Omaha Development Update

[Plutonic Panda]

Super awesome news! Omaha and Des Moines are two waaaay underrated cities that I can't wait to visit!

[Swake]

I'm again sitting in a hotel in Lewisville on the north side of the DFW Metroplex and it's still just plain awful. I can't stand this metro.

That said, I love Omaha, great town and these look like great developments. It actually reminds me a lot of a flat Tulsa or a smaller flat Kansas City. I could completely live there if it weren't for the brutal winters.

[UrbanNebraska]

Super awesome news! Omaha and Des Moines are two waaaay underrated cities that I can't wait to visit!

DSM has some really impressive high rise projects proposed. Their skyline is arguably the best compared to their population in the nation.

[UrbanNebraska]

I'm again sitting in a hotel in Lewisville on the north side of the DFW Metroplex and it's still just plain awful. I can't stand this metro.

That said, I love Omaha, great town and these look like great developments. It actually reminds me a lot of a flat Tulsa or a smaller flat Kansas City. I could completely live there if it weren't for the brutal winters.

There are some great parts of Dallas proper IMO. I love Deep Ellum, Greenville Ave, Katy Trail, Lovers, Bishop Arts. The metro is basically anywhere America, but Dallas has some pretty cool spots. Not like a tradition east coast or midwest city, but better than their rep gets for authentic neighborhoods.

As for Omaha we are anything, but flat. I am not sure there are many other cities that are as hilly as Omaha on the plains. At least the east side.

[EricOK]

Omaha is one of the hilliest cities I've been to. They even have some San Francisco sized hills.

[Plutonic Panda]

Really? Where? I didn't notice that from the pictures.

[EricOK]

Not so much in the downtown area. There is a section of town on the south side that has a hill at least 3 blocks long that is at about a 45 degree angle leading up to a ridge. That is one of many examples. In most of Omaha, you are either driving up or down a hill. The hills get smaller the further you get away from the Missouri River.

[Plutonic Panda]

Wow. I never knew! I don't why but I love the idea of hilly cities but in SF there are some insane hills!

[EricOK]

What is even more surprising are the thick forests that border on the north and the south of the city. I forget their names, but the forest on the north side of town has huge bluffs overlooking the Missouri River floodplain. The forest on the south side is huge and has a really cool nature center.

[UrbanNebraska]

Pretty good year for Omaha in some numbers categories.

http://www.omaha.com/money/with-rise...ccb9ce130.html

Eppley Airfield had 4,349,486 total passengers this year, a 4.3% increase over 2015. Highest total since 2008. Eppley was also Top 10 in capacity growth percentage in 2016 adding 9.02% to capacity over the year. The airport should continue to add capacity as it is adding a nonstop to Houston on SW early this year.

Omaha's Eppley Airfield was one of the nation's 10 fastest-growing airports in 2016 when it comes to airlines adding "capacity," or seats available for customers to buy.

SJC San Jose: +12.55%

PDX Portland: +10.18%

BNA Nashville: +9.51%

SEA Seattle: +9.42%

MCI Kansas City: +9.37%

DEN Denver: +9.12%

RDU Raleigh-Durham: +9.10%

FLL Fort Lauderdale: +9.07%

OMA Eppley Airfield: +9.02%

IND Indianapolis Airport: +8.97%

How other airports fared:

STL St. Louis: +8.62%

MSP Minneapolis: +4.25%

ORD Chicago-O'Hare: +2.88%

IAH Houston-Int'l: -4,03%

Breaking ground this spring is a 3000 stall $98 million garage to help with the anticipated growth.


The Henry Doorly Zoo also had a banner year by smashing its previous attendance record. They broke the 2 million barrier with 2,046,171 people through the gates in 2016. This broke the previous record of 1.7 million set in 2014. The zoo opened a massive African Grasslands exhibit that included returning elephants to the zoo for the first time in about 5 years so that is obviously a big part of the bump.

The Capitol District got big news. The City Council approved "Entertainment Districts" in the city that will allow carrying alcohol between bars in certian areas like Power and Light in KC. This development will have that ability in its inner plaza once it opens. Should be a great addition to the Omaha nightlife.


^The apartments mentioned in that picture SE of 10th and Capitol are a new announcement. No renderings yet, but it was announced that it will be 7 stories. Going to be a great little midrise pocket here.

And here is some update on the project on the street level. A lot of Omaha people wish it impacted the skyline more, but I think the street level presence is pretty great.

And the garage tucked by I480.


About a block and a half from ^that^ development(just across the interstate) is this nice 5 story mixed use. 30K SF of office, 45 apartment units and retail space.


Just a note that train track is used for one thing. The Omaha World Herald gets its rolls of paper delivered by rail car, it runs from a spot in North Omaha to its facility downtown. Kinda cool.

And on the opposite corner of ^that^ project was a big plan announced for a huge surface lot used for event parking at the arena right now. This is the area it will be, the square lot between the baseball stadium, arena and hotel is what will be redeveloped.

And just because I like the history of it this is what that area looked like in 2000.


This is so early in the process and pretty conceptual at this point, but they have made it clear that they want a lot of residential and not too much height on this site. They are at a minimum 2 years from breaking ground as they need to build a new parking garage for the arena/stadium parking.

Both concepts include ~45o residential units, ~100K Sf of office space, 130 room hotel and a museum.





North of the stadium is some older light industrial area that has been slowly turning into a startup area. A single entity called Future Forward that has ties to Kiewit has been buying up a ton of land in the area lately with intentions of creating a "Makers District."
http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/work...114d58d71.html

Future Forward is laying groundwork for potential big change — saying that if done fully, the property value of that near-downtown pocket could increase by an estimated $250 million with new construction and rehabilitation projects.

The concept has gained enough interest that city planners and public works officials helped plot out the possibilities. The preliminary analysis shows gaps on which about 50 structures encompassing roughly 1.1 million square feet of building space could rise.

Future Forward is forming a nonprofit entity to begin raising dollars needed to pull it off, saying the money would go toward maintaining properties and adding amenities.

A block away from ^that^ project The Yard development is coming together.

Apartment and retail building.

Kiewit's job training facility. Supposed to create 15,000 hotel room nights due to flying people in nationwide to do corporate training.


Between those two buildings will be a 5 story Cambria Suites hotel. No rendering yet.

A few blocks west of ^that^ project Creighton Dental is building a new facility.



Creighton needed a new facility b/c they are vacating their massive hospital facility for a more modern facility in central Omaha near Aksarben Village. The old hospital sits near Creighton's campus, but across a highway. It is going to begin a conversion from out of date hospital to apartments.

The project will cost $104 million and create 700 units. Amenities include a new small lake to attach to the walking path that winds through midtown, a rooftop pool and a pedestrian bridge across the highway to connect CU students living in the building to campus. Phase 1 completed in 2018.


And some less good news, but I guess you take the good with the bad. The office tower portion of this project on the old Civic Auditorium site has been axed.


The talk is that the city will build a new modern main library on the site along with some other civic uses and the site of the current library will be torn down for a high-rise. That is a long long ways off though so we will see.

[Spartan]

I'm not sure I'm feeling the "Capitol District" and the "Arts & Trades District." Hopefully placeholder concepts.

[UrbanNebraska]

I'm not sure I'm feeling the "Capitol District" and the "Arts & Trades District." Hopefully placeholder concepts.

"The Capitol District" is the name they are going with. Already have their website live and the hotel and apartments are set to open in June. It sits on Capitol Ave, the state capitol used to sit at the end of the street before it moved to Lincoln. I get it, not terribly inspired.

"The Arts and Trades District" was called NEDO(North East DOwntown) by the people behind the plan and I absolutely abhor the cliche 4 letter branding that happens in every damn city it seems like. Plus I think they picked it because it is pronounced a little like Neato and that is just dumb.

I hope that area is able to create an organic identity though because it already has a couple pioneering projects that were done by boutique developers that don't have the deep pockets of Kiewit.

[Eric]

Apparently our predecessors were much better at naming areas that we are today. I think the areas in Tulsa that if I heard in a conversation, I would know they were talking about Tulsa. Brookside, Cherry Street, Brady District, Blue Dome, Pearl District, Greenwood, Riverview. Of course on the flip side, development isn't exactly at the pace where Tulsa needs to make up new areas.

[UrbanNebraska]

Apparently our predecessors were much better at naming areas that we are today. I think the areas in Tulsa that if I heard in a conversation, I would know they were talking about Tulsa. Brookside, Cherry Street, Brady District, Blue Dome, Pearl District, Greenwood, Riverview. Of course on the flip side, development isn't exactly at the pace where Tulsa needs to make up new areas.

Its kind of a running joke on the Omaha board that every proposal either has Village, Crossing or Pointe(with the superfluous e) in the name anymore.

I love city's historical neighborhood names. Omaha has Benson, Dundee, Florence, Fair Acres, Field Club, Bemis Park, Old Market, Gifford Park, Vinton, Little Italy etc. I think OKC seems to have done a good job in their branding as well with Bricktown, Deep Deuce, Automible Alley etc.

For new developments in Omaha I do like Aksarben Village. Aksarben(Nebraska spelled backward). The site was originally home to a large race track and arena by the same name. Also a uniquely "Nebraskan" name.

Midtown Crossing. Blah.

Two of the billion+ mixed used developments announced for the suburbs are going with "West Farm"(they purchased a huge plot of farm land from Boys Town that is well within the city limits) and "Avenue One" doesn't really mean anything to me.

I do think the burgeoning "Blackstone District" has done a very good job. It was historically called West Farnam, but there is a century old building that was called Blackstone Hotel in the area that gave them the name.

All in all too much comes off as a forced thing trying to copy SoHo or something else another city has done. We have tons of great unused references from historic Omaha that could be brought to light, but instead tend toward the easy or cliche way too often.

[Spartan]

I like Aksarben and Midtown Crossing too. Midtown Crossing is actually a case study I use frequently when adjuncting bc I like the way the leasable space wraps around the common space in an interesting and uplifting way. In other words I am growing tired of monotonous square blocks.

Aksarben is noteworthy bc the surrounding neighborhood is bad. Not unlike Wheeler in OKC, although we are hoping Wheeler more meaningfully engages with the surrounding low-income neighborhood.

[UrbanNebraska]

Midtown Crossing is really a unicorn IMO. Mutual of Omaha bankrolled it, no "normal" developer would have ever done anything close to it. Fantastic corporate citizen. You are completely on point with the retail fronting the park though. It is really unique asset for the city and is consistently the place to be in the summer. Often times I don't think people here appreciate what that development has done for the city.

Mutual over the past few years has been purchasing all the land directly east of the development and has brought in Ryan Companies out of MSP to develop it. A lot of it is still a long ways down the line, but they are going to break ground on the first expansion phase with in a year.

The first part is a hotel/apartment component. The city has agreed to build a 400 stall garage to support this phase:


And the developers are working through the permit process on a 150K SF office/retail building in the area too,


Aksarban is great, but also frustrates the hell out of me b/c of the bad decisions made in the early stages. It is the most expensive real estate in the city right now and we wasted a good chunk of it on the poor site plans of First Data, University of Nebraska Omaha and cheap hotel buildouts. I think it is a great example of good new urban development, especially office wise. Yet it frustrates me to think of what could have been with just a tiny bit more patience.

[Spartan]

Is there a proposed streetcar I didn't know about?

[UrbanNebraska]

Its been thrown around since 2005, but there is a big push right now from some big players. At the beginning it was going to be a DT circulator or run from the airport to the zoo, both awful ideas. About 5 years ago they realized running it from the arena/baseball stadium, past the Old Market, through the CBD, through Midtown Crossing to the Nebraska Medical Center is the way to go. 3 major job centers, 3 major entertainment districts and lots of developable land.


So trying to push it forward officials from Mutual of Omaha, Nebraska Medical Center, Kiewit, Creighton University and Heritage Foundation(which is a major driver in this city) created Midtown Vision 2050. https://www.midtownvision2050.org/

So they have some major players, Fortune 500 companies, major universities, the region's largest medical center etc behind this. We are in a mayoral election year and both the incumbent Republican and the Democratic challenger have publicly said they support the streetcar.

This was the public announcement article.
http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/omah...426c9f6d7.html

And this article discussed potential funding sources.
http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/asse...9ebf74c17.html

The options that were considered — which do not add up to $156 million, because they are a smorgasbord of suggestions that could be combined to build and run a modern streetcar — include the following:

» Federal Transit Administration grants, $78 million

» Philanthropic donations, up to $41 million

» City money, from $10 million to $30 million, from sources such as general obligation bonds and redevelopment bonds

» Traditional tax-increment financing, or TIF, in which real estate developers of new projects would put a portion of that tax incentive toward the streetcar

» Up to $40 million from an enhanced TIF district, which would apply to existing properties within three blocks of the streetcar line; proceeds from a portion of increased property taxes from valuation growth believed to be caused by the streetcar would go to help pay for it

» Doubling the documentary stamp tax fee within the streetcar area, from $2.25 per $1,000 of value to $4.50, and designating the increased revenue to the streetcar; totaling about $4 million a year

» A Benefit Assessment District, in which owners of properties within three blocks of the streetcar line would pay a special assessment, could raise about $4.5 million a year initially

» Parking stall fees of up to $10 a month for people who park in surface lots or garages downtown and in midtown could generate up to $4.2 million a year

» Streetcar fare of $1.25 per ride could generate about $700,000 a year initially

» A fee of $1.50 per ticket per College World Series event, beginning in 2018, could bring in about $500,000 a year

» Station naming rights, about $150,000 a year

» A State of Nebraska loan of up to $20 million from the state infrastructure bank, or a state appropriation of up to $20 million

They are supposed to nail down a funding plan by October and are trying to avoid federal funds b/c of the uncertainty involved with those in this administration and because it would push back their goal of being operational in 2021.

We will see if it will happen. I think it is an uphill battle, but usually when those kind of names get behind something in this city it happens.

[UrbanNebraska]

CWS always a great tow weeks in town. The parking lot out of right field is being pushed as the next big development opportunity downtown. They are looking for 400+ apartment units, 130 room hotel and ~100K in office space. The new hot rumor or talking point is to make a College Baseball Hall of Fame a part of that site being interactive like the CBB HOF in KC and the CFB HOF in Atlanta. The College Baseball HOF is currently in Lubbock. With Omaha's history of support for the CWS and the sport there isn't really any other city in the country that makes a much sense for the facility.



Also in that aerial you can see two other developments in the area going up. On the right side is "The Yard" with Kiewit's new company training facility and a 100 unit apartment building with retail:


Between the two this rather uninspiring Cambria hotel is going up...


Also shown in that first photo is a 5 story mixed use building. It is directly across the street from the long hotel. It will have ground floor retail, 30K SF for Alvine Engineering and 45 apartment units on top.


Looking from the other way is a good shot of the Capitol District.


Mentioned it a bunch, but 212 apartments on the left, 333 room full service Marriott on the right. There is a two story retail building along the side closest to the garage and the empty side on the street has been cut from two 8 story office buildings to a smaller 2-3 story building. In the courtyard in the middle you will be able to carry your drinks between bars like Power and Light on a smaller scale.

Obviously disappointing to not get the larger buildings, but plans changes and the office market DT has a lot to absorb with the ConAgra issue last year.

In the aerial of the Capitol District you can see the edge of another recently started project, it is the dirt patch on the right edge of the photo. Capitol Place Apartments feeding off the big development next door with 75 units and 27K SF of retail.


In all those projects we have ~430 apartment units, ~475 hotel rooms, ~100K SF of office space and ~150K SF of retail all that will come on line w/in 12 months of each other pretty unprecedented for that edge of DT. Should be a HUGE shot in the arm to the North Downtown area and expand the traditional DT core a lot.

At the airport on top of a new 3000 stall garage they are building a new structure to house the rental car operations. A much more modern design than the tired rest of the terminal and getting the car rental desks is the first step of many toward the overhaul of the entire facility. YTD Eppley Airfield is up 5.6% passenger wise and looks to be on pace for well over 4.5 million passengers for the year which would be a record.



South side of DT. The 100K SF Rail and Commerce Building is complete. It is an old postal annex that is listed on the Historic Register. Got an entire rehab and now is home to an established regional construction company's HQ a national distribution company's HQ and the HQ of a startup alternative energy company. The ground floor is co-working space with 90 desks for rent as well as smaller office suites all for startups. This is a look at the building with the new windows. The established companies get the top 3 floors and the coworking space is the bottom floor.


And this is the awesome view of DTO that they will have. It would be hard to get work done...


A few blocks south of that project is a new neighborhood revitalization starting. Number of old car shops, vacant retail and homes being converted to more modern space. Current state of the buildings in the area:




And renderings of the finished products:






Also just south of DT an old power plant is brought back to life as apartments. Should bring some life to a previously dead portion of the riverfront.


The Civic Auditorium redevelopment was originally planned to be ~$300 Million including a 16 story tower, but the tower was cut and the price dropped to ~$200 million. New plans call for a DT library, grocery store, ~350K SF of office/retail space and 176 residential units. Considering that the site is the size of 4 city blocks the density is disappointing, but if it can deliver on the amenities it will be a big addition to DT.





The Civic site is very close to Creighton as well as these other two projects. Creighton Medical Center and the medical school has officially closed their old hospital and moved to a newer facility. The old hospital building is getting a $108 million renovation to turn it into 750 apartment units. Just a massive number to absorb. They are eliminating a parking lot and replacing it with a small lake as well as putting a pedestrian bridge over the interstate to connect students directly to Creighton's campus. It is amenity rich as the building as ~1 million SF to use. Anything from rooftop pools to dog grooming facilities.


Because of the med center moving Creighton Dental needed a new home. This building is topped out and is on Creighton's main campus rather than a few miles away at the new med school location.


Nebraska Medical Center still moving forward with projects and creating a lot of spin off development in the areas surrounding it.

The Buffett Cancer Center is open. Was a $323 million investment and expected to create 1000 jobs. They also included a lot of art.

A portion of the facility is a indoor/outdoor garden for the cancer patients to enjoy. Designed by Dale Chihuly.




Elsewhere on campus this $119 million building is being built, tower crane is up. For educational purposes as well as creating a national training facility for infectious diseases. Nebraska Medicine got a lot of notoriety for their ability to treat patients with Ebola from the outbreak a few years ago.

Described as the nation’s most advanced experiential health care training facility, the center will feature replicas of hospital rooms and other settings where students and health professionals can practice treating lifelike mannequins. The center also will feature new high-tech visualization and virtual reality tools – some the first of their kind in the world – that will allow students to virtually map a brain tumor or see how a protein folds.

The other program to be housed in the center is the National Center for Health Security and Biopreparedness. A floor was added to building plans last year after the university announced that it had received a $19.8 million federal grant to develop a new training, simulation and quarantine center in Omaha that will help federal health care workers train to treat Ebola and other infectious diseases.

There are also rumors of a 15-18 story hotel on the med center grounds to help support the facilities national/international visitors, but thats just a rumor as of now. The development is spinning off a number of things in the neighborhood though.

This 82 unit apartment building with retail is getting site work.


Midtown Triangle 178 units a few blocks away.


Home2 hotel getting site work a block form the med center,


Historic movie theater being renovated. Will not include a new restaurant and "micro" theater for local film makers to get more exposure in a right sized facility.



Momentum keeps up in Aksarben Village.

University of Nebraska Omaha built a new parking garage and dorm to support the growing enrollment numbers. Has had faster growth than "big brother" down in Lincoln for a few years now.




Hilton Garden Inn going in A/V. Great use of land using the building to hide the garage.



And the crown jewel going into Aksarben right now. HDR moving their headquarters from the suburbs to this mixed used development in East Omaha. 10 floors 160 feet and over 800 employees to support the local businesses.



And lastly yet another change in the Crossroads Mall redevelopment saga. Each turn seems to come with less organization and asking for more tax payer money. Lets just say I am not holding my breath on this right now. The most recent update calls for:

Phase I: 230,000 square feet of retail space, 10,000 square feet of office space, 360-unit apartment complex, 12,000-square-foot health club

Phase II: 59,000 square feet of retail/entertainment space, 210,000 square feet of office space, another 252,000 square feet of apartments

Phase III: 215,000 square feet of office space, 200-suite boutique hotel

Phase IV: 36,000 square feet of retail space, 478,000 square feet of office space and another 200-suite boutique hotel





One notable big development in the burbs worth sharing. Facebook investing over $1 billion on a data center just SW of town. Nothing pretty to look at and should employ about 100 when finished, but obviously a major investment.

[UrbanNebraska]

Not a lot of new development news this Quarter. Lots of talk about some things, but not worth reposting a bunch of similar pictures. One potentially huge piece of news was hinted at yesterday that has me giddy for a new DT development though.



http://www.omaha.com/money/tech-comp...b67cd1819.html

An out-of-town technology company is exploring Omaha sites to possibly open an office that could employ hundreds of people.

The company had representatives in town this week touring locations in the downtown area, according to several people with knowledge of the search who spoke on the condition that they not be named.

Job postings on the website of a company called Toast point to the Boston-based restaurant-technology firm as a company scouting for Omaha sites. The company focuses on electronic restaurant point-of-sale systems. (Think a very modern version of a cash register.) Its software also deals with restaurant management, inventory, sales data and loyalty programs, according to company materials.

A Toast publicist, responding to an inquiry from The World-Herald, declined to comment. She said the company’s officials were unavailable Thursday evening.

Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert gave a clue as to the firm’s identity about a week ago, when speaking at a public neighborhood town hall meeting about the city’s bid for another tech firm — this time giant Amazon, which is on the hunt for a second headquarters.

Omaha fell short of many of Amazon’s requirements, the mayor said, but she offered: “I will tell you we just landed a great tech company. Just found out the other day they’re going to build downtown. And, originally it’s going to create 200 to 300 jobs and eventually around 1,000 jobs,” she said at the South Omaha town hall.

“And they’re a tech company, a point-of-sales (company). They’re coming to Omaha. They’ll be in the downtown area.”

Toast has two job openings in Omaha posted on its website. It currently has no office in Omaha. It’s seeking a “Help Desk Manager” and a “Customer Support Team Lead.”

The job description for the help desk manager says, in part: “Part of this role may initially include some facilities responsibilities, while we grow our presence in the building and hire more people in this area.”

Obviously everyone isn't giving official statements yet. Safe to say this could be some of the most exciting news for the DTO job market in a while. Paypal, LinkedIn and HayNeedle(eCommerce wing of Wal-Mart) are our big tech players in the city along with Google and Soon to be Facebook billion dollar data centers are the majority of our tech presence. While startups like FlyWheel who now employs 100 in DTO and Hudl with ~40 grow.

A company HQd in Boston bringing a few hundred while eventually bringing 1000 would really help to prove our tech economy and would make for an exciting time of growth in the urban core. Hoping for an official statement soon.

[UrbanNebraska]

Turns out it was true! Boston based Toast will open an office in Omaha employing hundreds.

http://www.omaha.com/money/amazing-f...08c0075f5.html

Omaha as the place to plant its first U.S. corporate flag outside its home city. The company makes restaurant point-of-sales systems that take payments from customers and help establishments take care of inventory, personnel and other business-management functions.

Omaha appealed to Toast because of the city’s already established base of tech companies — like PayPal — and its business community’s culture of entrepreneurship, said Tim Barash, Toast’s chief financial officer.

And one more thing caught the company executives’ eyes, Barash said: Omaha’s restaurants.

“It was just meal after meal of amazing food and amazing entrepreneurs” when executives came to town over the past few months, Barash said Friday in an interview. “We’re excited about coming to Omaha and becoming a piece of the restaurant world.”

As for Omaha, he said: “This is going to be a sizable office for us. We expect to have at least a few hundred (employees) in the next few years.” The Omaha staff will work in every aspect of the company — including positions in sales, software and customer satisfaction.

The company hasn’t decided yet where it will locate in Omaha. It’s been looking downtown.

“We’re a hyper-growth tech company,” Barash said. “We certainly want to move as fast as we can. We’re trying to find a home in Omaha that will make sense long-term.”

Toast has people working remotely around the country, but its only offices are the headquarters near Fenway Park in Boston and an office in Ireland that opened last month.

[UrbanNebraska]

Just announced today. Eppley Airfield will begin daily service to Toronto via Air Canada starting next spring. First daily international service for the airport. Spring 2018 will add a lot of service to the airport.

Eppley is well on its way to smashing its record 2016. YTD passenger growth has been 6% to put it on pace for ~4.7 million passengers for the year. 4.75 million is supposed to trigger a small terminal expansion with 5 million triggering a much larger one. If we continue this growth airport officials better have some funding ideas ready.

[UrbanNebraska]

I think Omaha is addicited to announcing these mega projects that take forever to get off the ground or get cut in size before they do, but we dream big I guess. This one may be more likely to happen as proposed considering a major international player like Hines is behind it.

As mentioned before ConAgra pulled about 1000 jobs out of their campus in DT. Ever since they moved they have said it would be redeveloped since thy kept about 1200 employees and consolidated them to 3 of their 5 buildings. Today thehy announced their plans.

$500 Million of a decade starting in 2019.
http://www.omaha.com/money/million-p...c7d4fccaf.html

Conagra announced today that it selected Hines, a Houston-based global real estate firm, to lead the reboot of its sprawling riverfront home that lost its corporate flag last year to Chicago.

Envisioned as a 10-year project that breaks ground in 2019, the initiative would build nine new structures containing roughly 500,000 square feet of office space, more than 80,000 square feet of retail space, a boutique hotel with up to 200 rooms and about 900 new residences.

Main elements of the plan:

» The plaza extension of Harney Street leads to the lake. Visitors walking along the corridor could shop, eat or relax on a sloping green lawn whose zig-zag path winds to the dock area.

» Along the south side of the plaza would be a hotel with up to 200 rooms; a 300-unit apartment building and a low-rise residential structure with condominiums.

» On the north side of the corridor would be a 280-unit apartment complex with parking and about 50,000 square feet of restaurant-focused retail space. A 250,000-square-foot office building would rise, too.

» Farther south on the Conagra campus would rise another office building of about 250,000 square feet and a residential high-rise containing up to 250 units, either condos or apartments.

For some context an aerial view of the campus as it currently stands.


The office building on the right would be demoed for Phase 1.

Really long timeline here, but excited that nearly 3 decades after one of the largest single destruction of historic buildings in this country's history that we are finally getting an urban development on the incredibly suburban ConAgra land.

[UrbanNebraska]

Big time announcement for the Iowa side of the Missouri River. Council Bluffs is getting two 15 story luxury condo/apartment towers with an amenity package that the Omaha metro has never seen before. For a little context CB is kind of the punchline city in the metro. Often called Counciltucky by the Omaha masses, really it is just a poorer more blue collar community compared to the cities on the Nebraska side of the river. To its credit though it is still the second largest city in our Metro and it has done a lot of work to redo its downtown and now riverfront.




And here is an early marketing video, shows some renderings of the interiors and where it sits compared to DTO.
https://vimeo.com/252784919

It is a part of Iowa's riverfront that is a decade in the making. This pedestrian bridge opened in 2008 and was called a waste of money, a boondoggle, a bridge to nowhere.


CB 10 years later has finally kick-started development at the foot of the bridge and its pretty impressive. Along with those two towers there are offices and low rise residential going in.

This was the concept and the general layout is pretty much the same, everything in this plan is u/c right now except for the two residential towers set to start in about a year.


The office building rendering:



Streetscape with dedicated bike path. The right side of these photos is the more traditional row house residential while the right is the 5 story apartment complex just beginning to rise.

[kevin lee]

Nice