depending on where you live in LS you could get very far from other parts of the city. Raintree Lake in LS is an hour from KCI for example. But LS is VERY nice, has a vibrant downtown, great parks, awesome schools and the city is built around tons of lakes.

Blue Springs is sort of different. Blue Springs basically grew up over night in the 1980's going from a very small town to a large suburb in a matter of 5-10 years. It was one of the fastest growing suburbs in the nation. Then growth there just stopped dead and the city even started to decline and decay. Blue Springs is now back and back in a big way. It has cracked back into the top six metro area cities in building permits, most strip malls along route 7 have been rebuilt and have tenants again, the Adams Dairy Parkway corridor is absolutely booming right now and is one of the only areas in metro KC that is building new retail. New homes and schools are going up on all the fringes of Blue Springs in all price points (mostly upper bracket).

Overall, I think the Northland is a very good risk. It's really the only area still building new spec homes (Lee's Summit and JoCo have all but stopped building new spec). So for it to do as well as it's doing during the recession, I see no signs of it slowing down in the future. It will probably grow faster than it ever has once the economy bounces back.

[MoNative34]

Originally Posted by kcmo

I think the main reason is people tend to think things north of the river are far away, when it's the exact opposite. Liberty and Shoal Creek for example are ten miles closer to Downtown than Blue Springs and 15-10 miles closer than parts of Olathe or Cass County. People also think the bridge traffic is bad when it's not. It's rarely more than a 5-10 minute delay, if there is a delay at all and yet they are widening I-29 now so it will be even less congested. The other reason was a lack of shopping centers and major streets to navigate the northland which is no longer the case.

I've noticed the same thing..... The airport is a much easier, closer and faster drive to downtown than Lee's Summit or Blue Springs but some people act so dramatic about the airport location you'd think it was in Iowa.

[northbayeric]

Or Omaha, probably! Oh heck, we should probably encourage GraniteStater to weigh in here!

The first time I flew in to the KC airport in September 2007 I was very surprised how rural a setting it's in (you can't tell too much by looking at a road map), in contrast to Lambert Field in St. Louis which is right next to a very busy stretch of I-70 and tons of urban development. The surrounding freeways next to KCI (or MCI or whatever they call it) hardly ever seem to be choked with traffic.

[famusdarlin]

RJRobb, ditto. I don't live in Liberty now, but grew up there my entire family, mom and dad's sides mainly live in Liberty. The schools are far from overcrowded. They've opened several schools in the past 2-4 years. They also recently built a new middle school. And I do think the infrastructure in the Northland will support the growth. There are plenty of highways and large roads where traffic flows smoothly.

[kcmo]

That new fancy high school just opened up near Liberty, but I think it's in the NKC district. Liberty is building another high school up near 35 and 291. So I think they are keeping up.

[Christian Missouri boy]

Originally Posted by kcmo

The Northland has been absolutely booming since the late 1990's. It really took off in the early 00's and has been consistently the fastest growing area of the metro and one of the fastest in the midwest.

There are a few reasons, but the primary reason is the variety of housing and price points yet all in very good suburban areas with good schools, new shopping and relatively easy commutes into the city.

I have honestly never understood what took the Northland so long to become a hot spot. For decades the Northland grew at a decent clip, but compared to places south of the river and JoCo,KS, growth was modest.

I think the main reason is people tend to think things north of the river are far away, when it's the exact opposite. Liberty and Shoal Creek for example are ten miles closer to Downtown than Blue Springs and 15-10 miles closer than parts of Olathe or Cass County. People also think the bridge traffic is bad when it's not. It's rarely more than a 5-10 minute delay, if there is a delay at all and yet they are widening I-29 now so it will be even less congested. The other reason was a lack of shopping centers and major streets to navigate the northland which is no longer the case.

Basically, the Northland is no longer a secret.

As far keeping up with the growth...

Even though I mentioned people are moving to KC and most are choosing the Northland and the Northland is still the leader in building new homes, the overall growth is way down. So growth today is only about 25-50% what is was two years ago. Over the past 5-7 years, the Northland has built many new arterial streets, widened 152 and added several new interchanges to 152 etc. The 152 corridor is ready and there are developments that have already been approved that will add 20-30 thousand new homes in the 152 corridor. The Shoal Creek Development alone will have 30,000 residents when built out. So they are ready in that area for a while at least. One thing about the Northland is that even with all this growth, it will take 10-20 years before you even start to see development along I-435 between Liberty and KCI. There is just so much room. But in 15 years when all that land is filled up, you will have 435, not to mention 152, 169, 35 and 29, plus alt routes like 635 and 291. In other areas of town there is far less highway capacity.

Johnson County for example is built up 10 miles beyond 435 to the point that they need another beltway. They will never get one. Those days are gone.

The Northland is set up to comfortably accommodate 750k-1 million people (it has about 350k today). The only thing they would need to do is upgrade some of what's already there (widen a few highways etc).

Lee's Summit is getting huge. It's over 100,000 now. So depending on where you live in LS you could get very far from other parts of the city. Raintree Lake in LS is an hour from KCI for example. But LS is VERY nice, has a vibrant downtown, great parks, awesome schools and the city is built around tons of lakes.

Blue Springs is sort of different. Blue Springs basically grew up over night in the 1980's going from a very small town to a large suburb in a matter of 5-10 years. It was one of the fastest growing suburbs in the nation. Then growth there just stopped dead and the city even started to decline and decay. Blue Springs is now back and back in a big way. It has cracked back into the top six metro area cities in building permits, most strip malls along route 7 have been rebuilt and have tenants again, the Adams Dairy Parkway corridor is absolutely booming right now and is one of the only areas in metro KC that is building new retail. New homes and schools are going up on all the fringes of Blue Springs in all price points (mostly upper bracket).

Overall, I think the Northland is a very good risk. It's really the only area still building new spec homes (Lee's Summit and JoCo have all but stopped building new spec). So for it to do as well as it's doing during the recession, I see no signs of it slowing down in the future. It will probably grow faster than it ever has once the economy bounces back.

Wow, I'd say that post pretty much answered any question. Very nicely written.

[RjRobb2]

Originally Posted by kcmo

That new fancy high school just opened up near Liberty, but I think it's in the NKC district. Liberty is building another high school up near 35 and 291. So I think they are keeping up.

That's Staley High School and it is an NKC school. It isnt all that close to Liberty. It is in the Nashua/New Mark area right by Staley Farms.

It's a very nice high school.