Omaha Forums

An 800 room Hyatt Convention hotel is to be announced for downtown KCMO, across from their convention hall, and near the Power & Light District.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 57803.html

Wow the city is kicking in $50 Million ($2 million per year for 25 years) Ouch!!! Hope it meets expectations.

Sweet Jesus. Probably will be finished by the time Shamrock gets started.

Dear Omaha,

You may now weep.

Everyone keeps talking about this. Good for KC, but the Omaha market doesn't warrant a hotel that large. Sure, it would have been nice to have a nicer, taller Hilton in Omaha, but we still have a 600 room hotel, which is larger than any hotel in Iowa, South Dakota or Nebraska. Thinking about the KC hotel, I am not sure that they need a new 800 room hotel either for their demand. I could be wrong.

skinzfan23 wrote:Everyone keeps talking about this. Good for KC, but the Omaha market doesn't warrant a hotel that large. Sure, it would have been nice to have a nicer, taller Hilton in Omaha, but we still have a 600 room hotel, which is larger than any hotel in Iowa, South Dakota or Nebraska. Thinking about the KC hotel, I am not sure that they need a new 800 room hotel either for their demand. I could be wrong.

They were initially thinking 1000 rooms. I think they will be fine. Love that location, with the light rail going right by it, and perfectly situated for the convention center, Kauffman Center, and Power and Light/Spring Center. When we go to KC we now usually stay downtown at the Marriott. Love that place. This area just keeps getting better.

Greg

skinzfan23 wrote:we still have a 600 room hotel

I was wondering the other day when reading this thread how many rooms it was. If only they built a tower instead of the wall, it would have been a lot cooler.

It's got nothin' on our giant turd the Great Wall
Of Hilton!

Omaha turns down a 30 floor hotel and now can't even get a 15 floor one to break ground as other cities are hitting critical mass. Wow have times changed congratulations KC!

Even if they do get their 800 room fancy hotel, they'll probably take it in the butt on financing again like they did with the Power and Light District. Keep things in perspective.

Let's remember a couple of things. Omaha got the CLink built way before DSM & KC built theirs, and with a connected hotel and the CLink is a combined arena & convention center. Now I've been whining about the Omaha connected hotel that was built versus the one Hal Daub wanted since fahey took office but the fact is that Omaha got the job done first. Des Moines does have an arena and convention center but no visible development in the neighborhood since. Kansas City did build the Sprint Center finally but with no hotel.

IF the proposed Marriott does get built it will put the number of first class hotel rooms in the immediate vicinity of the CLink at almost 1,000 with a lot more rooms within walking distance. Not bad "for Omaha".

I'm just saying that in this case Omaha has been very proactive in this regard. And the Hilton did finally get to the 600 room total.

NovakOmaha wrote:Let's remember a couple of things. Omaha got the CLink built way before DSM & KC built theirs, and with a connected hotel and the CLink is a combined arena & convention center. Now I've been whining about the Omaha connected hotel that was built versus the one Hal Daub wanted since fahey took office but the fact is that Omaha got the job done first. Des Moines does have an arena and convention center but no visible development in the neighborhood since. Kansas City did build the Sprint Center finally but with no hotel.

IF the proposed Marriott does get built it will put the number of first class hotel rooms in the immediate vicinity of the CLink at almost 1,000 with a lot more rooms within walking distance. Not bad "for Omaha".

I'm just saying that in this case Omaha has been very proactive in this regard. And the Hilton did finally get to the 600 room total.

Thanks for mentioning all that. I think we need to keep it in perspective. Omaha has done exceptionally well for a city and metro of its size. In fact, you could argue that Omaha is probably better when it comes to those things than any other city its size in the country.

KC's hotels are more concentrated around the convention center. Their primary one is the Marriot with I believe is 980 rooms, you have several other full time hotels around the convention center-Aladdin and Crown Plaza. Both the Marriott and the Aladdin both went through multi-million dollar remodels. Now you have the probability of an 800 room hotel being added to the area. The convention center/P and L/ Sprint Center/Kauffman area is really taking off. Plus the light rail.

Des Moines is a mess. So isolated.

I'm not knocking the Clink, it's been good for Omaha. Can't we all agree though, that the area around it has failed to take off like we'd hope, considering it was the first of the 3 new arenas to open (you could throw in PBA now too). With so many big surface lots and the failure to truly capitalize on the riverfront, we still have a ways to go. We're past 10 years since it opened.

Greg

Spot on Greg. The surface lots west of the CLink should have been developed by now with garages and retail on the first floor. While KCLive is cool I would give the award to Lincoln for "Arena District" development. The game isn't over for any of these cities, Omaha, Des Moines, KC and Lincoln. Certainly the area between the CLink & Creighton could always be done right over time. I sure would have liked to see the riverfront from south of Eppley to south of Conagra developed with residential, office, retail, etc.

NovakOmaha wrote: The game isn't over for any of these cities, Omaha, Des Moines, KC and Lincoln. Certainly the area between the CLink & Creighton could always be done right over time. I sure would have liked to see the riverfront from south of Eppley to south of Conagra developed with residential, office, retail, etc.

That is the one nice thing about the lack of development near the Centurylink. The area is ready for it at any time. It could be worse if the city just let anyone in there and we ended up with a bunch of strip centers or 1-2 story buildings. I am glad that the city's long term vision still includes 4-5 stories with parking garages and ground level retail.

I agree it would be worse if they just let anybody come in and develop the riverfront/Clink areas, but the fact that very little substantial, innovative, exciting development has happened over the last 10 years is indicative that something is wrong with the overall management, leadership, and promotion of the area.

GetUrban wrote:I agree it would be worse if they just let anybody come in and develop the riverfront/Clink areas, but the fact that very little substantial, innovative, exciting development has happened over the last 10 years is indicative that something is wrong with the overall management, leadership, and promotion of the area.

+1

RNcyanide wrote:

GetUrban wrote:I agree it would be worse if they just let anybody come in and develop the riverfront/Clink areas, but the fact that very little substantial, innovative, exciting development has happened over the last 10 years is indicative that something is wrong with the overall management, leadership, and promotion of the area.

+1

Yeah lets try not to give the city too much credit for basically doing the bare minimum and letting strip malls come into downtown.

I'm kicking myself for losing it but for years I had a multi page spread from the owh that had renderings of the CLink and surrounding area showing the entire proposal...garages with retail where the parking lots are, development along Cuming, future addition to the CLink convention center, etc.
If I still lived in Omaha I'd try to go to the downtown library and look for microfiche of old owh's and try to find it (if the library still has that kind of stuff). I think it was from a few months before the vote.

NovakOmaha wrote:I'm kicking myself for losing it but for years I had a multi page spread from the owh that had renderings of the CLink and surrounding area showing the entire proposal...garages with retail where the parking lots are, development along Cuming, future addition to the CLink convention center, etc.
If I still lived in Omaha I'd try to go to the downtown library and look for microfiche of old owh's and try to find it (if the library still has that kind of stuff). I think it was from a few months before the vote.

Is this the one you're thinking of?

https://jolsonurbanist.files.wordpress. ... tudy-i.pdf

It was posted on page 28 in the North Downtown thread too...

The problem Omaha has is we are trying to build a large district from scratch and on contaminated soil. Several different land owners complicate development too as they all have different interests. Competition from other parts of Omaha has taken away pieces that North Downtown could have used. Imagine if the Centurylink Center had newer elements from MC, Aksarben, Benson, downtown, etc, around it. Shamrock already faces competition at two other sites on Capitol, and the arena is going against three other arenas in the metro.

The CenturyLink Center could have been built next to an established district like PBA was, and Omaha would have had quite a bit of development right outside the arena like we all want. But instead, we used the arena to clean up an awful, isolated part of town. Although development is spread out, we've landed some very good projects including Gallup. We still have a long way to go to fill out the area. Some progress could be made if MECA would loosen their grip on the lots, but they do have reason to be protective. And the lots are huge so they wouldn't fill up all that quickly either.

GetUrban wrote:

NovakOmaha wrote:I'm kicking myself for losing it but for years I had a multi page spread from the owh that had renderings of the CLink and surrounding area showing the entire proposal...garages with retail where the parking lots are, development along Cuming, future addition to the CLink convention center, etc.
If I still lived in Omaha I'd try to go to the downtown library and look for microfiche of old owh's and try to find it (if the library still has that kind of stuff). I think it was from a few months before the vote.

Is this the one you're thinking of?

https://jolsonurbanist.files.wordpress. ... tudy-i.pdf

It was posted on page 28 in the North Downtown thread too...

Not the one I had in mind. The one I was thinking of was a multipage spread in the OWH detailing the proposal for the arena/convention center. It may even have been a special section. I may have to visit Omaha one of these days & find the sucker.

NovakOmaha wrote: I think it was from a few months before the vote.

So around what date do you think that would have been?

This could be it...but it is not before the Quest was built...but it is an OWH article at least.. :-)

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=77118

Looks like some of the same stuff included in the report I posted above.

Coyote wrote:

NovakOmaha wrote: I think it was from a few months before the vote.

So around what date do you think that would have been?

I think I have it narrowed down to sometime in 1999 or 2000. It appears that the vote was in 2000.

You can probably find the article in the on-line OWH archives, but I think there would be a fee, and I'm not sure if they let you post a link.

GetUrban wrote:You can probably find the article in the on-line OWH archives, but I think there would be a fee, and I'm not sure if they let you post a link.

I did a couple of searches but the problem is that the results are in limited text with no pictures. I can't tell from the text if it's the article or not. I may try to whittle the date range & then make some time next time I'm in Omaha to look at old microfiche or maybe old papers.

What's the legalese regarding taking a picture of an owh article and posting it here? How about scanning it and emailing the scan to whoever wants to see it?

Moving forward:

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 27090.html

The latest, including a new rendering:

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 48398.html

That is a squatty building, those original renderings seemed a lot more promising.

Linkin5 wrote:That is a squatty building, those original renderings seemed a lot more promising.

Do you think there is a KC version of MTO saying "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines? Why do they always get the towers and ours Shrink?!"?

MadMartin8 wrote:

Linkin5 wrote:That is a squatty building, those original renderings seemed a lot more promising.

Do you think there is a KC version of MTO saying "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines? Why do they always get the towers and ours Shrink?!"?

I didn't see any mentions of Des Moines on SSC.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1817236
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... 54&page=10

Omaha_corn_burner wrote:

MadMartin8 wrote:

Linkin5 wrote:That is a squatty building, those original renderings seemed a lot more promising.

Do you think there is a KC version of MTO saying "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines? Why do they always get the towers and ours Shrink?!"?

I didn't see any mentions of Des Moines on SSC.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1817236
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... 54&page=10

The kcrag forum has a downtown Desmoines thread from 2005 that someone revived in 2016... But I don't see "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines?" anywhere.
http://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1 ... Des+Moines

Brad wrote:

Omaha_corn_burner wrote:

MadMartin8 wrote:

Linkin5 wrote:That is a squatty building, those original renderings seemed a lot more promising.

Do you think there is a KC version of MTO saying "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines? Why do they always get the towers and ours Shrink?!"?

I didn't see any mentions of Des Moines on SSC.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1817236
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... 54&page=10

The kcrag forum has a downtown Desmoines thread from 2005 that someone revived in 2016... But I don't see "Jesus, why can't we be like Des Moines?" anywhere.
http://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1 ... Des+Moines

A joke kids, a joke.

Yeah it's going to be a couple floors shorter. Definitely liked the original design better.

Greg

I'm a little late but I prefer the new rendering. I hated the first one, I think the only thing most people liked about it was the height.

PotatoeEatsFish wrote:I'm a little late but I prefer the new rendering. I hated the first one, I think the only thing most people liked about it was the height.

The height won't be a big difference in the end, most likely only 2 stories.

Greg

I think the new rendering is pretty boring too. The one before was really great looking, while the new one looks more or less like the one we have in the Old Market

That is awesome. Funny, my sibling's significant other told me about this (he's in construction) just over Christmas, and I had never heard about it. It would really impact the KC skyline. I love KC.