“I jokingly tell people it takes a staff of 3 over four weeks to plant and pull up the bulbs and it only takes 15 minutes to give them all away.”
— An e-mail from the Garvey Center’s Larry Weber on the center’s “Great Annual Tulip Give Away” of more than 15,000 tulip bulbs to tenants
WICHITA — A salon is opening in the former Bob’s Place barber shop at the Garvey Center downtown.
Jennifer Collins and Shelby Cheatum are moving their Shear Voltage salon from a small suite at the Collective near 21st and Greenwich to the Garvey Center on July 1.
“We’re just really excited to be in the downtown area and continue to grow our business,” Collins says.
She and Cheatum have been cutting hair together for about seven years and opened their business almost two years ago. They purposely started small because they heard the first couple of years in any business are particularly rough, Collins says. She says they’ve been successful, though, and are ready to grow.
The new space is 1,512 square feet.
Adam Clements and Larry Weber of Builders Inc. handled the deal.
The expanded salon will have eight stylists and offer a range of services in addition to hair care. That includes spray tans, massage, body waxing, makeup, eyelash extensions and, eventually, manicures and pedicures.
Collins says it makes sense to move downtown now.
“I think we’re hitting it at the time that we can grow with the downtown area.”
WICHITA — By the end of August, all of the federal agencies in the 271 Building at 271 W. Third St. downtown will be gone.
Have You Heard? has written about several of the departures already. What follows is a complete list.
“This was originally an IRS lease at this building, but they returned some of the space, and then we backfilled it with other agencies … which is kind of why everyone is leaving at once,” says Angela Brees, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration.
The IRS has about 33,000 square feet of the 95,000-square-foot building.
Typically, whenever a federal agency’s lease is up, there has to be a bidding process for new space.
The IRS office and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office are moving to 555 N. Woodlawn. They’re taking about 40,000 square feet there, and there’s another 23,000 square feet available to lease.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration office and the Health and Human Services Inspector General are moving to Phil Ruffin’s Bank of America Center at Broadway and Douglas.
The Small Business Administration is moving to the Page Court Building at the Garvey Center at 220 E. Douglas.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency are moving to the Lux building at First and Market.
The Railroad Retirement Board has already moved to the Cambridge Office Park south of 21st and Webb Road, and the Citizenship and Immigration Services office has already moved to Ruffin’s building at 550 W. Douglas in Delano.
The status of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Defense Inspector General offices is still unclear.
All of the agencies need to be out of the 271 Building by the end of August when the lease is up.
“We’re still dealing with them on that,” says Trey Ayers, executive vice president of Guthrie, Okla.-based Dominion Properties, which owns the building.
Dominion is seeking new tenants outside of federal agencies.
“We like Wichita, and we like what it’s about,” Ayers says. “Hopefully we can help some other local folks move into the property.”
“Boy, he’d be a hard individual to replace from his personality and … as a shoe shine because that’s such a dying art.”
– The Garvey Center’s Larry Weber on Richard Henry, who shined shoes in the building for more than a decade until his death last week
Wayne Bell, district director of the Small Business Administration.
WICHITA — The government is better known for red tape than streamlined processes, but the General Services Administration is working on that, and a change in offices for the Small Business Administration is going to offer something of a test case.
The SBA’s Wichita district office is moving from 271 W. Third St., where the IRS is, to the Page Court Building at the Garvey Center at 220 E. Douglas.
Before the move can happen, there has to be a design phase, which could determine everything from the tint of the windows to security systems in the new office.
“Normally, the process would take … 60 days or more,” says Wayne Bell, the SBA’s district director.
The GSA has a new design intent drawing process that will convene everyone involved in the move — contractors, designers, the SBA, the GSA, a representative for the landlord and anyone else connected with the project.
“You’re going to have all of the players in the room,” Bell says. “With this approach, everything should be complete within a three-day timeframe. It’s a really, really good idea.”
The old way of doing things involved sending drawings to the GSA, then the SBA, which would make changes before sending it back to the GSA. Then the contractor would get the drawings after a protracted period.
“So it could take months,” Bell says.
The design intent drawing creates a condensed timeframe where there’s an on-the-spot rough draft of the SBA’s needs that gets refined immediately with everyone present.
“This is very new,” Bell says. “So it’s going to be kind of an on-the-job learning process.”
The meetings will take place over a three-day period in late October at the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.’s design innovation center.
“What we try to do in that space is make resources available,” says WDDC president Jeff Fluhr.
That includes conference calling and video conferencing.
“We’re thrilled they’re willing to take the opportunity,” Fluhr says of the SBA and GSA. He says the attitude is “let’s walk through it and see what we learn from it.”
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.
WICHITA — CASA of Sedgwick County is leaving 150 N. Main St. for the Garvey Center.
“Real Development just has failed to … live up to their promises,” says Anne Duncan, CASA’s executive director, referring to the owner of CASA’s current building.
Duncan says there are maintenance issues, such as an elevator that has had repeated problems, and Real Development is “not being very attentive to those types of things.”
Neither Michael Elzufon nor Dave Lundberg of Real Development returned calls for comment.
Duncan says the move, which will happen July 28, will give CASA 2,640 square feet compared to its current 1,600 square feet.
“We need more space and a place to do training,” Duncan says. “That’s one of our big considerations.”
The nonprofit trains volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children in court.
“We’re just really excited to be able to deliver all of our training on site,” Duncan says.
Larry Weber of Builders Inc. handled the deal.
CASA will move into the Kiva at the Garvey Center, which is across from Papa John’s Pizza.
Duncan says she’s pleased that CASA can remain centrally located “without fighting for parking.”
WICHITA — In the four years since Christopher Clark purchased a 3,000-square-foot Delano building for his Christopher Clark Designer Portraits, the economy has crashed and the photography business has changed.
Clark says when he opened at 1113 W. Douglas, he wanted room to meet with customers because “we just wanted the one-on-one personal relationship.”
Now, he says, “More people are going to the Internet to actually purchase pictures.”
So after two years of trying to sell his building, Clark auctioned it last week and is moving to the Garvey Center next month.
Larry Weber of Builders Inc. handled the deal.
Clark will be subleasing about 1,700 square feet from the South Central Kansas Economic Development District, which no longer needed all the room it has.
The space happens to be where Channel 33, the former WB affiliate, used to be, so Clark says its high ceilings and other features are ideal for him.
“I’ll still be able to do a gallery and a studio,” he says.
Clark, who has been shooting in Wichita for 25 years, will remain in his Delano space until he moves July 16.
“I look forward to the future,” he says. “This is going to be fun.”
WICHITA — Reluctantly, Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee Laurie Williams has to move her office.
“When I moved here, I really had hoped to not have to move again,” she says of her 2,300 square feet at 225 N. Market.
“I love this space and its proximity to my courthouse, but my caseload has grown, and I’m just out of room.”
Williams is moving her office to 5,800 square feet at the R.H. Garvey Building at 300 W. Douglas.
The new office will allow for more files and employees.
Williams, who makes recommendations on whether Chapiter 13 plans should be approved and then administers them, has almost 2,900 cases.
Currently, she has 12 employees.
“I hope to add two more,” she says.
Larry Weber represented the Garvey Center in the deal, and Patrick Ahern of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group represented Williams.
The new office will be ready in late summer.
WICHITA — Dream Catchers Case Management has signed a new lease with the Garvey Center.
“We provide case management services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” says president Kathleen Blackburn.
Dream Catchers has been in Broadway Plaza but is moving for more space. Its new office will be about 800 square feet.
Blackburn says the Garvey Center made sense for several reasons, including parking, being centrally located and having a health club.
Larry Weber of Builders Inc. handled the deal for the Garvey Center, and Tony Utter of Utter Commercial Real Estate represented Dream Catchers.