The federal government has begun a feasibility study for a downtown office building that likely would open in 2018 — a dozen years after it was first proposed.
Jason Klumb, the new regional administrator for the General Services Administration, said an eight-block stretch of the East Village area is being reviewed for the project, which is expected to cost more than $228 million. SFS Architecture of Kansas City is being paid $182,000 for the study, which should be completed this summer.
“We’re moving forward on a new downtown federal building,” Klumb said. “This is a priority for the GSA and the city. We believe we can be a great neighbor and addition to downtown.”
Klumb also said the size of the project has been expanded to 600,000 gross square feet, about 40 percent larger than previously discussed. That would be about the same size as the Charles Whittaker U.S. Courthouse completed in 1998.
An approximate timetable anticipates design work starting in 2012, with construction beginning in 2015.
The proposal, first suggested in 2006, calls for consolidating about 1,200 federal workers, many of them now at the Bannister Federal Complex, into a new office building. Most of the space would be occupied by the GSA Heartland Regional Headquarters and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The project has been an important goal of downtown civic leaders for several years and championed by U.S. Sen. Kit Bond but has encountered resistance in Washington. It was first proposed as a private development that would be leased to the government, but federal officials balked.
Bond held up the appointment of President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the GSA for six months to apply pressure on behalf of the proposal. The agency finally included the project in its five-year capital budget in March, but as a federally owned and operated building.
Klumb, whose own appointment was delayed, took his job in February. He said GSA officials in Washington D.C., were onboard with the Kansas City plan.
He added the plan has broad-based political backing that includes Sen. Claire McCaskill. As a Democrat and Obama ally, McCaskill is expected to have more influence than Bond, a Republican who’s stepping down this year. Democratic Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City also is a strong supporter.
At Cleaver’s urging, the Kansas City Council approved a resolution earlier this year that offers a city-owned block at 12th and Holmes streets for the GSA project. The block was the former location of the Greyhound bus terminal, which was acquired and demolished by the city as part of the East Village redevelopment plan.
A new federal office building of the size being envisioned likely would require a two-block site to furnish an adequate security buffer, but Klumb said the city’s offer was helpful.
“Because the city is willing to donate a site it makes it more attractive,” he said.
A riverfront site pitched by the Port Authority of Kansas City had been in the mix earlier, but the City Council, along with other downtown interests, made it clear the East Village was the preferred location. The idea of leasing space for the federal workers in existing buildings downtown was rejected because of security issues, Klumb said.
The 12-block East Village redevelopment area near City Hall is where the new headquarters of J.E. Dunn Construction Co. is located, and several blocks has been slated for residential development by Swope Community Builders. Swope expects to begin construction this summer on the first project, a 50-unit apartment building at Ninth and Holmes streets.
“East Village is the area that elected officials have indicated is their preference, and the GSA wants to be a good neighbor and build where we are wanted,” Klumb said.
Article is courtesy of The Kansas City Star and was written by Kevin Collison.
