Wichita needs a bigger skyline (Minneapolis: sales, buy, tenants)

[atler8]

With that all in mind Sco, then it does not sound promising for the hopes of the op for a new tower or the general bulking up of the Wichita skyline.
Perhaps some of that empty office space is ripe for redevelopment into urban apartments & loft living.
Where did Pizza Hut move to?

[Sco]

Originally Posted by atler8

With that all in mind Sco, then it does not sound promising for the hopes of the op for a new tower or the general bulking up of the Wichita skyline.
Perhaps some of that empty office space is ripe for redevelopment into urban apartments & loft living.
Where did Pizza Hut move to?

IMO, there is zero chance for any significant change to the Wichita skyline. It is just not that kind of place.

The urban apartments and loft living falls victim to the "chicken or egg" issue. If there are no jobs or retail in the downtown area, not too many people are going to want to live there. Also, most Wichitans that I know like single family homes with garages, basements and large backyards. There is also the issue of white flight and fear of the Wichita public school system. By and large, people in the Wichita area don't want to live or work downtown. It has always been that way and I don't see it changing.

I think Pizza Hut moved to Dallas but I am not sure. In a short period of time, several companies moved their headquarters out of Wichita. However, none of them were ever located in downtown towers anyway.

[JoninATX]

Wichita could use a new mixed use tower, or even a residential tower.

[Ithuvanian]

The Wichita Downtown Development Corp. has an interesting (if you're into this sort of thing) PDF summary of the downtown master plan on their website, and according to that, skyscrapers don't seem to factor very big in downtown's future. They are prioritizing new development of buildings with 3-5 stories and 40k-80k square feet, as larger buildings are more difficult to find sufficient numbers of renters for, and the greater cost of mid- to high-rise construction translates into higher rents. However, the WDDC president was quoted recently in the Wichita Eagle predicting dramatic changes to the city's skyline in the next two years. None of the things mentioned in that article amounted to dramatic changes though, so either something is being kept very tightly under wraps or that was an exaggeration. I feel like the one thing that has held Wichita back over the years is the failure to diversify its economy and cultivate another major sector to balance out aircraft manufacturing, and perhaps that does show up in the lack of an impressive skyline.

On a positive note, the demand for residential spaces in downtown (as well as hotel and commercial space) actually seems to be really strong, and that is as good an indicator as any that downtown's future is looking up. It would be nice to have to have a more picturesque urban skyline- heck, it would be nice to have a subway system- but it seems like Wichita's downtown is doing as well as can be expected right now, considering the kind of city Wichita is.

[tijlover]

How about wow-ing the locals/suburbanites in downtown Wichita and tourists with some mind-boggling, exciting low-level projects, and skip all the skyline building projects. What good did that do Dull-sa (I mean Tulsa!)! Was there a few years ago, stayed downtown, and ! OMG! One of the most boring empty downtowns I've ever been in, surface parking lots galore!

Outdoor sculptures! That'll do it! A small-sized building project (a museum?) designed by Calatrava would be the envy of all the Midwestern cities! Anything Calatrava designs/builds, no matter how small, instantly becomes a tourist attraction! Witness the small Calatrava designed Milwaukee Musuem on its lakefront, it has become the symbol of Milwaukee! A low level exciting project!

Or Wow them all with color! Have some of your local graffiti artists (some may be jail and you may have to bail them out!) do up some walls, buildings with some graffiti art work/murals. There was a recent forum on graffiti art, worldwide, where citizens of various cities around the world were encouraged to upload their best graffiti art in their cities. Take a look at some of the eye-catching graffiti art in Minneapolis some time, it's exciting enough to where I want to fly up there just to see it!

Some cities are designating certain areas of the their cities to give graffiti artists freedom to do what they want, or is Wichita too conservative to allow that? And there's a world of difference between a graffiti artist and a graffiti tagger, don't get them confused!!!

As they say: simplicity is a sure sign of maturity! And? Less is more?

Wishing Wichita the best, a city I've always wanted to visit. As dull as Tulsa was, I'm sure Wichita couldn't have been any less dull!

[janelle144]

Originally Posted by knrstz

Back to the original subject...while not great, I think Wichita's skyline is about right for it's size. Those comparing it to OKC and Tulsa aren't really giving it a fair comparrison. Those cities are quite a bit bigger. Until the recent addition of the Devon tower, I think OKC's skyline was kind of undersized. Tulsa's is the best of the 3. Des Moines is more comparable to Wichita and I'll admit, Des Moines has a great skyline for it's size. Colorado Springs is a city with a metro sized about the same as Wichita and I don't think their skyline is very impressive(not counting pikes peak). I think Wichita's downtown has some nice looking buildings and potential to be really cool. It's just not a tall skyline. I think the main reason is that Wichita is an aircraft town and you can't build aircraft in skyscrapers. Whereas if it had more of an economy based on oil or something that needed more office space, it would be better.

Is that what it is called? Looks like a huge sore thumb off the highway. Wondered what it was. It looks out of place being so tall.

Wichita is ok. The Epic building looks like the front of a battleship. Kinda cool. I thought Pizza Hut was planning to build a really tall building in downtown but decided not to. I'm glad about that. Having a huge building when the others are so much smaller is not ascetic to me.

[fciman]

Originally Posted by tijlover

How about wow-ing the locals/suburbanites in downtown Wichita and tourists with some mind-boggling, exciting low-level projects, and skip all the skyline building projects. What good did that do Dull-sa (I mean Tulsa!)! Was there a few years ago, stayed downtown, and ! OMG! One of the most boring empty downtowns I've ever been in, surface parking lots galore!

Outdoor sculptures! That'll do it! A small-sized building project (a museum?) designed by Calatrava would be the envy of all the Midwestern cities! Anything Calatrava designs/builds, no matter how small, instantly becomes a tourist attraction! Witness the small Calatrava designed Milwaukee Musuem on its lakefront, it has become the symbol of Milwaukee! A low level exciting project!

Or Wow them all with color! Have some of your local graffiti artists (some may be jail and you may have to bail them out!) do up some walls, buildings with some graffiti art work/murals. There was a recent forum on graffiti art, worldwide, where citizens of various cities around the world were encouraged to upload their best graffiti art in their cities. Take a look at some of the eye-catching graffiti art in Minneapolis some time, it's exciting enough to where I want to fly up there just to see it!

Some cities are designating certain areas of the their cities to give graffiti artists freedom to do what they want, or is Wichita too conservative to allow that? And there's a world of difference between a graffiti artist and a graffiti tagger, don't get them confused!!!

As they say: simplicity is a sure sign of maturity! And? Less is more?

Wishing Wichita the best, a city I've always wanted to visit. As dull as Tulsa was, I'm sure Wichita couldn't have been any less dull!

I would certainly agree about the downtown area in the past, as you stated. Since The addition of the BOK Center and the baseball park downtown, many new eating establishments and clubs have opened in the Blue Dome district in downtown Tulsa, with High rise condo's now being built downtown along with new shopping area's. I am kind of surprised how the downtown has changed for the better in the last few years. New downtown hotels are being built and I think much of the credit goes to Tulsa county voters passing what was called vision 2025. It barely passed at the voting booth but we all now are seeing the fruits of our labor (taxdollars that is). With the Williams company in a very early stage of planning a 920 building to go with there other one at 667 feet (the one was described accurately as a smaller world trade center look alike) already built, I am surprised at how nicely a once dead area has come to life .

[fciman]

Originally Posted by janelle144

Is that what it is called? Looks like a huge sore thumb off the highway. Wondered what it was. It looks out of place being so tall.

Wichita is ok. The Epic building looks like the front of a battleship. Kinda cool. I thought Pizza Hut was planning to build a really tall building in downtown but decided not to. I'm glad about that. Having a huge building when the others are so much smaller is not ascetic to me.

Agree, the building in Oklahoma City, OK. certainly stands out of place. Nice building, just looks strange standing by itself and no other really tall buildings around

[NYisontop]

It is more than a little depressing when you look at the city population and realize Wichita is on par with Minneapolis, Cleveland, Miami and Tulsa.. downtown Wichita feels about as big as Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It's even more so when you see some of the cities smaller in population but each with a more prominent and suggestive skyline: St. Louis, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Lexington, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Anchorage, New Orleans, Toledo and Newark.

However, if we look at metropolitan statistical areas, then Wichita is on par with Boise City, Idaho; Springfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Myers, Florida. More akin to Madison, Wisconsin or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Having seen those skylines, Wichita is not doing too badly. Madison and Boise receive a little extra funding to their skyline from serving as state capitols (the honor does little to help the skylines of Pierre, Cheyenne, Lincoln, Bismarck or Montpelier, Concord, Bangor or Dover...). Fort Myers' skyline is arguably smaller than Wichita's, more of a beachfront hotel-line if that counts. Springfield and Winston-Salem both have larger skylines, but lengthier histories as manufacturing centers helped both.

Wichita surely missed an opportunity with the aircraft manufacturers, I don't think Cessna or Beechcraft could afford the spare capital to front a tower, and Bombadier-Learjet certainly doesn't have a desire to stamp their name on Wichita. It's fair to say Boeing is out of the question. It doesn't seem Koch Industries is terribly eager to build a physical legacy so much (they're happy with a corporate complex). I saw Pizza Hut mentioned which is a little fun to think, but we don't see the Sbarro Building or Taco Bell Tower in their respective communities, even mighty McDonald's and Wal-Mart avoid such corporate largesse. Wichita's skyline plans would likely coincide with regional banks, an insurance company or some other avenue of the healthcare industry. No idea who would fill that void, but a denser downtown needs to pre-date any new high-rises.

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by NYisontop

It is more than a little depressing when you look at the city population and realize Wichita is on par with Minneapolis, Cleveland, Miami and Tulsa..

And bigger than St. Louis!