“Out with the old and in with the new” reflects the approach a pair of Kansas City developers is taking with a $48 million new apartment complex near The University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kan.
Lane4 Property Group Inc. and Hunt Midwest, in partnership with KU Endowment, plan a fall 2022 groundbreaking for The Hudson, a seven-story, 228-apartment development at 3600 Rainbow Blvd.
The proposal involves demolition of the 2.7-acre property’s existing Cambridge West apartments — an older community with 44 residences. In late November, Lane4 Managing Partner Michael Berenbom told officials with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, that Cambridge West residents were vacating and had received more than a year’s notice of the impending teardown.
“It has to go — there (are) very little redeeming qualities in this building,” UG Mayor David Alvey said earlier this month, noting that his daughters live in it.
In its place, Lane4 and Hunt Midwest look to build five stories of apartments — a combination of studio, one- and two-bedroom units — above a two-story podium parking garage with 260 spaces. Amenities contemplated include an enclosed courtyard, pool, fitness center, business center with coworking space, rooftop patio and enclosed bike storage.
“This project conforms with the Rosedale Master Plan and reinforces the plan to place residential density along Rainbow,” Greg Kindle, president of the Wyandotte Economic Development Council, said at a UG meeting Dec. 2. “Additionally, it provides a quality residential development within Kansas City, Kansas, to meet the growing demand for housing by health care professionals on the KU Medical campus that now employs nearly 12,000. This is a desperately needed investment in this area of the community.”
UG commissioners approved rezoning and as much as $48 million in industrial revenue bonds, providing a 10-year, 100% property tax abatement for the new apartments. Developers will make $2.3 million in payments in lieu of taxes to the UG and affected jurisdictions.
Lane4’s previous development experience in the Rosedale area includes the 39Rainbow mixed-use project south of The Hudson site, at Rainbow Boulevard and 39th Avenue.
The new apartments also one day could sit near a westward extension of the streetcar. The Kansas City Streetcar Authority in October allocated money to study such a route after receiving a letter from KU Health CEO Bob Page, who spoke glowingly of the potential benefits a future line along 39th Street to the system’s Rainbow Boulevard campus could bring.
Lane4 and Hunt Midwest hope to complete construction on The Hudson by the fall of 2024.
Project team members include Studio A Architecture and BRR Architecture as architects, and Olsson as civil engineer.
See more about this project here.
Read the full article from the Kansas City Business Journal