“I was a reporter, but the chamber paid me a dollar an hour more so I couldn’t turn it down.”
– Wichita chamber CEO Gary Plummer, who was 21 in 1979 when he got his first chamber job in Iowa making $11,500 a year compared to his newspaper salary of about $10,400
WICHITA — Two businesses are moving into the 4,500-square-foot Tyler Office Park near the northwest corner of Douglas and Tyler.
That’s the building that Dale Walker built for his Midwest Insurance Agency more than a year ago.
Kathie Walker, who is married to Dale Walker, is moving her Bullins Tax Service to the building.
Her lease is up at 4425 W. Zoo Blvd.
Four counselors are taking the other available suite in the building. The independent counselors, who are coming from a few other locations, are Dawn Robinson, Angie Lynn, Sarah Thome and Victoria Whitetree.
The new tenants bring Tyler Office Park to 100 percent occupancy.
WICHITA — In another sign of recovery – both for Wichita and downtown in particular – the Garvey Center is going to build new apartments.
“We’re going to be constructing 36 new apartment units at the corner of First and Waco,” says Garvey Center manager Larry Weber.
The city owns half the parking lot that’s at the southeast corner, and the Garvey Center owns the other half.
Weber expects the project will take about a year to build after the city approves selling its land.
“The thing that’s significant about it is it’s adding new residential into our downtown,” says Jeff Fluhr, president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.
Fluhr says Builders Inc., which owns the Garvey Center, and its CEO, Mike Garvey, were some of the first to step up to help pay for a $100,000 study of downtown that showed that more residential is needed. Fluhr says more living areas in turn help meet retail and restaurant needs, which also were part of the plan.
City Council member Janet Miller agrees that the new apartments are likely to help with the ripple effect.
“That brings more services, more retail, more entertainment options.” All of that may eventually lead to a full-scale grocery store for the city’s core, she says, “which is what everybody wants.”
The Garvey Center already has 155 apartments at 250 Douglas Place.
“We’re 100 percent (occupied) on those, and the demand is such that more are needed,” Weber says.
Parking will be within the Garvey Center’s garage.
While other apartments and condos have become available downtown in recent years, none has been built from the ground up.