City’s Development Agency Relocates to River Market

By Kevin Collison

The New York-based owner of the 3Y building in the River Market has landed an influential tenant, the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City, a deal that means the building at 300 Wyandotte is now fully leased.

“We’re excited to welcome the EDC to the 3Y Building,” Basel Bataineh, vice president of SomeraRoad, said in a statement.

“It’s been a pleasure to partner with them on providing the type of modern, Class A office space they need to advocate on behalf of the City of Kansas City.”

The building at 300 Wyandotte originally was built in 2005 for Populous architecture, but had been mostly vacant since the company relocated to the South Plaza in 2015.

It was purchased in August 2016 by Somera Road and rebranded 3Y. In April, Somera announced it had landed WSP USA, an international engineering firm, taking its occupancy to 90 percent.

The EDC deal completes the turnaround in the occupancy of the building.

The EDC is the city’s umbrella economic development organization, and provides research and support to development agencies including the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, Tax Increment Finance Commission and the Land Clearance Redevelopment Agency.

The EDC is responsibilities include analyzing private development proposals seeking public tax incentive help and making recommendations based on a “but-for” analysis. “But-for” the public tax incentive help, the deal would not be financially viable.

Bob Langenkamp

The publicity about the EDC move was included in a release that announced the departure of Bob Langenkamp, who resigned Monday as EDC president and CEO.

Langenkamp, a longtime city development executive, ran the EDC for five years and previously was the assistant city manager for economic development.

In the interim, Greg Flisram, currently Senior Vice President of Business & Real Estate Development, will
act as president and CEO.

The EDC and its associate agencies relocated from the Town Pavilion office tower to 3Y, a move that involves about 30- to 35 employees. The organization signed a 10 year lease for about 10,000 square feet of space.

In addition to their office space on the fourth floor, the EDC intends to take advantage of the building’s 2,000 square-foot conference center on the second floor to hold public meetings for its development agencies including the PIEA and TIF Commission, and community events, according to Bataineh.

Langenkamp said the EDC move was prompted by its lease expiring at Town Pavilion and what it saw as more efficient space available at 3Y.

“We had a fairly inefficient office layout at Town Pavilion,” he said. “We worked with the building owners here (3Y) to create a more efficient layout.

“We also need to provide for large meetings and the building owner was willing to construct that space.”