Omaha Development Update

[UrbanNebraska]

I mostly meant areas to check out. I will be there for work for a week and kinda want to explore after work. I'm definitely into beer bars and breweries so anything of that nature, although college crazy doesn't sound too bad either. I am staying at the DoubleTree downtown, so anything within walking distance to that would be great, although I don't mind driving.

Old Market is one that you can definitely walk to from the Double Tree, they also have a free shuttle I know. My favorites down there are Wilson & Washburn, Upstream Brewing Company, Brickway Brewery/Distillery, Ted & Wally's ice cream and Localmotive Food Truck. Harney Street Tavern has local music most nights. The Hive has live music too, but can get tough to get into, line out the door is fairly common. M's Pub, V. Mertz and The Boiler Room are the food headliners. These three I haven't been to yet, but they have great reputations just not my cup of tea. La Buvette wine bar, Havana Garage cigar lounge and The Berry & Rye is a craft cocktail lounge that is supposed to be as good as it gets. I guess they spent $15,000 on their "ice program" in order to have the best ice for their drinks. Kaneko/Bemis for the arts.

If you are willing to drive Benson is one I would make the trip for. It is the more "hip" urban neighborhood. It is 5 miles Northwest of the Double Tree, an old streetcar suburb that has nearly all of it's historic main street buildings still intact. It is more of the live music DIY art kind of scene. My go to night out spot. Krug Park has ~65 taps, Jake's is the neighborhood anchor type of bar, 1912 is new and has an amazing rooftop patio if it is nice out. Two breweries in the neighborhood, Infusion is a brewery that offers more a more unique selection, best brewery in the city IMO. Benson Brewery is a little more safe with their brews still really good, they also have an awesome food menu and their "Hop Box" patio can't be missed if the weather is right. There are about a dozen live music venues in the neighborhood so there is going to be something going on every night.

Blackstone District is the new urban renewal area that seems to have popped up overnight. On the east end of the district sits Beer Corner USA. The building houses a domestic craft beer bar, a German bier hall and a Belgian beer bar. Beertopia is a tiny little store next door and has one of the best craft beer selections anywhere. In this same strip there is Farnam House Brewing Company which focuses on European style beers with saisons being their specialty. Just a couple of blocks west is Scriptown Brewery, Mula Mexican Restaurant/Tequileria, Corkscrew Wine Bar and Nite Owl which has incredible food serving till 2AM along with a great collection of house cocktails.

EDIT: Order the free Omaha Craft Brewery Tour journal before you leave. It offers info on the breweries and you get a free beer at each place! Omaha Brewery Tour

[AP]

I'll be staying at the Magnolia Hotel this coming trip. Anyone been there before? Experiences? They also have locations in Dallas, Denver, Houston, and St. Louis.

[UrbanNebraska]

I'll be staying at the Magnolia Hotel this coming trip. Anyone been there before? Experiences? They also have locations in Dallas, Denver, Houston, and St. Louis.

You will have to tell me how you like it. Never had a chance to stay at any of the Magnolias. I have been to a wedding at Omaha's though, the courtyard is crazy charming.

[UrbanNebraska]

Pretty big day for transit in Omaha. The bus system got a massive overhaul to increase frequency of service and make routes much more efficient, all within the same budget. CityLab did a good write up on it.

Omaha Just Improved Its Mass Transit System Without Spending Any Money - CityLab

But demand for better transit is ticking slowly upward in Omaha—especially downtown. Population in the core was up 5.5 percent in 2010 over 2000. Metro ridership has been on a steady rise and eclipsed 4.2 million trips in 2012. A microtransit start-up just launched a bar shuttle. Residential developments without on-site parking are no longer out of the question. "We're seeing more people live downtown and prefer to not own a car," says Schweitz.

A car-free lifestyle is about to get easier in Omaha. At the end of May, Metro will debut its FORWARD plan: a fully reconfigured bus network that emphasizes more frequency, better night and weekend service, direct lines through high-ridership corridors, and grid-style access to many parts of the city. The top five routes will now all get 15-minute peak service, and there's a new max wait time of an hour across the system—down from 90-to-120 minutes.

This is the new map.


And this is a small snippet of the old system, pretty clear how chaotic and redundant it had become.

[UrbanNebraska]

Big one.

Nearly a year after the "official" groundbreaking ceremony JE Dunn has finally arrived on site of the new mixed-use "Capitol District" anchored by a 14 floor Marriott.



This project is so delayed most of the rendering links have expired. This is one of the few remaining...


The massive HDR Architecture is HQd in Omaha and employs ~1200 here. They recently announced that they are scouting new locations in the city for their offices when their lease ends in a couple years. They didn't say anything official, but there is a ton of rumors flying around suggesting that they will anchor a new highrise downtown. Different sources have suggested they are wanting a "splash" location and that they want a place that can help attract talent. Plus they are the architects behind this project and the timeline for their lease ending and this project being complete match up. Lets hope where there is smoke there is fire.



Locally HQd insurance company National Indemnity has announced that they will move all of their operations to the OWH Building downtown. They currently take 108K Sf over 4 floors but will eventually take a total of 243K SF over 9 floors. Not new construction, but will really put another big chunk of workers downtown and drop the vacancy rate.


This was the biggest announcement of the spring for DT Omaha. The Burlington Postal Annex was built in 1928 and is one of the last old school rail-centric buildings in the city that hasn't been rehabbed. There have been rumors going back a decade about everything from luxury condos to a brewery. Well we finally got the official plan and it is going to be great.

$25 million rehab project with $4 million in tax credits involved for the historic rehab and $2.4 million in TIF.
99K SF total office space, local construction company will move their HQ with over 100 employees to the space along with their alternative energy start up company.
The remaining top two floors are designated for up to 90 startup businesses. This is big for Omaha as the 140K SF Mastercraft building on the north side of downtown is bursting at the seems with creative/startup ventures.
It will provide restaurant space on the ground floor along with a number of shared amenities for all the tenants like showers for bikers and collaboration spaces.
It will also be as green as possible. The roof will feature solar arrays, wind turbines and a garden.





The rest of the neighborhood south of downtown is getting nice improvements too.

Rows on South Hill. $7 million 36 unit condo project. Always like the stability of ownership being added to these neighborhoods.


Blue Barn Theater and Boxcar 10 condos are coming along. This theater itself is looking like a creative haven inside and out.

Interior brickwork

These 12x12x15 foot wood pieces are all different types of wood from the region that will be placed in the performance area.


The $22.5 million 125 unit "Corvina" is topped out. It has ground floor commercial space that is going to house the offices of both the developer and architects of this project. One other kind of random addition is that there is going to be a car wash in the short black building. Just find it kind of funny to see an old warehouse being repurposed in an urban setting into a car wash.



Nice little art studio is moving into a building downtown and the facade is getting a facelift designed by Olson Kundig. Gallery 1516



West Downtown has long been a wasteland for development. Our overly wide one way streets created inhospitable thoroughfares that drove people through the area at speeds that would scare away any investor. Well now the area is sandwiched by huge success stories like Midtown and Downtown. The savvy investors, including Ndamukong Suh, have snatched up properties and we have nearly 300 apartment units and over 100 hotel units on the way along with a bevy of new retail opportunities. All of these projects are in the same 4 square block area.

$17 million 114 unit apartment building with 2K SF of retail announced. The developer is the same that rehabbed the tower in the back of the rendering into over 200 apartment units. The attached parking garages ended up being way larger than needed so this project will simply use that excess space instead of building it into the structure itself.



Just a block away from ^that^ project is a new $17.8 million hotel with ground floor retail space.

Elevator shaft topped out gives the scale we will get on the corner.



~175 of the apartment units u/c in the area are in historic buildings. This is just a couple of the ~20 buildings crawing with workers right now.






This building housed "The Smoke Pit" BBQ for decades. The owner finally decided to retire and it closed. It hasn't been official yet, but it sounds like a brewery is interested in the space which would be a great anchor for the new hood.


This was the very first project in the new area. The Kellogg Hotel was bought by a couple and have turned the ground floor into a coffee shop, bike store and dog care store. They plan to convert the above floors to apartments as they can find the time/funds.



^This^ neighborhood would really explode if the city decides to implement the long proposed Harney St Bikeway. It would change Harney from 4 lanes to 3 and would obviously greatly improve pedestrian friendliness.


North Downtown isn't going quite that crazy, but slowly improving.

$10 million 67 unit apartment building.


$10.6 million 75 unit rehab project is getting its finishing touches.


This one is basic, but important. We have an incredible pedestrian bridge across the Missouri River, but if you are in North Downtown you have to walk numerous blocks out of your way to get to it b/c there is no access over the railroad tracks. We have finally got funding in line to remedy that issue.


Moving west into Midtown we have a lot of new apartment construction. The good one first and the iffy ones follow.

Midtown Triangle is a 178 unit apartment project with 171 on site parking stalls.

The site is the area between Leavenworth and St. Marys.


The site plan.


The cleared lot.



And what will be the final product.


The issue is that now that "East Omaha" has become popular we have some developers moving in that aren't entirely improving these areas just here to throw down something inexpensive and reap the benefits of good developers hard work.

Ekard Court 36 units isn't all that bad. Some people don't like the pitched roof, but the neighborhood it is in is probably half single family homes so it isn't terribly out of place.

The site.


The rendering.


The One is a 26 unit project along Dodge Street. Pretty plain.


And this is the creme de la crap. $22 million 153 unit apartment building sounds great on paper...



I need some fun stuff now!

The University of Nebraska Medical Center campus and its surrounding neighborhood is in a MAJOR building boom. ~$1 billion in total investment is announced/planned.

This picture is a couple months old, but it is the best view of all 5 tower cranes dominating the UNMC skyline.


The Buffett Cancer Center is simply massive. The shorter portion to the left will be as tall as the right portion is now and the part on the right has three more floors to go up.


These shots are from the other side of campus and give a better look at the new pharmacy school and outpatient buildings.


The parking lot in this shot will be replaced by another 4 floor $102 million building, no rendering yet. It will be a virtual reality teaching center, surgery simulations in the same idea as flight simulators. They are currently lobbying congress to get $25 million in federal funding to add another story and it would create the national biocontainment center here. This would be the anchor for the nation's entire system and national training would happen here.


The Medical Center also is building a 7 story 220 room hotel with ground floor retail on campus. No rendering here either, but it will fall on the foreground parking lot of this picture as the helipad will move to the top of the new cancer center.


It isn't all public development though. A couple private developers are capitalizing on the momentum.

The Blackstone District is adding two apartment projects adding up to a little under 100 total units.

A gas station has already been torn down here and is being replaced by this mixed use project.



This one is just apartments, but it is more tucked into a neighborhood.


A new 5 floor 102 room Home2Suites. Not a ground breaking design, but the parking is the bottom two floors so a good use of space.

The site.


The rendering.


Dundee is probably Omaha's most established well preserved neighborhood. It is the kind of place you might see Warren Buffett and Paul McCartney sitting on a bench.


One of the parking lots in the neighborhood "main street" is being replaced with a nice little mixed use project. Restaurant space on the ground, medical office on the second floor and 6 apartments on top.

No clear rendering yet, but you can see the scale here. With red brick it will be a perfect compliment to the neighborhoods.


Benson is the biggest "hipster" neighborhood. Lots of live music and art in another old streetcar suburb.

Here is an aerial of the main strip of the neighborhood. It is actually really impressively well preserved along the main street.


Everything up to now has been rehabbing the old storefronts. This summer construction will begin on a $15 million 99 unit apartment building. It will be located on the parking lot caddy corner from the public housing building in the aerial ^above^.

This bank on the current site will be demoed and will go into the ground floor of the new building.



Aksarben Village still chugging along. With University of Nebraska Omaha making some big investments in their South Campus.

Here is a snap of the current area that will be affected.


The large square at the bottom of that photo will be a new 434 bed student housing project.



The thin long stretch of grass in that photo will be replaced by this 1250 stall parking garage with a great solar array.


As you can see they have a ton of surface parking. The university plans to eliminate that with green space and more classrooms once they can get the parking stalls they need into structures.

The $100 million 7500 seat arena is well on its way. Another big time addition to campus life for UNO. It is built for the successful hockey program, but will also house both basketball teams and the volleyball team which have all had to play games a decentralized locations.


Practice rink/community ice.

Arena interior.

And the view into the growing Aksarben Village.


Near those projects UNO is getting a Newman Center that will have over 100 beds for student housing. The fact that what has long been a commuter university is getting a Newman center says a lot about the growing on campus life.


And private development in the village.

Pacific Life offices with ground floor retail.


Local developer Tetrad Property group is moving their offices from the 'burbs to A/V. It will sit on this surface lot. As you can see still a lot more to eat up in the background.



The TH!NK medical office building up the hill from A/V is a really sharp looking project.



A coupe suburban things and I'll leave you guys be.

The long awaited Crossroads Mall redevelopment has gone through yet another design change. Everything in this photo will be demolished except for the Target and parking garage.



The features now include:

$275 million investment
450K SF of retail/restaurant space
125K SF in office space
Hotel, probably Aloft
400 apartment units which would be built above the existing parking garage ^above^. Would give some nice height to the project.
Retailers include REI and Fresh Thyme officially and Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware and Apple are names the developer has floated.

New site plan.


Across the street from Crossroads is an old Borders location that is being turned into a "Technology Library."

At Do Space you can brush up on your computer skills to prepare for a career change or get help troubleshooting your devices. We’re here so you can dive into a new programming language or use a computer or the Internet for the first time. If you want to learn about apps that streamline your life, prototype your big idea in the 3D printer lab or share your technology knowledge with the community.

Millard is a suburb that has never once been mistaken for urban. While this isn't perfect it is quite the project for an old lumberyard property. Over $50 million over 350 apartments and retail space.

The site.


The site plan.


Apparently we are getting an Alamo Drafthouse. Honestly it is so far out into the suburbs I completely missed the development. I would like to go, but can't imagine myself driving 15 miles for a movie theater.




And lastly. Nebraska Crossing Outlets is less than a year old and is already getting a 60K SF expansion. The main anchor of the new buildings will be a 24K SF two floor H&M outlet.

[ljbab728]

That's all very interesting, UN. Thanks for keeping us updated.

[HOT ROD]

Pretty big day for transit in Omaha. The bus system got a massive overhaul to increase frequency of service and make routes much more efficient, all within the same budget. CityLab did a good write up on it.

Omaha Just Improved Its Mass Transit System Without Spending Any Money - CityLab



This is the new map.


And this is a small snippet of the old system, pretty clear how chaotic and redundant it had become.

Kudos to Omaha for reinventing its Transit network, it looks like a great plan and is something I wish OKC would adopt. OKC also has redundant bus routes through a significant portion of its service; adopting a hub and spoke with satellite hubs works best for convenience, network coverage, and efficiency.

I'd love to post this in the OKC Bus System thread - let me know if there's any objection.

[UrbanNebraska]

Monster news for Downtown Omaha dropped today.

HDR to build downtown Omaha high-rise headquarters - Omaha.com: Money

Global architectural and engineering firm HDR announced Tuesday that it will build its new corporate headquarters in downtown Omaha — in a high-rise containing nearly 300,000 square feet of space and stretching up to 20 stories.
Currently a parking area, the site is bounded by Dodge Street, Capitol Avenue, 11th Street and 12th Street.
The selection from among multiple contenders culminates a year and a half search by the company, which operates in 225 locations around the world.
It returns HDR, which this year broke into the Top 10 of the largest U.S. design firms, from its existing suburban Omaha campus to the urban business district where it started out nearly a century ago.

Little said the new site will allow about 900 Omaha-based workers, now spread among three different buildings, to unite under one roof.
Worldwide, HDR has nearly 10,000 employees.

No rendering at the moment. Considering what the firm does I have high expectations.

[G.Walker]

Monster news for Downtown Omaha dropped today.

HDR to build downtown Omaha high-rise headquarters - Omaha.com: Money




No rendering at the moment. Considering what the firm does I have high expectations.

whatever happened to that 20-25 story high rise that was proposed last summer?

[UrbanNebraska]

whatever happened to that 20-25 story high rise that was proposed last summer?

Still a grass lot. There are now 5 buildings with floor counts of 14, 12, 18-20, 20-25 and 14+ announced or proposed for DTO. The 14 floor hotel and 12 floor apartment tower have finally broken ground now and considering HDR is doing the 18-20 floor building it is basically a sure thing.

Around here we were all pretty surprised that HDR didn't go into one of the two still in the proposal stage. On the bright side it creates the opportunity for even more development than envisioned a year ago. The other two proposals have both said that the need to find an anchor tenant to go forward. It leaves us in a fog in terms of timeline and who could jump at the new buildings considering a lot of the major players in Omaha have made office investments the past decade. Over on our board we have been throwing all kinds of theories at the wall hoping something sticks in the coming months.

EDIT: There have also been rumors that Novare Group, the company behind all of the Skyhouse apartment towers popping up in cities left and right, has been in town scouting locations for a 20+ story apartment project.

[Spartan]

Pretty big day for transit in Omaha. The bus system got a massive overhaul to increase frequency of service and make routes much more efficient, all within the same budget. CityLab did a good write up on it.

Omaha Just Improved Its Mass Transit System Without Spending Any Money - CityLab



This is the new map.


And this is a small snippet of the old system, pretty clear how chaotic and redundant it had become.

OKC needs to do this.

[UrbanNebraska]

OKC needs to do this.

I think it has been a major improvement, but naturally there has been some complaining from those that lost near front door service. One move took a route a little too far from the VA Hospital, I think they end up fixing that route to remedy that. Another is that we have a great MOBY service that offers personalized pre-scheduled transit on smaller busses fare for ADA certified residents, does OKC or other similarly sized cities do this? I have always wondered, but don't really want to spend the research time, haha. Well MOBY only runs within route boundaries so cutting suburban coverage cut MOBY coverage and they also cut MOBY on Sundays.

Obviously changing the system will make some people mad, but the people that lost convenience will obviously be louder than the people that gained convenience. I just wish the people that are upset with the changes would direct their anger from our bus operator and towards our funding sources. Omaha only receives $36 per capita for our public transit compared to $56 per capita which is the average for other similarly sized cities. If we could even bump our spending up $10 per capita we could really start offering the coverage to help everyone.

We don't have massive mass transit ridership, but we are comfortably over 4.2 million a year. For a metro less than a million with parking lots everywhere and suburb dominated development patterns we could be much worse. I just wish we would start investing a little more, I don't expect to be Chicago or anything.

[UrbanNebraska]

Another month another parking lot meets its demise.

"The Yard" is one of the most hated lots in the city. It sits across the street from a concert venue, art-house theater and Urban Outfitters. The people that bought this land paved it so they could use it for CWS parking . It killed the growing neighborhood's momentum IMO.

Well today we find out all of that is about to change to the tune of at least $50 million.

This lot:


Will be replaced by Kiewit Construction's world wide training facility. They said they considered spots nationwide, but settled in their hometown. 62K SF facility. This quote shows how big of an impact this facility will have on the economy.

KU brings many of the company’s 25,000 employees in the U.S., Canada and Australia to Omaha. Kiewit was looking at other sites around the country with large concentrations of its employees for the facility. Keeping it in the contractor’s hometown will keep money in the local economy.

“When we bring our people to Omaha, we book about 15,000 hotel nights a year,” said Tom Janssen, director of external affairs at Kiewit. “We’re very excited to bring them to Omaha to show off our community and give them a little flavor of what Omaha has to offer.”

Janssen called it a commitment, noting the company spends more than $80 million a year on training. He said that’s six times the industry average.

On the other half of the lot a 5 floor 110 unit apartment building with 6K SF of retail will go up.


The developer is also pursuing a hotel operator for the site. No info there yet.

This is going to be huge to changing the vibe of the area from an event district to a full blown daytime and nighttime year round neighborhood.

[AP]

That is good news! Both times I was there I commented on how I hated that parking lot.

One thing I would really like to see in Omaha, based on my visits, is conversion of so many of the one way streets back to two way.

[UrbanNebraska]

That is good news! Both times I was there I commented on how I hated that parking lot.

One thing I would really like to see in Omaha, based on my visits, is conversion of so many of the one way streets back to two way.

Yeah that lot among many in the North Downtown area are an embarrassment to the vision proposed a decade ago. I am really hoping that this can begin the change for the neighborhood. Getting a corporate presence along with the residential and hotel units will help to fill out the activity all day long. We could use another half dozen apartment projects before the area really takes off, but those may come. AP, I am sure you have noticed the massive lots near the baseball stadium and convention center/arena.

There is actually about 1 billion in investment either planned, announced or in the RFP stage in the roughly one square mile section of the north side of DT.



Parking lot 1 is where the project just above is set to go. $50 million

Parking lot 2 is where The Capitol District will be built. Site work has begun and the lot has been torn out. $205 million

Parking lot 3 is where HDR will build a 18-20 HQ. No official price tag, but lets put a number for a tower that size. ~$100 million or more

Grass lot 4 is where the proposed tower that could reach 25 floors would go. $100 million

Building 5 is set to be demolished and replaced by a mixed use project including a 14+ floor tower. $300 million

Lot 6 is set to have an RFP released and by the sheer size of the 4 square city blocks and what the city wants will be at least. ~$250 million

Added up that is $1.05 billion. There are still a ton of lots in that area too. Next 5 years should drastically change the north side of our urban area.

----

As for street conversions I totally agree, we actually have had more success outside of DT in Midtown and North O. I don't think there is much momentum behind that for downtown. Way too many people think more lanes means leaving work or the CWS or a basketball game faster. We have a street downtown that got just over 9K traffic count in the latest report, it is 4 lanes wide...

I just think energy is better spent trying to give them diets and getting wider sidewalks or angle parking or bike lanes. Seems more of an attainable goal.

[UrbanNebraska]

Looking like it wont be all sunshine and roses for a while here. ConAgra HQd in Omaha for nearly 100 years has been doing very poorly for a while now. Lately new investors have come in pushing for massive changes, a new CEO, both sitting on the board members living in Omaha have stepped down and today the new CEO made veiled comments that jobs would be moving to Chicago and it really sounds like the HQ is going away. There have already been reports that Conagra has secured space in The Merchandise Mart. He said the company would still have a presence in Omaha, but sounds like upwards of 1200 jobs are in danger for Omaha.

The downward spiral began when they bought a private label brand company a few years back. The deal was a complete tank for the company and they are already trying to spin that off for 50% of what they paid for it. There was so much hope that the deal would lead to hundreds of jobs moving from STL to Omaha. Turns out it probably caused the loss of a Fortune 500 HQ.

There was a scare that they would leave for Tennessee in the late 80s. The state ended up giving a lot of tax breaks to keep them in town b/c that was on the heels of Enron leaving for Houston and taking 1000 jobs with them.

Whatever ends up happening Conagra will forever have a legacy on the city. Along with the tax breaks given out 25 years ago they were allowed to create a suburban campus for their HQ downtown. They tore down 24 buildings that the CEO at the time described as "some big ugly, red brick buildings. At the time is was the nations largest historic district to be demolished.





The campus today consists of 5 buildings around the lake.


This could really go down as an example for anything from city planning to corporate welfare to historic preservation. Was all of that worth 25 more years of jobs? I have heard valid arguments from both sides, but it should serve as a reminder that decisions we make about our cities today have ramifications for decades which is why we need to try and make the very best decisions we can.

[adaniel]

Saw that this morning so I though of this thread. I really hate that for Omaha. I hope you all get through this.

Slim Jim maker ConAgra to cut 1,500 jobs | Money - Home

Of course OKC is dealing with the Chesapeake fiasco. Also just heard from a college friend the other day who lives in Northwest Arkansas that Wal Mart is preparing to lay off in excess of 1,000 people from their HQ. For an area of that size, that could really hurt. Honestly, I am starting to wonder how strong the national economy really is.

[UrbanNebraska]

Yes that is a statue of Chef Boyardee. I hope they take that tacky statue and put it on the roof of The Merchandise Mart. Would be awesome.

[zookeeper]

Saw that this morning so I though of this thread. I really hate that for Omaha. I hope you all get through this.

Slim Jim maker ConAgra to cut 1,500 jobs | Money - Home

Of course OKC is dealing with the Chesapeake fiasco. Also just heard from a college friend the other day who lives in Northwest Arkansas that Wal Mart is preparing to lay off in excess of 1,000 people from their HQ. For an area of that size, that could really hurt. Honestly, I am starting to wonder how strong the national economy really is.

What a blow to Omaha.

Of all things, the headline mentions 'Slim-Jims'? What does ConAgra not make? Try this list, it's unbelievable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ConAgra_brands
For the more visually inclined: Brands: The Brands That America Loves | ConAgra Foods

[traxx]

Looking like it wont be all sunshine and roses for a while here. ConAgra HQd in Omaha for nearly 100 years has been doing very poorly for a while now. Lately new investors have come in pushing for massive changes, a new CEO, both sitting on the board members living in Omaha have stepped down and today the new CEO made veiled comments that jobs would be moving to Chicago and it really sounds like the HQ is going away. There have already been reports that Conagra has secured space in The Merchandise Mart. He said the company would still have a presence in Omaha, but sounds like upwards of 1200 jobs are in danger for Omaha.

The downward spiral began when they bought a private label brand company a few years back. The deal was a complete tank for the company and they are already trying to spin that off for 50% of what they paid for it. There was so much hope that the deal would lead to hundreds of jobs moving from STL to Omaha. Turns out it probably caused the loss of a Fortune 500 HQ.

There was a scare that they would leave for Tennessee in the late 80s. The state ended up giving a lot of tax breaks to keep them in town b/c that was on the heels of Enron leaving for Houston and taking 1000 jobs with them.

Whatever ends up happening Conagra will forever have a legacy on the city. Along with the tax breaks given out 25 years ago they were allowed to create a suburban campus for their HQ downtown. They tore down 24 buildings that the CEO at the time described as "some big ugly, red brick buildings. At the time is was the nations largest historic district to be demolished.





The campus today consists of 5 buildings around the lake.


This could really go down as an example for anything from city planning to corporate welfare to historic preservation. Was all of that worth 25 more years of jobs? I have heard valid arguments from both sides, but it should serve as a reminder that decisions we make about our cities today have ramifications for decades which is why we need to try and make the very best decisions we can.

Wow. That was such a cool looking district. Perfect for redevelopment. Torn down for what looks like a highly inefficient campus.

I know OKC doesn't have a whole of historic buildings left anymore, but this should be a warning not to sell your history and your soul for a company that could leave you high and dry 25 years later.

[EricOK]

Omaha was already a relatively large city by the 1880's and has a huge stock of buildings from that era. I love these old industrial cities. When I lived in Omaha I would ride my bike all over the east side of town and marvel at the old Victorian homes and factories & warehouses. I wasn't aware that Jobber's Canyon once existed. What a terrible loss.

[UrbanNebraska]

Well even with the ConAgra loss DTO seems to still have momentum. ConAgra is keeping 1200 jobs on the campus and it will still be the largest office site for the company. The Mayor has stated that she has been contacted by developers wanting to redevelop the wasted space on the property too. Elsewhere downtown:

The tower crane for the 333 room Marriott Hotel portion of The Capitol District has a tower crane being erected.



And the entire two block site littered with equipment. The 12 floor apartment tower will be in the foreground.



HDR Inc. a major architecture/engineering firm HQd in suburban Omaha is moving forward with plans to move 900 jobs DT into a 16 story office tower with a 7 floor garage attached. No rendering yet, but this is the lot that will be replaced. Considering this would be the HQ for a large arch firm we have some high expectations for the finished product up here.


The Capitol District is directly out of frame to the left of this photo. Really highlights how big of a change this couple blocks of DTO will get. 1000s of new jobs between the office space, hotel, retail ect. Hundreds of potential hotel occupants and a couple hundred residents on the three city blocks. This will really expand the DT footprint and help to spread the activity out from what is basically just around the Old Market and CBD.

KETV local news station has moved into their new home DT. The gorgeously restored Burlington Station.



That sits on the south end of downtown which is really seeing a resurgence.

An old industrial building is turning into a large office project. A locally based construction company is moving their office here bringing 100 jobs. The rest of it is collaborative startup space for people to rent by the desk instead of by the SF and share amenities. Also a restaurant bay along with a solar array and wind turbines on the roof.


The Blue Barn Theater and Boxcar10 mixed use project is finished.





Directly next door to ^that^ an old streetcar barn that has been used by the post office for a long time is being turned into a year round market. The concept sounds amazing,


As it stands now, the layout calls for:
» A 30,000-square-foot main market hall to be accessed from 11th Street. That space is to feature nearly 25 permanent tenants, such as the butcher and baker, and a handful of day stalls for short-term tenants testing concepts and wares.
» An event space and more day vendors in the parking area outside the 11th Street entrance.
» A 3,000-square-foot mezzanine area with a tasting room for a deli and microbrewery.
» A 30,000-square-foot lower level that opens on to 10th Street and features a few sit-down restaurants, an area for events such as health- and food-related discussions, and a “back end” section for food production.
» A 4,000-square-foot rooftop area with an enclosed restaurant and bar as well as open-air gathering space.


And just down the street from there is a 36 unit row house project.


The 125 unit Corvina apartment project is getting its finishing touches and already has residents in. Helping extend the Old Market out of its traditional boundaries.


The Woolworth building is practically the last building in the Old Market with vacant floors above the ground floor retail. $12 million will renovate it into 43 apartments, 15K SF of office space and a rooftop deck.


The north end of downtown is getting love too.

The Yard parking lot has been torn up and ground is broken on the new Kiewit University facility.




The north end of the block will have a 100 unit apartment building with ground floor retail. Between Kiewit and the apartments will be a hotel yet to be named. Fingers crossed for Hotel Indigo.


The city put out an RFP for another North Downtown lot and got two responses. This lot has a little bit of a sour history. It used to house the showroom of a 32 floor condo tower that got killed by the recession.


Option 1 is a 5 floor 75 unit apartment building with no retail.


Option 2 is a 4 floor mixed use. Retail on the ground, office second and 45 apartments on the top two.


Moving further west from downtown a couple projects are moving into what used to be a pass by overlooked area of urban Omaha.

Even Hotel. A new concept from IHG hotels. The first few have been on the East Coast including Brooklyn and the Garment District in NYC. It is a health focused concept with built in exercise equipment in every room and a health conscious restaurant. Will include ground floor retail.




H2 apartments 114 units.



The Flats on Howard is a 150 unit project renovating a collection of historic buildings being renovated in the same area. I have posted pics before, but they are coming online now. The best part about this project is that the units are pretty small and are only going to be a little over $500 a month. Really should open up downtown living to another subset of the market that can't afford those $1000 a month rents in most projects.

All these new residents should make this little retail project successful. Old building getting renovated into 3 smaller bays and a larger restaurant spot with a rooftop.



The Blackstone District continues to transform at a rapid rate.

50 units with retail.



40 units.


This building is being renovated into 12 units on the second floor and retail on the bottom.


The suburban style building and surface lot will be replaced by a $15 million 112 unit apartment project with retail and underground parking.



There are about a half dozen other small projects going on in the area right now. Lots of renovations of mid-century apartments and reactivating underused storefronts. I live just a few blocks from here. When I moved I never thought I would stick around this area for 5 years b/c I wanted to get to a more walkable area. What happened here changed that mindset. A ton of locally owned shops popped up in the past two years. I walk to the barber shop now, theres a brewery, late night food spot, NY style pizzeria and rumors of a music venue. I moved to the neighborhood for the affordability and lucked into an amazing walkable place.

This neighborhood is buoyed by the nearby growing Nebraska Medical Center.

The new $300+ million cancer center is topped out.


The facility will include a $12 million healing arts center designed by Dale Chihuly.



The new pharmacy school is being finished up.


New outpatient center getting close.


With all these new facilities I guess you need a heck of a parking garage as well.


The Med Center has two other large projects coming down the pipe with no renderings yet. One is a $100 virtual reality teaching facility combined with an expanded biocontainment facility. A lot of federal money behind that one to make UNMC one of the centers where other hospitals will send people for training in containing highly infectious diseases. The second project is a 200 room 7 floor hotel to help support the entire campus. Between the cancer center and the teaching facility they need a hotel within walking distance.

Mixed use project in the Dundee neighborhood really moving forward. Retail space on the ground floor, rumors of a local vegan restaurant expanding here. Second floor a doctors office with 6 apartments on top.




150 unit apartment project with a bank branch on the bottom floor. in the Benson neighborhood. I have posted pics of the neighborhood before, but it is a very well maintained streetcar suburb. Lots of live music and locally owned shops/restaurants on the strip. This is the first substantial new construction since the resurgence began.



The new urban Aksarben Village got a big addition recently. Pacific Life's Omaha operation moved from DT to a new facility in this new area. Ground floor retail, first announced tenant is Pauli's bar which is a local favorite that closed down when the Med Center bought the land from them. People are excited to get them back.


Another new addition is a 4 story office building. Rumors that Green Plains Energy(one of the largest ethonal producers) will move their HQ from the suburbs here.



This neighborhood is right around University of Nebraska Omaha which is really seeing its best days. Enrollment is way up and their on campus living is booming.

434 bed dorm addition. They had to turn away 200 students wanting to live on campus this year and this wont be done until 2017. UNO in the past decade has gone from 0 students living on campus to over 2500 with over 3000 living on campus after this project. Really changing the commuter campus vibe they had for decades.


They also recently opened their own on campus arena. It has been amazing for campus life and student pride. Doesn't hurt that the Maverick hockey team went to the Frozen Four last year and is a top 10 team. The pack nearly 8000 in here, a heck of a hockey barn.



A new tech library "Do Space" recently opened. Offering a ton of tech based services from 3D printing to coding classes. Should be a great resource for the city. The building is a repurposed Borders.


Crossroads Mall redevelopment moving forward slowly, but surely. Demo of the mall will begin in March. Phase 1 is $275 million and includes:

» about 410,000 square feet of retail space
» a 125-room boutique hotel
» a 10-screen cinema
» about 150,000 square feet of office space
» up to 200 residential units



An additional selling point is that the development will have 10 Gig internet throughout. Obviously 1 gig is big right now, but they are looking to push the envelop here to help attract tech companies to the office space. The 10 gig will also be available to residents and visitors.

[Anonymous.]

That Boxcar/Bluebarn space is absolutely amazing. This is what OKC needs more of. Send those developers down here please!

[UrbanNebraska]

That Boxcar/Bluebarn space is absolutely amazing. This is what OKC needs more of. Send those developers down here please!

It sure is! On of my absolute favorite projects of 2015. Blue Barn is a professional theater company that is entering its 27th season. They had a fundraising campaign to raise $7 million for construction and operating expenses. Min|Day is the architect behind it, they are a small San Fransisco/Omaha firm. The design features in this place are great and will most likely go unnoticed.

For instance the black box of the condo portion is the exact proportion to the black box theater void.


And the back stage has huge doors that open up to the park space behind the building. The theater company has said they want to incorporate nontraditional performance spaces with this asset.

[boitoirich]

Great stuff! I love the UNO revitalization, especially the bit about going from 0 students living on campus to 2500 with demand being strong. That is an unqualified success story.