Riverfront Legacy Masterplan

[Aargh]

Would you spend money on anything for the city? And, if so, what?

I supported IBA. I would support adding some police and bumping the pay for firefighters and the police. I'd support spending more on schools. Reduce class sizes a bit so teachers aren't spread so thin. I'd also support bumping teacher pay so that Wichita could recruit and maintain the best educators in the area. I would support a new performing arts center and a new convention center, but that's a far cry from $1.2 billion.

I did not support Waterwalk. The concept of creating anything resembling a shopping center downtown was absolute folly. When the best anchor tenant was Gander Mountain that pretty much confirmed my opinion that no one was going to go downtown to go to a shopping center. Towne West was already struggling when WaterWalk went in.

You want a convention center? Plop it down where Naftzger Park is. Put in a casino nearby. Cut deals with airlines for schedules and rates. Close that part of Douglas when there's a convention in town. Don't be real strict on enforcing prostitution laws in Old Town for the upper tier of hookers. We'd also need a couple of high-end gentlemen's clubs near the Convention Center. I don't think people go to conventions to enjoy the green spaces and look at the river when they're not in meetings. Ever wonder why Vegas is so incredibly popular for conventions? Legalize cannabis. Give Wichita the widest variety of attractions for conventions it can possibly have. Do what it takes to increase demand before dropping a billion bucks to see how that works.

A big difference in the spending I would support and the spending the city tends to do is that I am willing to support things that make Wichita a better community. The projects the city tends to want provide profits to developers, and the city has a well-established list of developers who earn a lot of money off of projects like the failed Waterwalk, and the (unlikely to succeed) baseball stadium.

The project we are discussing would produce about $120 million for the developers of the projects, and we would still have understaffed police, underpaid civil servants, and crowded classrooms.

[pogo]

The more I read about this the more I become convinced the iconic CII needs to go. Although the building pays homage to the architecture of FL Wright I feel it is time for it to go and be replaced with something new and exciting. A performing Arts building that is so amazing that people will want to go to a performance just to sit in awe at the amazing theater. Soft spaces that will attract people to be down town connecting the east with the west along both sides of the river.

[NCAABound]

WTF? Holy cow man. You preach about making Wichita a better community but want to plop a ****-ton of hookers downtown???

I've been to 8-10 conventions in Vegas and never went to a strip club, sat and smoked weed on the strip, or banged a bunch of hookers. Good Lord dude.

You want us to be Vegas? How about just stepping up to the next level cities like Tulsa and Omaha first. That costs a lot of money. You want us to be Vegas...prepare to spend many more billions.

[NCAABound]

Orlando is one of the biggest convention cities. Its CC is out away from downtown with primarily a ton of hotels and restaurants.

[NCAABound]

Why vote for new arena but not new PAC or CC? Just because that fits your idea for fun?

[Aargh]

[QUOTE=shocktown;n1212930]

The cost of this plan is $2,750 for every man, woman, and child in the city. Throw in the $500 million we're already spending for the water plant, which is $1,250 for every person in the city. That's a total commitment of $4,000 per person. That includes infants, school children, people in nursing homes. The burden on those working would be incredible.

Is this the misleading argument you give to the simple minded uninformed crowd. This is so disingenuous. Most tax revenue to the city and county comes from property tax. Everyone pays indirectly (renters) but property owners carry most the load. But commercial property pays a lot more than residential. I looked up one box store, there Bill is $185000 annually.
Everyone is not responsible for a proportionate share.
So let’s be honest and lose the every man woman and child bs for starters. These type of smoke screens make it impossible to get through to the anti-everything crowd.

Isn't it ultimately the consumers who pay for taxes on businesses? It doesn't matter if my property taxes are raised, or my sales taxes are raised or if I pay more for products because commercial real estate taxes have been raised, I'm still the one paying.

Or are you proposing that if businesses are asked to fund part of this development, they will just lower their profits to accommodate their increased costs? I wouldn't if I were the owner or on the board of that company, and I've been in both positions.

Conservatives have been arguing throughout my lifetime that it's consumers who pay taxes on businesses. Now, when I make the exact argument that Conservatives make, which are valid arguments, they are misleading and for the simple-minded and uninformed?

Renters carry 100% of the load. Owners of rentals don't just absorb the costs of increased property taxes.

That box store is charging an extra $185,000 in their annual sales to cover their tax cost.

Let's be honest and understand that it's consumers, and not corporations, that fund government projects.

[Aargh]

WTF? Holy cow man. You preach about making Wichita a better community but want to plop a ****-ton of hookers downtown???

I've been to 8-10 conventions in Vegas and never went to a strip club, sat and smoked weed on the strip, or banged a bunch of hookers. Good Lord dude.

You want us to be Vegas? How about just stepping up to the next level cities like Tulsa and Omaha first. That costs a lot of money. You want us to be Vegas...prepare to spend many more billions.

You want conventions in Wichita? Then you've got to make conventions in Wichita REALLY attractive. We've got to appeal to absolutely every small minority of visitors at that convention.

I want a better community, but if we're going to spend a billion on a convention center and a performing arts center, we'd better be able to attract a boatload of conventions.

I've been to 8-10 conventions in Vegas and never went to a strip club, sat and smoked weed on the strip, or banged a bunch of hookers

That's a little like saying "All Indians walk single file, at least the one I knew did".

On a fairly recent trip to Dallas, I caught a shuttle from the airport to my hotel. One of the passengers asked the driver his most popular destination. He responded with a list of the most popular "gentlemen's" clubs in Dallas. I recognized one of them from a company-paid visit I had to one of them.

[NCAABound]

You want conventions in Wichita? Then you've got to make conventions in Wichita REALLY attractive. We've got to appeal to absolutely every small minority of visitors at that convention.

I want a better community, but if we're going to spend a billion on a convention center and a performing arts center, we'd better be able to attract a boatload of conventions.



That's a little like saying "All Indians walk single file, at least the one I knew did".

On a fairly recent trip to Dallas, I caught a shuttle from the airport to my hotel. One of the passengers asked the driver his most popular destination. He responded with a list of the most popular "gentlemen's" clubs in Dallas. I recognized one of them from a company-paid visit I had to one of them.

Congrats on your opinions but you are WAY out of your lane. Yeah...Vegas can just be recreated. Good one. Atlantic City tried and failed BIG TIME. You really make no sense.

[MoValley John]

These threads on any message board interest me, I don't know why, but redevelopment projects are cool. That said, I don't understand much of what's happening in Wichita, but the first thing I would want to know is how many private $$$ are committed to the project. If you are nearing 50%, I'd say it's a no brainer, do it.

Strangely enough, I see a lot of Omaha, Tulsa and Des Moines comparisons on this thread, I don't get it. Each city, Wichita included is unique. While I can't speak for any other city, I will give you a small snapshot of Omaha's. I know that over the last 20 years, Omaha has spent a scary amount of money on these type of projects, into the several, several billions- not all at once. Hotels are being built everywhere and within the next 10 years, Omaha will have close to, if not more than 20.000 rooms. If you go out 50 miles (Lincoln] you get to 20,000 rooms now. Here is a dated story on Omaha hotel rooms

https://www.omaha.com/money/omaha-is-outpacing-the-u-s-when-it-comes-to/article_37ad6f7f-4670-5d58-90e6-e6701f5e8b90.html

While I think a billion for a single project in a city like Wichita is a ****-ton of money, cities need to keep spending to keep current. The private sector participation is key. These projects are probably a necessity, but a billion dollar project in almost any large city is a burden and I understand hesitation from citizens. I wish Wichita luck on this endeavor. Again, money from the PRIVATESECTOR ensures a vested interest in success. Lack of private money can lead to failure.

Lastly, here is an interesting project now underway in Omaha- the complete renovation and expansion of the Gene Leahy Mall in downtown. in itself, that project is almost $300,000,000. Personally, I loved the mall the way it was. But, I'm not the one the city is marketing to. Also, private sector money accounts for 50%.

https://www.omaha.com/news/local/city-of-omaha-to-commit-more-money-to-renovate-gene/article_5a93193f-7675-5974-b33f-65017fbe662d.html

[Aargh]

Congrats on your opinions but you are WAY out of your lane. Yeah...Vegas can just be recreated. Good one. Atlantic City tried and failed BIG TIME. You really make no sense.

Thanks for making my point. We have very little to offer for conventions in Wichita. We can offer more amenities for convention-goers, but then, as you have pointed out, we're competing with venues we cannot compete with. Offering green spaces and views of a brown river isn't going to change much for our ability to attract conventions, so why would we consider dropping a billion to try that?

Did it not occur to you that I was not intending to make sense? The Vegas model works. Competing with the Vegas model doesn't work. The Wichita model doesn't work.

If there is interest in dropping that type of coin, building a 60,000-seat football stadium and committing $100 mill to bankroll a WSU football program would be a better investment in bringing people into Wichita.

[MoValley John]

[QUOTE=Aargh;n1212939]

Isn't it ultimately the consumers who pay for taxes on businesses? It doesn't matter if my property taxes are raised, or my sales taxes are raised or if I pay more for products because commercial real estate taxes have been raised, I'm still the one paying.

Or are you proposing that if businesses are asked to fund part of this development, they will just lower their profits to accommodate their increased costs? I wouldn't if I were the owner or on the board of that company, and I've been in both positions.

Conservatives have been arguing throughout my lifetime that it's consumers who pay taxes on businesses. Now, when I make the exact argument that Conservatives make, which are valid arguments, they are misleading and for the simple-minded and uninformed?

Renters carry 100% of the load. Owners of rentals don't just absorb the costs of increased property taxes.

That box store is charging an extra $185,000 in their annual sales to cover their tax cost.

Let's be honest and understand that it's consumers, and not corporations, that fund government projects.

Philanthropy should bear a large cost of this or any similar project. Philanthropy is not passed on to the consumer.

[SHOCKvalue]

Some of the metro comparisons typically brought up are less than ideal, but I guess it is what we have.

Omaha metro is roughly 50% larger than Wichita, and it is an office/white collar town with virtually no manufacturing. Their downtown is going to have more going on due to the obvious population disparity, coupled with the critical mass of people working there every day.

Des Moines metro is almost identical in size to Wichita metro, but excluding the population differences the same stuff can be said about Des Moines as can be said of Omaha.

Tulsa has the most similarities to Wichita (out of the pool of metros in discussion) with regards to socio-economic considerations, but again, it is about the same size as Omaha - a little larger actually - so it is a poor barometer for Wichita expectations.

KC metro is something like three times larger than Wichita. It is not a comparable.

Likewise, OKC metro is roughly twice the size of Wichita. It also is not a realistic comparable.

[SHOCKvalue]

I'm excited by the plan, personally, but I have reservations...

Firstly, the cost. Holy crap $1B-$1.2B is an absolutely massive figure for a town the size of Wichita. That is in the neighborhood of the same costs for the new NFL stadiums in DFW, MSP, and ATL, and those are major projects in major towns. I like that we're thinking big, but dang.

Secondly, I have concerns with funding. Wichita has very little major philanthropy/sponsorship for this stuff, if you even want to say that we have it at all. We are far, FAR behind any of the towns mentioned above in this context, and there's no reason to think that will suddenly change. Think about it... we have libertarian Koch who is not generally inclined to these sort of activities in any great scope; we have certain factions within the Wichita Lebanese community who have done very well but have not once given anything back to the community in this sort of context; we have Spirit, which at its foundation is basically just a large investment corp with no real Wichita identity outside of core operations; and we have a whole bunch of Wichita-originated businesses that have been bought out/moved/partially-moved, etc. who care nothing at all for the town outside of having a solid employment base out of which to sustain their operations. If this plan goes down, the private individual in Wichita will pay for it (like all taxes, ultimately), and probably close to 100%.

Thirdly, when have we EVER done one of these projects well? The best case example is IBA, and the bang-for-the buck on that project is really not great. We got a goofy design with the bare minimum of seating capacity, crammed in like sardines, in a critical mass no-mans-land area of downtown Wichita that is just now getting a pulse to the north but is otherwise dead on the table in all other directions. There are even serious concerns over the new ballpark; some really weird/underwhelming crap going on there too. Basically, if there is a way to screw up a major public, or public-private project, Wichita is the "here, hold my beer" king of the universe. Are we going to have an out-of-body experience and suddenly change? Probably not. Just being realistic.

Oh... and Waterwalk sucks because dumbarse Carlos Mayans ran off Bass Pro Shops who was in the bag, over sale-leaseback terms (IIRC) BPS was getting everywhere else at the time. Property was bought, dirt was moving, BPS committed, and money already spent, and we ran off the keystone to that development in favor of the Gander Mountain half-arse fiasco. Go ask Tom Johnson, who was heading up the project at the time. Ironically, the big redevelopment plan at hand looks to undo a lot of the mess created by Waterwalk, which is awesome in and of itself.

[SHOCKvalue]

And count me in the camp of those who think CII needs to be gone like a fat kid in kickball. It's like whoever designed that turd was looking through their dictionary of real estate/construction/development terms one day and landed on "FUNCTIONAL OBSOLESCENCE". They pondered the term for a second, and though to themselves how neat it would be to build a massive structure dedicated solely to that concept.

CII is the form versus function struggle swung as far to the form side of the equation as you can get. Blow it up as the fireworks finale for next year's Riverfest or July 4th and I'm there like it's mardi gras.

[ShockerFever]

I'm excited by the plan, personally, but I have reservations...

Firstly, the cost. Holy crap $1B-$1.2B is an absolutely massive figure for a town the size of Wichita. That is in the neighborhood of the same costs for the new NFL stadiums in DFW, MSP, and ATL, and those are major projects in major towns. I like that we're thinking big, but dang.

Secondly, I have concerns with funding. Wichita has very little major philanthropy/sponsorship for this stuff, if you even want to say that we have it at all. We are far, FAR behind any of the towns mentioned above in this context, and there's no reason to think that will suddenly change. Think about it... we have libertarian Koch who is not generally inclined to these sort of activities in any great scope; we have certain factions within the Wichita Lebanese community who have done very well but have not once given anything back to the community in this sort of context; we have Spirit, which at its foundation is basically just a large investment corp with no real Wichita identity outside of core operations; and we have a whole bunch of Wichita-originated businesses that have been bought out/moved/partially-moved, etc. who care nothing at all for the town outside of having a solid employment base out of which to sustain their operations. If this plan goes down, the private individual in Wichita will pay for it (like all taxes, ultimately), and probably close to 100%.

Thirdly, when have we EVER done one of these projects well? The best case example is IBA, and the bang-for-the buck on that project is really not great. We got a goofy design with the bare minimum of seating capacity, crammed in like sardines, in a critical mass no-mans-land area of downtown Wichita that is just now getting a pulse to the north but is otherwise dead on the table in all other directions. There are even serious concerns over the new ballpark; some really weird/underwhelming crap going on there too. Basically, if there is a way to screw up a major public, or public-private project, Wichita is the "here, hold my beer" king of the universe. Are we going to have an out-of-body experience and suddenly change? Probably not. Just being realistic.

Oh... and Waterwalk sucks because dumbarse Carlos Mayans ran off Bass Pro Shops who was in the bag, over sale-leaseback terms (IIRC) BPS was getting everywhere else at the time. Property was bought, dirt was moving, BPS committed, and money already spent, and we ran off the keystone to that development in favor of the Gander Mountain half-arse fiasco. Go ask Tom Johnson, who was heading up the project at the time. Ironically, the big redevelopment plan at hand looks to undo a lot of the mess created by Waterwalk, which is awesome in and of itself.

You pretty much nailed everything. I'm ALL for progress and bringing this city into the modern age but we fail so badly at doing things, it gives me pause. The arena is the perfect example. The idea was great in that we needed a new modern facility downtown. The execution and result sucked ass. We got a low-ceiling, one-side suited goofy mess probably just save another 5%. Typical. The baseball stadium is also a GREAT vision and idea. But $90 mil and we get that? This looks like a $50 mil stadium. Again I guess I'll wait on this one because it's not finished yet but good lord the numbers don't look right. We also put in like $30 million for a glorified homeless shelter. Libraries are pretty much dated. I'm not saying they shouldn't exist but to spend $30 million on a place that roughly .5% of the population uses (and 50% of that population are only losing it as a temporary refuge point) is just mind-blowing. And like you said, ONE BILLION DOLLARS (queue Dr. Evil) is a HUGE amount for what seems to be portrayed. Again, I want a legacy plan downtown and connecting all that with the stadium should theoretically blend well together. But again, I have my doubts with this gov't executing on big money items. It needs to happen but I just don't trust it happening well from them. Their track record sucks.