Embassy Suites loses 3 floors

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:15 pm

OWH wrote:Developer cuts hotel height by 3 floors

The anchor hotel of La Vista's Southport development will be seven stories instead of 10 to avoid being labeled a hazard to aircraft using the Millard Airport, a developer said Friday.

Dennis Hoth of CBRE/Mega said the footprint of the 280- to 300-room hotel near 126th and Harrison Streets will be larger to make up for the lost height.

The Federal Aviation Administration ruled in November that a 10-story hotel would pose a hazard. The site, just off Interstate 80, is less than a mile from the small airport.

Hoth's initial reaction to the ruling was that the design for the Embassy Suites Hotel, to be built by John Q. Hammons, did not need to be changed because the airport had not protected its air space through zoning or other means. In addition, he said, the runway approach could be changed.

Friday, Hoth said the FAA could not have stopped construction of a 10-story hotel but could have labeled it a hazard, creating the potential for higher insurance and lending costs.

Now a July groundbreaking is planned for the newly designed hotel, he said.

The $50 million hotel is to be paired with a $15 million conference center of up to 100,000 square feet owned by the City of La Vista.

Hoth spoke at an annual "big deals" lunch at the Champions Club where commercial brokers with Certified Commercial Investment Member designations shared details of their largest deals of 2004. The brokers earn the designation through education and demonstrated achievements.

Hoth's $13.8 million for the 138 acres at Southport West was the priciest deal, followed by the $8.9 million sale of Miracle Hill Golf Course by Jerry Heinrich and Steve Farrell of Investors Realty.

OhioStreetKid · Post by **OhioStreetKid** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:17 pm

Size-queen whining to commence in T - 3 minutes.

projectman · Post by **projectman** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:22 pm

I was hoping for 62 stories. pecker on the Plains, Prick of the Prairie.

Alt(Bayern)München · Post by **Alt(Bayern)München** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:24 pm

It should be 50 stories,
with a hole through the center (like that building in the opening credits of MIAMI VICE) and the planes should fly right thru!

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:28 pm

There will be others to bring the height. At least its still being built.

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:44 pm

Maybe they can take those 3 floors and add them to the Hilton.

OhioStreetKid · Post by **OhioStreetKid** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:49 pm

pecker on the Plains

Just when I thought it couldn't get any funnier...

Prick of the Prairie

You come up with this.

DTO you get honorable mention for managing to work the Hilton into this thread. That is some real talent

.

On topic, it doesn't matter how tall it is, the economic impact will be the real size that we should be excited about.

CountOfMC · Post by **CountOfMC** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:05 pm

Maybe they can take those 3 floors and shove it.

Sorry.. I lost my shirt tonight at the casino. Rough evening...

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 10:45 pm

All joking aside, at least the hotel won't lose any rooms.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 12:05 pm

Boooooo.

The FAA can shove it. They're just being pricks in this situation. No way is a 10 story building in that location a "hazard." Any pilot that is INCOMPITANT enough at flying to hit a 10 story building that far away from the airport is the "hazard".

The appeal of this thing being 10 stories was that it would be actual "quality" development that you could actually SEE from the interstate coming into Omaha from the west.

Speaking of that, I-80 through Omaha is definitely an example of Omaha's abysmal failure when it comes to aethetics.

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:44 pm

StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Boooooo.

Speaking of that, I-80 through Omaha is definitely an example of Omaha's abysmal failure when it comes to aethetics.

God yes! It is such an ugly view. Corrugated steel buildings (the backs of them facing the highway, to add insult to injury) and now the ugly billboards. I get such a kick out of the one near the 80-680 split. It says "Omaha is Growing! So are we!" It might as well say "Omaha is Ugly! So are We!"

TitosBuritoBarn · Post by **TitosBuritoBarn** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 11:02 pm

Well where do you want those buildings? Next to your 4 bedroom 3 stall brick faced home in West O? Of course not....besides close freeway access is more vital to these sorts of industrial business that do a lot of distribution via semis than it is to any others. Big semis don't want to have to deal with city traffic. I don't think 680 is very trashy looking nor will Dodge Street be once it gains its freeway status.

Name me a city that does not have an ugly stretch of freeway lined with industrial establishments.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 11:12 pm

Once again... I agree with Tito. Sure it could benefit from some sprucing up/landscaping/what not... but where do you want to put the industrial tract? It's sort of like putting up the backyard fence. What makes more sense... having the nice looking side facing out so people on the other side get the 'good view' ? Or turning the nice looking side in so YOU can enjoy it in your backyard (in the end though, I guess most people would rather look good to the outside world, rather than enjoy the better looking side in their backyard). As it happens... our best looking 'boulevards' are in town, well out of view of I-80. That someone passing through town on misses out on them... well, I guess that is their loss. People are way too obsessed with outside perceptions (from industrial I-80 to the Antique Road Show!) Enjoy your city folks... you've got the inside view.

That said, the billboards are out of control. Why the city of Omaha doesn't try to do something about them is beyond me. I guess it must be the all powerful outdoor advertising lobby at work.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:20 am

I don't really mind the buildings along 1-80. The billboards don't even really bother me that much.

That being said, I do constantly think that the leadership of our city has rarely taken aesthetics into consideration in the past.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:07 pm

jhuston wrote:People are way too obsessed with outside perceptions (from industrial I-80 to the Antique Road Show!) Enjoy your city folks... you've got the inside view.

Obviously a reference to me, so I'll respond.

Jeff, of all people I am the one who LEAST needs the advice you just gave. When you already know, love, and experience your city daily, you're fee to worry about "petty things" like aesthetics. I-80 is the one of the biggest avenues of exposure to Omaha and Nebraska for people travelling across the country. It seems so obviouse that that would be a focal point for quality development. Sure industrial sites need access to the interstate. But that doesn't mean they have to look ugly. This is where design standards come in...and ZONING! The thing about other cities is sure they have their industrial areas...but they're almost always OUTSIDE the city. As you get further into the city, you start seeing big office buildings, etc. Much like West Dodge Road. With I-80 through Omaha, as you go past all the hiddeous warehouses and scrapyards, you're expecting to EVENTUALLY get to an area of quality development inside the city...but nope. All the way through it's pretty much industrial and scrapyards, and then, "whoa, all of a sudden I'm in Iowa. Where did Omaha go?" I understand the reasoning for it, as I-80 generally parallels the rail right of way through the city, and I'm thankful in some ways that when it was built they DID build it on the industrial south side of the city, instead of wiping out huge areas of already developed land. I know Dodge Street is Omaha's commercial spine, and it has seen some of this "quality development", but if someone is just traveling THROUGH Omaha, they don't use Dodge.

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:17 pm

I don't know of any cities where it's this big beatiful drive on the interstate. Theirs always those DT loops like our 480, but for the most part I don't know of anyone who cares or looks enough from the interstate for it to matter. Like Jeff said we get to see the city from the inside. I know when I drove through Wichita it looked like the most forsaken spot I've ever seen. I'm sure the rest of the city wasn't that bad. When I got to Ft. Worth you wouldn't know you were in the biggest city in Texas. There were big giant farms in the city. (I'm glad we don't have any of those) The few exceptions were the Ft. Worth airport, Texas Motor Speedway, and DT FW, but other than that it didn't look much differant than drivinf through Omaha, Lincoln, or KC. Actually all of those places looked better than Dallas did.

projectman · Post by **projectman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:25 pm

DTO, It's 1 Houston, 2. Dallas, 3. San Antonio, 4. Austin and then 5. Ft Worth. Houston is the biggest in Texas.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:30 pm

Was he maybe talking about city proper?

Anyway, DTO, I have personally seen this kind of interstate, in bigger cities like Chicago and D.C., and in comparabel cities like KC. KC of course has some ugly interstates, but they're really making strides in interstate beautification, along with Des Moines.

It's great that Omaha By Design has proposed beautifying the interstates. There definitely needs to be way more trees and landscaping, and I'd love to see every single hiddeous concrete and steel bridge over the interstate replaced with something that looks like at least SOME thought was put into how it looks.

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:37 pm

projectman wrote:DTO, It's 1 Houston, 2. Dallas, 3. San Antonio, 4. Austin and then 5. Ft Worth. Houston is the biggest in Texas.

In the City it would be Houston but I was talking about the whole metro. Metro Dallas is bigger than Metro Houston.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:38 pm

Well, by that logic, Council Bluffs is the biggest city in Iowa.

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:40 pm

StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Well, by that logic, Council Bluffs is the biggest city in Iowa.

It is.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:22 pm

I always try to convince family etc. coming from the east to take I-480 if they can. Usually they have preconcieved notions about Omaha developed from taking I-80 and having them take 480 usually improves those notions.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 7:26 pm

I do the same thing, Bob. If I'm giving someone directions who is from out of town, and they don't know where they're going, I'm going to send them past downtown if I can.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:59 pm

Keeping in mind... the kinds of aesthetics which are being given to projects like this today... were universally, with a few exceptions, overlooked just a few years ago. One need look only as far as West Dodge to see that the state has begun putting much more emphasis on aesthetics as well. Not to discredit Des Moines/Iowa planners though. They have done an incredible job. You can bet with federal funding... there is alot of politics at work here as well.

UNOstudent · Post by **UNOstudent** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:33 pm

it all costs money somewhere. would you rather have 4 lanes on I 80 w/ a tree or 5 lanes w/ no tree?

Ingersoll1978 · Post by **Ingersoll1978** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:01 pm

That kind of logic is why Omaha will not see a light rail system anytime soon.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:04 pm

Well I'm not sure how it ties in to light rail... but I'd rather see 4 lanes with a bunch of trees.

DMRyan · Post by **DMRyan** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:39 am

Four lanes and a tree for me too. It doesn't appear that the five I-80 lanes get all that congested as it is. Within reason, maybe a little future gridlock with no room to expand would somehow force development closer in, or maybe even *gasp*...more transit.

That was the reasoning behind the design of I-235. They reduced it scale so they could keep costs down and not have to aquire more properties to make it even wider. Projections show the new freeway should meet our needs until 2025, after which time it should be at capacity. The line of thinking is that between now and this time, mass transit will hopefully improve because there won't be anymore I-235 expansions down the pike. It was designed to be 10% over capacity by 2025.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:44 am

Sounds like a gamble on the people's mindset. For better or for worse... I think it will change by necessity rather than convenience (ie costs/income instead of time/distance). Enjoy your big SUV's today folks.

Ingersoll1978 · Post by **Ingersoll1978** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:49 am

That was my reasoning. The more you accomodate automobile traffic and keep it uncongested, the less likely you'll ever need mass transit to get people around. People won't use light rail (or heavy) unless it is more convenient. Chicago doesn't even have a ten lane freeway (for a city of 3 million, 9 million metro)...but have great mass transit.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 10:01 am

My point is... it will be a LONG time before Omaha... and cities it's size... will be large enough to justify mass transit for mere convenience. Long BEFORE then... fuel costs and floundering incomes against cost of living... in the aftermath of globalization will leave people running for it (regardless of how wide the freeways are). Folks, call me chicken little ... but I think we are on the cusp of a major nationwide lifestyle adjustment. It may be a couple of decades away, but I believe it is coming. China isn't going to be closing the gap with us in standard of living... we're going to be 'closing' it with them.

CountOfMC · Post by **CountOfMC** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 10:54 am

I drive I-80 quite a bit and I don't think it is 5 lanes. I think it's 4 lanes throughout, with 1-2 auxiliary lanes depending where you exit. Because some of these merging lanes run for a half mile, I guess it makes it seem like it's 5-6 lanes in some spots.. but I think 4 is pretty common. No doubt, regardless of mass transit, I-80/480 to I-29 will have to become 3 lanes. I know I-80 isn't running at capacity, but during the morning drive and rush hour.. it'll be bumper to bumper.. and many people will leave for downtown at 6:30 so there's no gridlock problems like there are when people take I-80E into CB for the drive home.

I don't want to spark a fire here.. but do you think Omaha will see light rail before KC due to the fact that they're so much more spread out than we are, thus, really making it an unfeasible plan for them? They'll need some serious infill if it's to ever work there. I'm just thinking since we are built more like St. Louis, and there is no real leapfrog development to speak of.. one has to wonder if this could indeed be true.

DMRyan · Post by **DMRyan** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 1:33 pm

I don't know if Omaha will beat KC in light rail, but KC being so spread out really shouldn't make a difference. They still have a lot of people in some certain core areas and don't necessarily have to have a light rail line going to every suburb. Just having one on the River Market to Dowtown to the Plaza and maybe a Johnson County, KS line would be nice. I do think that having the airport so far away from everything would prohibate a line traveling to the far north reaches of KC intially.

Afterall, look at Houston, Dallas and Phoenix--all spread way the heck out and having light rail.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:40 pm

KC had a big push for light rail a couple of years ago, but it was defeated by a vote. People just didn't seem to see the need for it despite the best efforts of the local government. I think we will run into the same trouble up here and it will take many years and many tries to get something like that put in place. Not like that's news or anything, but...

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 5:47 pm

TitosBuritoBarn wrote:Well where do you want those buildings? Next to your 4 bedroom 3 stall brick faced home in West O? Of course not....besides close freeway access is more vital to these sorts of industrial business that do a lot of distribution via semis than it is to any others. Big semis don't want to have to deal with city traffic. I don't think 680 is very trashy looking nor will Dodge Street be once it gains its freeway status.

Name me a city that does not have an ugly stretch of freeway lined with industrial establishments.

Des Moines, KC, to name two. They have office complexes, they just are made of brick or other attractive materials. Visit W. Des Moines to see what I mean.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:01 pm

I can't speak for that development utopia in Des Moines ... but apparently you haven't traversed the entire 435 loop around KC. It has all sorts of industrial tract (from light to heavy industrial that makes the old UP yards look like park land) alongside. Our 'corporate woods' is along West Dodge/680... that's just the way it is. Perhaps if we get enough Aarons into the city council/mayors office... we can just blow up all the industrial uses along I-80 and replace it with gleaming 300 foot buildings... or perhaps divert all interstate travellers through Dodge to 480.

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:19 pm

jhuston wrote:I can't speak for that development utopia in Des Moines ... but apparently you haven't traversed the entire 435 loop around KC. It has all sorts of industrial tract (from light to heavy industrial that makes the old UP yards look like park land) alongside. Our 'corporate woods' is along West Dodge/680... that's just the way it is. Perhaps if we get enough Aarons into the city council/mayors office... we can just blow up all the industrial uses along I-80 and replace it with gleaming 300 foot buildings... or perhaps divert all interstate travellers through Dodge to 480.

The KC areas you speak of are 40, 50 + years old in most cases. I'm speaking of new developments, like the trashy buildings along I-80 near Harrison and into Sarpy Co.

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:23 pm

Kansas side has plenty of new commercial/light industrial like this along their branch of 435.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:01 pm

"I think we are on the cusp of a major nationwide lifestyle adjustment."

Well, I think that's obvious.

And as far as "aesthetics" and West Dodge, I know they talked about it and made a few "proposals", but so far I'm not seeing it. I'll believe it when I see it. I think some effort will be put into aethetics, but I think it will be very "bottom droor" as far as highway aesthetics are concerned.

I just don't see why as much attention is given to West Dodge Expressway in an effort to make it look nice (It could be argued that not much attention is given at all) is not given, even more so, to Interstate 80...??? And that's a rhetorical question. People need not answer it ;) .

eomaha · Post by **eomaha** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:12 pm

Maybe that (coming lifestyle change) is obvious to you and me. I don't think it is to the average American.

The bridges along West Dodge and the landscaping surrounding them are dramatic improvements over what we've seen around Omaha to date. As for the expressway bridge... what do we want (besides not at all)... a cable stayed Charles River Bridge?? It's not going to happen.