“I need him to narrow that down. Maybe cut a couple of more hours.”
– Mayor Carl Brewer on the success of downtown development, which he says causes Wichita Downtown Development Corp. president Jeff Fluhr to get only about five hours of sleep most nights
“The whole motivation for this is kind of allowing people to feel the pulse of what’s going on in these businesses while they’re driving down the street.”
– The OnionTree’s Bridgit Yinger, who is organizing a brainstorming session to change city regulations on what businesses can place on sidewalks (tentatively on Nov. 28 at the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.)
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 — Final Friday is a popular monthly art crawl for some, but the Arts Council wants to make sure it makes business sense, too.
Final Friday attracts about 4,000 people monthly, which the Council says boosts area restaurants and retail shops, but that doesn’t always translate to support for artists.
“We know there’s already a lot of attention out there for Final Friday, but we want to take it to the next step up,” says Ann Keefer, who sits on the Council’s board and is vice president of marketing for the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.
The Council, the WDDC and the city are teaming for a new campaign to help increase art sales.
“One of the things we see as far as helping to develop downtown … has been the creative industry,” Keefer says. “It actually is an economic driver in some respects.”
If people only tour galleries and don’t buy art, though, artists won’t be able to stay, Keefer says.
“We don’t want that to happen. We want them to stay and flourish.”
The campaign will be led by a new logo that Sonia Greteman agreed to have the Greteman Group create pro bono.
WICHITA — It’s getting to the point you can’t call Robert Eyster and Michael Ramsey nascent developers any longer.
Eyster has purchased the former Protection One building at the northwest corner of First and Market, which makes the sixth downtown property he’s bought to redevelop in less than a year.
“In the process of looking for buildings that have kind of been neglected or buildings that are too big or too small for people . . . we’ve looked at probably all the buildings downtown,” Ramsey said.
That’s how they found the 7-story, 171,000-square-foot Protection One building, which the former Kansas Gas and Electric Co. built in 1953.
“That building has got some very dynamic bones to it,” Ramsey said. “It just spoke to us.”
He and Eyster are renaming the building the Lux and creating luxury apartments and possible condos along with commercial on the first two floors.
“It sounds like a really exciting development,” said Patrick Ahern of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group, who was one of the agents who handled the deal.
Ahern, who specializes in downtown properties, said, “More people living downtown will attract more retail and give more vibrance to downtown and that area in particular.”
He said the sale of that much Class B downtown property “potentially helps the market because it’s less space for other buildings to compete with.”
Ahern and Steve Martens represented Protection One, and Marty Gilchrist and Grant Tidemann of J.P. Weigand & Sons represented Eyster.
Eyster has already purchased and is redeveloping the former Zelman building, the Board of Trade building, Victoria Park Apartments, the two-story building at 100 S. Market and Kelly Donham’s former property on Douglas between Main and Market.
With the help of Kansas City, Mo., architect El Dorado Inc., which designed the Finn Lofts on Commerce Street, Eyster and Ramsey hope to use a lot of the 1950s architectural elements already in the mid-century modern building. That includes light fixtures, door knobs and railings.
“They have actually cataloged everything they could in the KGE building in the hopes we . . . could repurpose those elements,” Ramsey said.
Farha Construction is the contractor and Builders Inc. is managing the building.
“This is really going to be a unique facility,” said Larry Weber of Builders Inc.
WICHITA — The Board of Trade building at 120 S. Market is the latest acquisition for nascent downtown developer Robert Eyster.
“He’s planning on doing a complete remodel with it,” says Michael Ramsey, who is working with Eyster on several downtown projects.
They’re renovating and repurposing the Zelman building and the Victoria Park Apartments. They’ve also recently acquired property along Douglas Avenue between Main and Market streets where developer Kelly Donham previously had plans.
The Board of Trade renovation will be in conjunction with plans Eyster and Ramsey have for the Douglas property.
Ramsey won’t share all the details yet, but he says, “It’s following the Goody Clancy plan of changes they feel should be happening downtown.”
Part of Ramsey’s hesitation to talk just yet is due to potential city involvement.
“We’re really trying to work with the city through the project.”
WICHITA — Alltite and MobileCal founder Tom Smith has closed on his deal to buy a 14,000-square-foot building at 141 S. Rock Island near The Wichita Eagle.
“We’ve got a lot of customers and employees coming in from all over the country, and I wanted to have a neat, interesting property,” Smith says. “I really like old buildings with a lot of character. It’s just got the cool factor.”
In January, Have You Heard? first reported Smith had a contract on the building, which was built in 1901 as a livery stable in conjunction with the adjacent Union Station.
“The neat thing about the building is there’s a sliding door from the ice house next door,” Smith says.
He says blocks of ice and other refrigerated goods would be loaded onto horse-drawn carriages stationed in his building and then be delivered around Wichita.
Smith currently leases space on the east side for his companies.
Alltite sells industrial bolting equipment and services to heavy industrial plants, and Smith’s MobileCal is a mobile calibration lab he developed to service industrial equipment on site.
Smith says he plans to create a loft-style office for his new space.
UPDATED –There are signs in the window at 509 E. Douglas at Eaton Place that tease a new business coming there.
It’s part of a little double entendre for Leslie Way’s new Salon Teased, a salon and spa that’s opening next month.
Way is a Wichita native who now lives in Los Angeles.
Her daughter, stylist Tiffany Tajchman, will manage the business. Her mother, Rachel Klein, is helping open the business as well.
They’re all three members of the Emerald City Chorus.
“I would eventually like to move back here,” Way says.
She and her husband, Van Snow, have a California company that builds electronic test equipment for aerospace satellite communication.
“That allows us to pay . . . to do other stuff,” she says.
Downtown was a natural choice, Way says.
“We like the historical value,” she says. “We wanted to be part of the up-front development of this Wichita (downtown) district that’s happening.”
She stopped in to see the Wichita Downtown Development Corp., her next-door neighbor, and saw the city’s plan for redeveloping downtown.
“I looked at everything, and I’m like, wow, what great growth.”
UPDATED — Candy bars, cigarettes and DVDs soon may not be the only things Wichitans can buy in a vending machine.
Columbus, Ohio-based Shop24 wants to bring its 24-hour automated convenience stores here.
“We are currently the world’s only totally automated and robotic convenience store,” says Mike Weigel, chief sales and marketing officer.
“The units can be configured to hold anything and everything.”
The units, which require 140 square feet, can hold up to 200 items ranging from one ounce to eight pounds.
“We have stores that actually dispense gallons of oil and antifreeze,” Weigel says.
Typical items include such things as sandwiches, milk, bandages and cookie dough.
Weigel says stocking depends on needs of an area.
Customers, who have to exit their vehicles to shop, can pay with cash, credit or debit cards.
The units — there are more than 200 internationally — are enclosed in bullet-proof glass. Weigel says there’s never been a successful break-in.
“We’re very proud of the safety record.”