Omaha Development Update

[Spartan]

Yeah, lots of cities are tearing down these mid-century and late-century superblock structures. Good for Omaha! I hope you guys get a killer development that makes us green with envy...

[UrbanNebraska]

It served it's purpose will, but has been passed up many times over and for the first time in it's history doesn't have a single tenant. I am just glad the city is realizing when to cut losses and move on. One thing I am not thrilled about is another 4 city blocks hitting the market. Really the last thing we need is more empty land downtown. I am not as confident about this property as I am about other areas downtown, but if it is anywhere close to what the downtown master plan proposed I will be very happy.

[UrbanNebraska]

Tallest downtown living option is ready for residents. The Highline | HighlineHighline Some cheesy photos showing young people enjoying the space on their website. Still a fantastic development though. The 6th tallest building downtown had been vacant for a decade and now has 194 units.

Same development company has balconies up on their other 116 unit office conversion downtown.


Hyatt Place Old Market is at about the half way point. Starting to dominate it's neighbors.


Also in that photo you can see where two future infill projects will start this spring. At the very left edge of the photo there is a car wash with a green roof. That is being replaced by a 4 story 42 unit apartment building, developed by the same group that did the new black and white building also on the left edge of the picture. Then if you look more toward the middle of the picture notice the large blank brick wall. A 5 floor 75 unit apartment building with retail space will jut up against it and replace a current surface lot.

Elsewhere downtown a 2 floor building is getting a 3 floor addition and will have 40 units and 4000 sq foot of retail space.


In North Downtown two vacant brick buildings are getting renovated. The project is retail on the ground floor, office space on the 2nd and 21 apartment units on the top floors. One tenant is already announced, a brewery is taking the space in the barn type building on the property.

The inside of the brewery space is freaking awesome.


Blue Barn Theater, a local company, is moving out of their space in the Old Market into their own space in Little Italy. Just south of the Old Market. They got a large donation and brought in a very well respected architect. Jeanne Gang, her most notable work is the Aqua Tower in Chicago, is the architect for the theater. It is definitely not a conventional design, which I like.



Also in Little Italy CO2 on Tenth is wrapping up.

[zookeeper]

I always like seeing your posts about Omaha, thanks for posting them. Those look like excellent residential developments.

[Just the facts]

Omaha continues to impress.

[MDot]

Omaha is sweet. I dream of Norman being Omaha...

[Spartan]

Wow, Omaha is hearing up, too!

[G.Walker]

I really hope this works out for Omaha:

MECA gives new fuel to north downtown Omaha development plan - Omaha.com

[UrbanNebraska]

I really hope this works out for Omaha:

MECA gives new fuel to north downtown Omaha development plan - Omaha.com

I believe that the land is now in Shamrock's hands. They have already done environmental testing on the site, still need to get through the planning board, city council and TIF requests before anything will get started. All of those are mere formalities at this point.

This vacant building just west of the Old Market is getting rehabbed. Apartments on the top floors and a bar on the bottom.


Hyatt Place Old Market has the stairwell and elevator shafts topped out. Nothing dramatic on the skyline, but it is the tallest in the Old Market and is providing some great density.


$44 million project for Gavilon's new HQ is topped out on one portion of the building. Again nothing changing the skyline. Here is the webcam OxBlue Construction Camera: Gavilon
And a screen capture of the progress.


News just came out that the city is working on a $4 million pedestrian bridge to help go from North Downtown to the riverfront. This is because it is really tough for pedestrians and out of town visitors to get to the landmark pedestrian bridge across the Missouri. This is just starting though, still a few years out.

The huge mixed use Midtown Crossing development is showing more ripple effects in Midtown Omaha. Recently announced 149 unit 4 story apartment building is going to be built a mere 2 blocks away from MTC. Sorry about no rendering there was a quick shot in the news report, but I can't find one anywhere online.

Aksarben Village is getting some major infill too. Gordman's new HQ had it's official groundbreaking this Friday. They are moving from the suburbs to an office building in a new urbanism development and will have ground floor retail. Pretty much an ideal project for the area. Also across the street a 4 floor Residence Inn hotel is underway.


Further west TD Ameritrade's HQ tower will be moved into soon. Such a shame they couldn't build downtown, I bet a lot of people across the country would be surprised to see that a high profile investment company is based here and could of put a major mark on our downtown skyline and business climate. I guess it at least stayed out of the way suburban areas. It sits a basically the geographic center of the city. It will also be a LEED Platinum building, one of the largest in the country to get that designation.


Crossroads Mall has been dead for a decade. New plans have come out for a $350 million redevelopment project. The large mostly vacant indoor mall will be torn down and replaced with a mixed use development. It will include 400K sq feet of retail space, 200K sq feet of office space, 500 residential units, 135 room Aloft Hotel, a new transit hub, a new city library and new city park. The entire development would also have a $15 million mobile web based wireless network. This site plan is actually a little out of date.

The city was unhappy with the segregated layout and use of the land. Word is the developers have amended those problems, no new images yet though.

[UrbanNebraska]

It isn't pro sports, but Omaha and Creighton are pumped to move out of a middle of the road Missouri Valley Conference to the "new" Big East conference. To align the school with places like Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette both athletically and academically is going to be huge. Very very excited.

[Dubya61]

It isn't pro sports, but Omaha and Creighton are pumped to move out of a middle of the road Missouri Valley Conference to the "new" Big East conference. To align the school with places like Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette both athletically and academically is going to be huge. Very very excited.

Is that all sports? or just some?

[UrbanNebraska]

Is that all sports? or just some?

All of them.

[G.Walker]

New downtown Omaha Hyatt Place is reaching new heights, nice!

o79kr6.jpg

Photo is courtesy of MTO from Omaha Forums :: Index

[UrbanNebraska]

A few big non construction updates.

Maha Music Festival, a nonprofit, announced it's lineup. It has it's usual number of local up and comers and lesser known openers. The headliners though are very good. The Flaming Lips(OKC's very own), Matt and Kim, The Thermals(Omaha's Saddle Creek Records new band). For the rest of the bands

The US Olympic Swimming Trials are coming back to Omaha for the 3rd time in a row in 2016. We beat out San Antonio and St. Louis this time around. 8 straight days of prime time NBC coverage and 164,000 came through the gates for the event in 2012. Big for us to keep getting events like this without a major sports franchise.


And this incredible news just dropped today. CenturyLink is rolling out a 1 gigabit internet system in Omaha. The first 10,000 homes will go online Monday with a total of 48,000 by October. Puts us right in line with KC and Austin in the "1 bit club." It will be 6 times faster than the city's current offering. Just huge for the city. CenturyLink bringing 1 gigabit-per-second Internet service to Omaha - Omaha.com

[UrbanNebraska]

Broke ground on the new $370 million cancer center at UNMC. It has a lot of influential people seriously geeked. Largest public/private partnership for a building in the state's history, supposed to add 1200 jobs and is projected to create $380 million+ in private hotel, housing and retail in the immediate midtown neighborhood. Feels good to live 3 blocks away. Some renderings here, but they are huge so I don't want to link them THE CANCER CENTER ? For Media This is the best rendering though.


Broke ground on 1501 Jackson downtown. 79 unit apartment building, 102 parking spots in the building and 2200 sq feet of commercial space. It is replacing an old surface lot, here is the hole they digging.

And the rendering of the finished product.


Hyatt Place has reached its peak.


The Highline Apartments with some of it's first residents lighting the tower up! This conversion turned out awesome.


The Highline is already having ripple effects in the neighborhood, this previously empty building 1.5 blocks away is almost done being renovated into 12 apartment units and commercial space on the street level.


New Gavilon HQ downtown is well along.


These next ones are from the corner of 40th and Farnam, very close to my house which makes these all the more exciting. Basically all of the buildings are getting a facelift. This two story one will have 7 apartment units on top and a restaurant on bottom. One of the other storefronts will feature a "nanobrewery."

And this one is directly across the street which will have a bar.


And one last glamor shot of the city. We had a killer sunset last night and the very talented Brad Williams captured it wonderfully with the river, old industrial buildings and modern skyline in the back.

[HangryHippo]

Man, that's awesome. I like the design of the housing Omaha has going on more than what's being built here in OKC, save for the work being done by Midtown Renaissance. Very cool stuff.

[UrbanNebraska]

Missed one! This is going to replace a dumpy car wash downtown in the Old Market area. We are trading this.

For this!

[UrbanNebraska]

Our own Edge-light was announced for Midtown Omaha. "Spaces Apartments" will be 154 units, vast majority are studios.


And our 100 year old train station that has been vacant for 40 years finally is going to be put to use. Local ABC news affiliate bought the building and will be completely restoring it for their new studio.

[Spartan]

Wow, Aksarben has really taken off. I didn't even realize Gordman's was still around, and then bam. I also like how you do this thread from an OKC-perspective, rather than just copying and pasting something for all these boards. Good job mate.

The KETV project is most cool. I think newspapers, which are hemorrhaging their footprint, are leaving slack for local broadcasting which seems to be growing into more landmark properties.

[UrbanNebraska]

Wow, Aksarben has really taken off. I didn't even realize Gordman's was still around, and then bam. I also like how you do this thread from an OKC-perspective, rather than just copying and pasting something for all these boards. Good job mate.

The KETV project is most cool. I think newspapers, which are hemorrhaging their footprint, are leaving slack for local broadcasting which seems to be growing into more landmark properties.

Yeah Aksarben could make a claim at hottest area of the city right now. That Gordman's HQ has 36K sq ft of retail on the ground level, they just broke ground on a Marriott Residence Inn which will be the second Marriott brand in the overall development, they are doing site prep on the new 7500 seat hockey/basketball arena for UNO. The whole development is expected to be fleshed out by the end of 2015 with another mixed use building with 150K sq ft of office space and 40K sq foot of retail, a 60K sq foot retail building, another 230 apartments and 21 condos.

It isn't a perfect example of mixed use, but it is turning into a heck of a neighborhood. It is light years above the pretty dismal North Downtown area though.

And I really enjoy keeping an eye on OKC which is why I like to put it into OKC terms here. I wanted something like Edge, Spaces fills that void a little even if its 100 units less. The reason OKC development is fun to follow is that it is going at a pace that I think Omaha can remotely aspire to. It isn't going Austin crazy where they have like 8 crane towers up right now, but it is obviously moving forward at an impressive clip. The trouble is that I might have to find a new city to follow closely. It seems like every week OKC gets another 250 unit apartment project announced or start construction, its crazy. And you guys have a ton more momentum toward a new skyscraper, something we aren't even close to up north here.

Plus I think you guys are really close to a boom town tipping point. It wont be long before the 4 story full block apartments don't make much sense in OKC and those projects start going to 15 floors.

[Plutonic Panda]

Omaha is an awesome city!!!!! I never really though much of it until I saw a few of your posts and one night I went street view happy and had myself a three hour long street view session roaming around Omaha and I really want to visit now!!!!! You have an awesome city, that I actually think OKC could learn from in a few ways, keep coming up with the updates. I really enjoy them!

[UrbanNebraska]

Our biggest project is back with plenty of gusto. The $205 million project across from the CenturyLink Center has applied for $35 million in TIF, the developer says it will start construction around the first of 2014 with a 2 year timeline. 350 room hotel, 250 apartments, 140K sq ft office space, 100K sq ft of retail/entertainment space and 750 parking stalls. This is a game changer for downtown Omaha, big time infill project.

These are from the City Council Agenda for next week.






It doesn't look like anything has changed design wise from the color renderings posted earlier in this thread either.

[Pete]

Nice!

It seems the financing purse strings are really starting to loosen for commercial projects.

Hope all this is just the start.

[Mississippi Blues]

Awesomeness!! Go Omaha!!

[UrbanNebraska]

Lots of housing units u/c downtown right now.

290 at "The Wire" office building that sat empty for two decades going apartment. Will easily be the largest apartment project downtown at a cost of $42 million with that many units. The cool part will be the rooftop pool with large garage doors to leave it open in all types of weather which will be a huge selling point during Omaha winters. Also my personal favorite part about this project is that it will only have 154 parking stalls in the building, I think it says a lot when projects downtown stop having to worry about providing parking for every single tenant.


1501 Jackson. 75 apartments with commercial space.



Jones13 100 apartments. Only 57 parking stalls, another positive sign that people are getting on the street.



The District Urban Lofts. 40 units and 4K sq foot of commercial space, 3 floors being added to the original structure.



Barker Building just opened their 42 units for rent. One of the commercial spaces is being filled by a medical clinic and full time pharmacy, developers are touting the downtown population growth and the fact that we can support a medical service like that in a high profile building. I love seeing our old buildings activated.


A Marriott Residence Inn is opening in this Art Deco gem next month, this build is so gorgeous they really don't make them like they used to.


Outside of downtown we are finally getting a real outlet mall. Considering the tenants lined up we were long overdue for one. The interesting thing with this outlet mall is the $12 million technology component going in and app is being designed specifically for this mall that will provide deals and information based on other stores you have entered and items you have bought. It is being outfitted with gigabit internet to power the service.

[IMG]http://media.graytvinc.com/images/525*350/nebraska+crossing+aerial.jpg[/IMG]

The stores are most of your outlet mall regulars, Nike, Gap ect. People are really excited by the likes of Saks, Kate Spade, Michael Kors and Coach. Developer also said they are already planning to add another 100K sq ft of space because of the demand on the original 350K sq foot. Said the expansion is going to concentrate on NYC based retailers.

Other than that we have gotten a lot of suburban office space announced, but still waiting on some downtown news. Rumblings that Pacific Life could be looking for 100K sq ft in new construction so that is something we are keeping an eye on.

By the way congrats on the streetcar news!! That is a game changer for OKC, things will never be the same after 2017.