Omaha Development Update

[JoninATX]

Nice shots UrbanNebraska. Need to make a visit sometime.

[Plutonic Panda]

It truly is awesome what is going up there. There are no signs it seems development is slowing down either there. I'm actually jealous of a few developments going in.

[UrbanNebraska]

It truly is awesome what is going up there. There are no signs it seems development is slowing down either there. I'm actually jealous of a few developments going in.

Haha, take my word for it OKC has more in the pipe and going on. I love what Omaha is pulling off, but the size scale between the two cities is different. Seems like every project for OKC is 200+ units while Omaha is around 100 or so per project.

Anyways we have got some new interesting projects.

Aksarben Village, where that beer fest was held, just got $82 million in projects dropped. Everything grey is already built except for the block bounded by 67th and Shirley which is an announced $50 million project I posted earlier. List of everything announced the other day:
» An 80,000-square-foot office, retail and restaurant building on the corner of 67th Street and Mercy Road. A large corporate user reportedly has committed to occupying the top level of what would be a three- or four-story structure.
» A four-story retail and residential building fronting Frances Street that would have 10,000 square feet of retail and apartment lobby space on the ground floor; upper floors would contain 21 apartments.
» Another four-story building with 40 apartment lofts, facing west with a view of College of St. Mary softball fields and campus.
» As announced six weeks ago, a five-story building with Pacific Life Insurance Co. as anchor on the northeast corner of Mercy Road and Aksarben Drive. Restaurants, other retail shops and offices would occupy the rest.
» An 880-stall, four-story parking garage, replacing an existing surface parking lot and connecting by sky bridge to the Pacific Life building.
» About two blocks to the east, southwest of 64th Avenue and Frances Street, two apartment buildings. The largest would have four levels, 45 units and 31 parking stalls. A three-story eight-plex is designed in a “walk-up” style. Parking for both would be available in an existing garage servicing nearby businesses.


This is the rendering for the Pac Life building. This has been kind of a hot issue here b/c they are moving 350 jobs out of DT to this new mixed use development. Kind of begs the question if a city as small as Omaha benefits from multiple urban cores or if having one concentration would be better.


Elsewhere. UNMC is really developing their skyline and campus.


There was also a hotel announced near UNMC recently. First really urban project building off the Med Center's influence.


This one is boring and I have a feeling will suck, but anyways. 132 room hotel planned for the dead area between downtown and midtown. It will have retail, but the land they have fenced off is way bigger than this hotel looks to take...


At least The Wire apartments are starting to open. An office conversion to 300 units is opening the top 2 floors to tenants then the ones below to renters as the finish it out. They said they have 50 pre-leases, which is basically all the available units. This is the pool on the roof, kind of small still pretty awesome.

[soonerguru]

Omaha looks awesome. I've never been to Nebraska. Need to change that.

[EricOK]

Lived in Omaha for a couple of years. Crazy-cool arts scene. Very hip town. Great music scene,too. Love how the whole thing grew organically over the years. Had one of my best meals ever at a place called Lot 2 in Benson.

[RadicalModerate]

Legend has it--or at least I've been told--that Phone Center Operators with Authentic Nebraska Accents--are the most Winsome in the World. They even have classes to teach exchange students from Marketing Firms in India how to speak American. Since Omaha is, like, The Next Best Thing to Shaler, Iowa, I'm happy to see that it flies in the face of my preconceived notions. About Nebraska in general.

The other Legend has it that Omaha invented the word Mutual.

[adaniel]

Really impressed by this. Thanks for sharing UrbanNebraska.

As an aside, there are a lot of great things going on in cities to the north of OKC, but there seems to be way too much focus on what Texas cities are doing, at least on here. I feel that while TX is making the big development splashes, cities like Omaha and Denver seem far more livable. OKC would be wise to look north in plotting its future.

[bchris02]

OKC is more culturally and traditionally tied to Texas than the Midwest. However, I completely agree with you. A lot of great things are going on in Omaha that OKC would be wise to take cues from. Minneapolis/St Paul is another metro area that has a lot of great things going on. It's a very hip place to be right now.

[BG918]

Really impressed by this. Thanks for sharing UrbanNebraska.

As an aside, there are a lot of great things going on in cities to the north of OKC, but there seems to be way too much focus on what Texas cities are doing, at least on here. I feel that while TX is making the big development splashes, cities like Omaha and Denver seem far more livable. OKC would be wise to look north in plotting its future.

And Minneapolis. Work takes me up there about once a year and I'm blown away by all the development in their core and surrounding neighborhoods. Like OKC it is mostly flat to rolling in parts and sits in the transition zone from prairie to forests, however they have all the glacial lakes that OKC lacks. Minnesota has some of the worst winter weather in the country yet Minneapolis is growing rapidly and building density, as well as some of the best bike infrastructure in the country. It's worth a visit...in the summer. There are two daily non-stop flights from OKC on Delta.

[JoninATX]

Omaha and Denver are really adding infill to their downtowns. But I wouldn't dismiss Texas cities as they are currently infilling at a great amount, especially Austin having a never ending boom it seems like.

[UrbanNebraska]

Thanks for the kind words guys! Honestly I could probably post as much on things that ticks me off about Omaha as I do about things I like, but that isn't as fun.

A huge day for Omaha and downtown. Our $205 million project including a 350 room 14 floor full service Marriott hotel, 250 residential units in a 9 floor building, 100K SF in office space and 80K SF of retail space on the ground level all on top of a 800 stall underground garage. The central plaza is going to be an open carry district similar to P&L in KC, on a smaller level of course.





They broke ground this morning. This is simply massive for Omaha. The biggest groundbreaking in downtown Omaha in a decade. The hotel addition will give us 950 full service hotel rooms across from the arena/convention center between this Marriott and the city owned 600 room Hilton. The residential will be a huge boost to the north side of the core really balancing out the area between the residential heavy Old Market and the office heavy core. The office will be the first spec space built downtown in over 20 years, imagine that. And the retail/entertainment will offer a new different kind of vibe not found anywhere else in the city with open containers and a central pedestrian plaza.

This project is the exclamation point of a downtown resurgence that started in 2002 with our new tallest skyscraper and included thousands of residential units and two major event arenas. Genuinely a massive day for the city, something we have been waiting for a long time to see.

Also today we got news that pro football is coming back. The FXFL is trying to become a NFL developmental league. The first two cities were announced today being Omaha and Austin, they have said Portland, the NYC area, the Boston area and a city in Florida will be the first cities in the league.

This is what the field looks like in the baseball stadium:


I am just so excited for a major landscape changing project in DTO. The core is finally taking that next step development wise. I love 5 floor infill and historic rehab as much as the next guy(probably more), but there is something exciting about seeing that tower crane rise above a construction project. Finally getting that statement project that will define post recession development in Omaha.

[UrbanNebraska]

Some fixes for the sake of accuracy: Those numbers for the project were the last we had heard and the developer updated those to the final plans at the ground breaking.

Full-Service Marriott: 350 rooms moving down to 333
Apartments: 250 moving down to 225
Office space: 100K SF moving up to 125K SF
Retail: 80K SF moving up to 90K SF
Parking: 800 stalls going down to 500

Never like to see projects shrink, but those are pretty low numbers and they obviously replaced the space with more office/retail. Interesting that they cut 300 parking stalls, probably to cut costs.

Using $35 million in TIF and $25 million from another interesting source. The state of Nebraska recently opened an office in China to help grow international business and at the ground breaking our Governor said $25 million of the funding for this project came from foreign investors. Creative way to get a project like this off the ground.

Our fantastic photographer Brad Williams got up in the air again this past week and got some great views of Omaha. He has posted the first couple sets of what he got processed over on eomaha, some cool shots:

These two are of University of Nebraska-Omaha's new hockey specific arena, although they will play their basketball there too. It shows the Aksarben Village quite well where you can tell how much is developed and how much still needs to be built in the coming years. Really a development success story for Omaha.



Here is UNO's Main Campus. Nothing big and not a lot of dorms b/c of the commuter nature of the university, but a decent campus none the less. Two of their major buildings are actually close to Aksarben Village in their South Campus. About a mile away, if you look closely at the image you can see A/V in the background.


And this last one is highlighting the $323 million cancer center being built at UNMC.

As you can see in that picture we have the UNMC skyline then our Midtown skyline with Mutual of Omaha and Kiewit and then the central core furthest back. This picture perfectly shows how linear Omaha's major employers are and how easy it would be to make a really really strong transit corridor connection all those jobs.

This shot is facing the other way. It is more to show where the next major new urbanism development is planned. The disjointed industrial/parking area just past the main campus has been bought by UNMC. They have came out publicly stating that they are going to pursue developing it as another Aksarben Village type area in order to enhance their campus and the surrounding neighborhood. Said it will help attract talent to the school.

[Pete]

Thanks so much for the updates. Glad to see Omaha doing so well.

Interesting about the full-scale downtown Marriott.

We just learned we are likely to get the same in Bricktown, which would be the first full-service hotel in that district and the first downtown in a while.

[UrbanNebraska]

Thanks so much for the updates. Glad to see Omaha doing so well.

Interesting about the full-scale downtown Marriott.

We just learned we are likely to get the same in Bricktown, which would be the first full-service hotel in that district and the first downtown in a while.

Yeah it was nearly impossible to get full service hotels done for a long time there. Especially in a market like Omaha, the developer said that was the biggest issue with this project b/c they couldn't get a hotel operator to sign on at the beginning.

Could be a sign that hoteliers are starting to see the numbers make sense again, which is great news for the economy. Lending seems to be loosening these last couple years and all that extra available financing is finally starting to become reality.

[UrbanNebraska]

Another monster project in the works for downtown Omaha. A few months back the city put out a RFP for the site of the now closed Civic Auditorium(as of yesterday). Two companies responded with 4 different potential projects.

As the site sits now:


The first is of local development company Tetrad Property Group, they propose:

A 16 story office building with room for 2750 employees.
200 residential units
retail space on the ground floor including one designed for an "urban box store" specifically mentioning grocery. 2nd locations for Whole Foods or Trader Joe's being thrown around.
A civic building designed to hold job training classes as well as painting, gardening, carpentry ect classes.

And the early renders for their proposal.


And the site plan:


The other 3 are all different proposals from the same development company. Opus Group out of Minneapolis.

Their first proposal is being referred to as the "Urban Neighborhood Plan, it includes:

423 residential units, 397 in tradition midrise apartment form with 26 in row house style.
95,300 SF of retail space, 29K SF of which is dedicated toward a grocery store.
128K SF in office space

Site Plan:


This next plan is being called the "Urban Parkway." This one happens to be my favorite. It includes:

230 high-rise housing units
285 mid-rise housing units
85 low-rise housing units above retail
For a total of 600 housing units
187K SF of office space
85K SF of retail space, 30K of which is dedicated toward a grocer.
All centered around a "green parkway"

Site Plan:


And lastly and IMO least, the plan being pitched as "Trinity Court." It includes:

A green space on the street front, breaking the street wall
160 residential units
144,800 SF of office
31,400 SF of retail
176,700 SF for a civic building being listed as "library." That is this projects one saving grace is getting a new modern library possibly.

Site Plan:


The Mayor said that she will pick the winning bid in August. There are still a lot of pieces to figure out as in who is footing the bill to demo the arena as it stands currently. I am sure this project is a couple years away, still nice to see yet another massive project in downtown.

As I have said I prefer the "Urban Parkway" plan. That number of residential units, 600, would absolutely invigorate downtown. Plus it includes a grocer and plenty of office space.

Between the Capitol District project, the new 25 story skyscraper proposal and now this Civic Site redevelopment Downtown Omaha will be drastically different in 5 years. Exciting stuff.

[UrbanNebraska]

Two cool time lapse videos of Omaha.

Welcome to Omaha on Vimeo

OMAH4k: The Gateway to the West on Vimeo

[EricOK]

I just returned from a week-long trip to Omaha to visit the friends I made when I lived there. It's probably one of my favorite cities away from home. Maybe I'm just seeing the good things, but there's a vibe there that is hard to explain. I just love the fact that subjects like religion don't enter into normal conversations like they did when I lived in rural Missouri. The atmosphere seems much more relaxed and tolerant. People seem more open to different ideas, not just the hipsters that run a couple of neighborhoods, but with the buttoned-down business community as well (they seem to listen to each other!). There is a whole area that hasn't been discussed in this thread, and it relates to the arts-----the artistic community is amazing, with institutions like the Bemis Center, Hot Shops, the Kaneko Center, Film Streams, and dozens of edgy galleries all over the place. Omaha has one of the most vibrant indigenous indie music scenes in the country right now, with several clubs and even some underground clubs that my friends took me to. It seems like the different segments of the community, whom you never think would give each other the time of day, all pull together to achieve a goal. I actually enjoyed my trip more than the one I took to Chicago last year to visit a college buddy.

[bchris02]

Very impressive.

It looks like Omaha packs quite a punch for its size. I have never been but judging from what I've heard and these pictures, it may be a miniature Austin.

[UrbanNebraska]

I just returned from a week-long trip to Omaha to visit the friends I made when I lived there. It's probably one of my favorite cities away from home. Maybe I'm just seeing the good things, but there's a vibe there that is hard to explain. I just love the fact that subjects like religion don't enter into normal conversations like they did when I lived in rural Missouri. The atmosphere seems much more relaxed and tolerant. People seem more open to different ideas, not just the hipsters that run a couple of neighborhoods, but with the buttoned-down business community as well (they seem to listen to each other!). There is a whole area that hasn't been discussed in this thread, and it relates to the arts-----the artistic community is amazing, with institutions like the Bemis Center, Hot Shops, the Kaneko Center, Film Streams, and dozens of edgy galleries all over the place. Omaha has one of the most vibrant indigenous indie music scenes in the country right now, with several clubs and even some underground clubs that my friends took me to. It seems like the different segments of the community, whom you never think would give each other the time of day, all pull together to achieve a goal. I actually enjoyed my trip more than the one I took to Chicago last year to visit a college buddy.

Very glad you enjoyed yourself! I have thought about trying to highlight the culture, but I always run into trouble with how to go about it. Pictures of buildings is a little easier to translate than a scene. Even with that I will do my best here. Also we might of bumped shoulders that week you were here, I was at Kaneko, Film Streams and all over Benson that week.

This is going to be a huge post and really wont hit everything. It really irks me when people that live here say there is nothing to do. They just aren't willing to look.

And if this comes across as super self-serving/snoobish it really isn't meant that way.

I suppose to set the mood you could head to Hear Nebraska and start the playlist, it is all Nebraska based bands. Hear Nebraska is an awesome non-profit dedicated to progressing the music scene in the state. They offer tons of interviews, reviews of shows and photo essays. Basically Nebraska's own Pitchfork.

Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts is an artist residency program. They offer studio space with a private kitchen and bathroom for each artist along with a $750 monthly stipend for living expenses. The Bemis is in a 110K SF building in the Old Market that has been open for over 30 years and has housed over 700 different artists from across the globe in that time span.
Why Should I Support the Bemis Center? on Vimeo

Typical Studio Space

The Installation Room


Sculpture Facility

And just a few of my favorite works from the past few exhibitions





Hot Shops Art Center is in North Downtown. It is another place for artists to live and create. This one has a strong focus on sculpture and forging along with the other mediums.
Hot Shops Promo on Vimeo



Kaneno is the brain child of artist couple Jun and Ree Kaneko. Yet another studio exhibition space in the Old Market. Born in Japan Jun Kaneko and based in Omaha since the mid-80's Kaneko has created an incredible career in the middle of the country. From sculpture to paint to even opera design in his more recent years. The Kaneko Center has become a center of innovation for Omaha.


Event Space

Kaneko is also home to the annual Big Omaha Conference. It focuses on entrepreneurship and tech start ups. It is hosted by Silicon Prairie News Silicon Prairie News ? Highlighting and supporting entrepreneurs and creatives on the Silicon Prairie., which is a news source dedicated to highlighting the tech scene in Omaha, Lincoln, Des Moines and Kansas City. The headline speaker at Big Omaha this year was Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams(who happens to be a Nebraska native).


And here is their plan for future expansion of the space. Currently the facility is only the red brick buildings. They plan to add the modern parks to hold and display Jun Kaneko's vast collection of work and to create a work of art in itself. The sidewalks are also planned to be turned into a work of art.


Film Streams I have mentioned before. It is a two screen non-profit art house theater. Just this past Friday when they opened the acclaimed documentary about Roger Ebert they director Steve James was on hand for a Q/A session after the screening.


So other interesting things happening in the art/music scene.

Omaha Fashion Week has been around since 2008 and that is self described as the 5th largest independent fashion event in the nation drawing larger crowds and more designers than KC, Minneapolis, Denver and STL's respective events.


Under The Radar Festival was earlier this month, it is dedicated to progressing avant-garde arts in the city. Really this quote is the only way to describe the weekend long event.

“Raise your hand if that was the weirdest thing you’ve seen tonight,” requested festival director Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, following a four-song set from flutist Shanna Gutierrez and guitarist Jesse Langen. They’d just played a set of purposefully disjointed music that borrowed from obscure influences, such as ‘80s Asian cinema scores.




Or the numerous district wide events in Benson. They had a Benson Fourth Friday event recently to help raise money to support the regular Benson First Friday festivals which brings out 20+ different musical acts to the numerous venues in the neighborhood.








Maha Music Festival is in less than two weeks and is set to be the biggest yet.

And their reach is growing nationwide too which is really cool to see.


Another super cool event starting this year is the Good Speakers Fest. They have rented out an entire hotel for two nights for this music festival. Every room included. The idea is you buy tickets and a room together and party all weekend. One of the hotel rooms is even being turned into a 48 hour long live DJ room. INSANE! I can't imagine what the room will look like at 7 AM.


We even get some secret shows every once in a while. Like...

Jack White playing a show in a thrift store in the Old Market.


Or Conor Oberst's Bright Eyes at a bar.


Even had the likes of Lady Gaga do a surprise performance after her concert in Omaha a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgRYOz7oyI

It is really hard to explain and there are a ton of people in Omaha that don't even realize what we have going on. There is just so much little stuff that add up to a swelling of uniquely "Omaha" arts and especially music. It is really an exciting time to be in the city culturally. I love to look at the new skyscrapers and such being built, but in all reality I am going to spend a heck lot more time in the next tiny music venue drinking beer than I will in that shinny skyscraper.

[UrbanNebraska]

OK more fun stuff on the next page. Kind of in a development transition period now so a reset of the next wave of projects on page 9. Some less exciting quick info for the last post here.

Pretty huge news for the Nebraska Medical Center yesterday/today. The hospital has received the third American Ebola patient. The Med Center is one of four facilities in the nation with a biocontainment unit capable of handling a disease like this, apparently the largest of the bunch. It has created some misguided hysteria from people here, but in reality this is an incredible thing to have the capability to handle in our city. Really shows how important the Nebraska Medical Center is becoming locally, nationally and worldwide.

Last week we also completed our largest annexation package in nearly a decade. Added 8200 residents and almost $930 million in property valuation to the city limits. Wont really change anything metro wise, but annexation is always a hot button issue.

Ok more fun stuff posted in a couple mins...

[JoninATX]

Awesome Urban Nebraska. I look forward into seeing what's new in Omaha.

[UrbanNebraska]

Tetrad Property Group was selected to redevelop the Civic Auditorium Site. I mentioned before that an RFP went out and the city ended up choosing the local developer over the company from Minneapolis. Their proposal is rather impressive though.

$300 million project that includes:
A 14 story office portion, the developer said they will gladly build up to 40 stories if the demand is there. So that is still on their mind.
200 residential units.
Civic building potentially containing a digital library or museum.
Retail space on the ground floor with a portion of it specifically designed for an "urban big box retailer."


[IMG]http://media.jrn.com/images/640*360/omaha-civic-project.jpg[/IMG]



That is the latest of quite a few proposed high rise buildings downtown.

Lanoha Building would fall 3 blocks down the street from ^that^ project.


And The Capitol District will fall another 3 blocks east of ^that^ project.


The three could add up to over $600 million in development including almost 500 residential units, around 750K SF in office space and about 250K SF of retail. Would really transform our urban area if all three are built out by the end of the decade.

Some smaller infill downtown as well.

The Corvina, $22.5 million 125 unit apartment building with 8K SF of retail space.



Hotel Omaha 132 room boutique hotel.


Boxcar10/Blue Barn Theater. 10 condos, retail space and a 99 seat theater for the Blue Barn Theater Company.



Right next door to ^that^ project is an old warehouse that the Postal Service is using. It will be converted into a year round indoor farmers market.


Three projects are just recently finished downtown as well.

1501 Jackson 75 units is now open.


Jones13 100 units is now open.


The Limelight on 16th 40 units is now open.


Branching into the Midtown-ish area.

Spaces 154 units is now open.


Down the street from ^that^ project is a 176 unit apartment project called Midtown Triangle.


UNMC's campus continues to grow.

$323 million Cancer Center, just a massive facility.



They also recently broke ground on a new $35 million 80K SF College of Pharmacy.


Proposed hotel near UNMC.

Rumors of a second even taller hotel in the Med Center area as well.

In the Aksarben Village area.

PacLife offices have broken ground. 5 floor 125K SF building with 20K SF in retail also an attached 880 stall garage.

The building will front the park while the garage will replace the surface lot.


$40 million Th!nk Building will employ 500 in the A/V area.


UNO Arena coming together.


Finally. Last, but not least. The Crossroads Mall redevelopment is starting to get ready to go. The funding from the city has changed so the developer moved it to a two phase plan, still impressive stuff. The entire enclosed mall will be torn down and replaced by a $260 million project including:

300K SF in retail space. REI and a new grocery concept called Fresh Thyme have each been announced a tenants taking up 50K SF.
240K SF in traditional corporate office space.
60K SF in tech startup dedicated office space. The developer recently said that a startup from Chicago will move jobs to this office space taking 20K SF and employing 50-75 people in the software development field with salaries ranging from $150K-200K. Pretty freaking cool to pull tech jobs from Chicago!
36K SF health club.
180 residential units.
400 stall parking garage.

The layout is pretty good. Honestly could of be a little better surface parking wise. It was a struggle because Target owns the land at the top left of this first picture and wasn't going to budge on their huge parking lot... The rest of the development has a really nice site plan though.

[JoninATX]

Excellent rundown Urban Nebraska. I truly believe that Omaha as well as OKC are the next "it" cities. Btw the UNMC is a beast.

[UrbanNebraska]

Excellent rundown Urban Nebraska. I truly believe that Omaha as well as OKC are the next "it" cities. Btw the UNMC is a beast.

No kidding...

They just recently passed our AFB as the largest employer in the metro. Such a massive economic engine that is finally starting to make inroads into development, employ over 11,000 right now. They have some BIG plans for future growth. The new Buffett Cancer Center is expected to create 1200 new jobs alone.

It may be another few years down the line, but there are early talks about yet another massive mixed-use project in Omaha. This map shows the land that UNMC is purchasing in red. They plan on creating a new mixed-use area here to help make their neighborhood more attractive to students and doctors. They have been very upfront saying they believe that an area with housing, retail and offices right next to their campus is critical to attracting the very best talent. A very good organization for the future of Omaha.

[JoninATX]

That is massive. I know the one in Austin will be a decent size but will not be as big as the one UNMC building. With that said Medical Schools like these will play a vital role in our local and national economy.