Omaha Development Update

[HangryHippo]

That looks sexy af.

[UrbanNebraska]

That’s a great looking tower! What is the overall office vacancy rate in downtown Omaha? What happens to the current Mutual of Omaha campus when they move downtown?

Mutual of Omaha controls a ton of undeveloped land around their current campus. They are selling all of their parking garages to the city, but still, own a ton of developable land. They don't have firm plans for it all yet, but last month the bonds were approved for our streetcar which will run right through their campus. They have said they are looking for a development partner to work with. They are Midtown Crossing on this map of the route. It will be a big redevelopment project.



Regarding downtown office, a local report says 7% vacancy downtown. This is less driven by a ton of new office users and more driven by a lot of office space being converted to residential over the past decade (at least 500k SF) and another ~200k SF being demoed. Of interest, while this will be the tallest it will not the most square footage. The Mutual tower will be 800k SF and the Union Pacific Railroad headquarters (the squatty box next to this tower you can see in the renderings) is the biggest building downtown with over 1.1 million SF and only 317 feet tall.

There is for some reason momentum for office downtown now, who knew after the work-from-home scenario. Our first mass timber building broke ground in North Downtown this week as well. 110,000 SF of office, as far as I know its speculative and with no tenant attached.





There was another mass timber office building announced this summer and its even more exciting. If you are familiar with the T3 buildings by Hines one was proposed in the new Mercantile development. It is proposed to be 7 stories and 275k SF with about 800 parking stalls below grade to support the new parks next door as well.







Some really cool national and international company for the T3 brand.



To give some perspective this will be immediately to the right of this 375 unit apartment building that is opening this spring. The apartments were Phase 1 and this office Phase II of like a 5 Phase mixed-used development. Also in this shot is the next phase of the downtown parks overhaul that is set to open this summer.



The T3 office will fall at the bottom of this picture. The finished phase one of the parks project is running through the center of this picture and the new Mutual of Omaha tower will be at the top left corner.

[HangryHippo]

What historic buildings with reuse potential are they wiping out for that tower tho?

[JoninATX]

Congrats on the new tallest Omaha!

[UrbanNebraska]

The downtown parks system revamp is officially complete. Three parks comprising 72 acres got a $325 million overhaul to make the space much more usable. The old parks were underutilized and dated. OJB Architects (who did Myriad Gardens) did the design work and its been incredible. Never seen the parks in Omaha this lively. I'll post brief before and afters but the two ~4 min videos with drone shots really show the finished product off.

Gene Lehey Mall. The "central park" downtown. Was first built in the 70s and was designed as a lagoon. Decent for a walk, but not much else. Steep hills, below street grade reduced visibility and captured a lot of debris. New park was brought up to street level and added a number of active features.





Heartland of America Park was developed in the early 90s in conjunction with ConAgra's suburban style campus. It was a large lake with a walking path. Again not many uses. The lake was shrunk to make way for more usable greenspace, activities like a skating ribbon, and a pier to the river.





Lewis and Clark Landing was developed in the early 2000s. The area was previously home to a lead smelting plant and needed major remediation, Once that was complete they basically just paved the whole area and didn't do much. Tried to have a destination restaurant, but the whole area was honestly sad. New park makes the area way more active and a science museum was added to the area.







This is a recent aerial of downtown showing much of the parks. Gene Leahey Mall in the center, with the new tallest building going up right at the end of that park. The Lewis and Clark Landing park space with the new science museum on the far right with Heartland of America Park out of frame to the left.

[UrbanNebraska]

[unfundedrick]

It's all very very nice. Congrats to Omaha.

[mugofbeer]

Omaha is on fire. New tower, streetcar line (fare free?!), and so many cool projects. Haven't visited in 10+ years. Loved it back then and can only imagine what it's like now. A good friend (originally from DFW) is stationed at Offutt. They moved from Bremerton, WA and are so much happier in Omaha than Puget Sound. They rave about living in Omaha and don't want to leave.

Omaha has such a huge corporate presence and wealthy philanthropists for a city of it's size to help with public benefits such as fare-free streetcars. They have a very healthy future.

[BoulderSooner]

Omaha has such a huge corporate presence and wealthy philanthropists for a city of it's size to help with public benefits such as fare-free streetcars. They have a very healthy future.

there was a sponsor lined up to make the OKC streetcars free ... that was rejected by embark ..

[UrbanNebraska]

Airline traffic is definitely back and Omaha's Eppley Airfield had its second busiest year ever with just over 5 million passengers in 2023. This week a much needed $950 terminal expansion/renovation was announced. The current airport offers two unconnected concourses so there are two separate TSA checkpoints and there is a limited amount of dining options past security as the amount of travelers is essentially cut in half. The new terminal will have one central security checkpoint and double the square footage offering a lot more space beyond security to increase the amenities. Also adding 2 gates to get to 22 (room to expand to the north in the future), building a large canopy over the dropoff/pickup area, and bringing international security into the main terminal. Going to be such a huge improvement.

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