Cordish considers Midland office building for affordable housing

Kansas City officials and Power & Light District developer Cordish are in discussions about a plan to convert the historic Midland office building into 100 units of affordable housing.

Cordish has been under pressure from some City Council members to include low and moderately priced apartments in its development of the downtown entertainment district.

The 100 apartments at Midland would be in lieu of affordable units in three of Cordish's existing or planned luxury high rises. Two Light, with about 300 units, is scheduled to open this summer. Construction on Three Light, also with about 300 apartments, is expected to begin before the end of the year at Truman Road and Grand Boulevard.

The Midland plan, outlined Monday by City Manager Troy Schulte in a meeting with The Star's editorial board, would also eliminate any requirement for affordable housing in Four Light, if and when it is built. The plan would not cover the first Cordish tower, One Light, which opened in 2015.

Power & Light District executive director Nick Benjamin said in a statement that no agreement has been reached.

"As we’ve been doing for the last two years, we’ve been having ongoing conversations with the city about 3 Light in efforts to see if there is a common ground to be found," Benjamin said. "We are continuing to have those conversations."

The possible use of the Midland building for affordable housing is the latest twist in negotiations between City Hall and the Baltimore-based company. The matter could be resolved as early as Thursday at the council legislative session.

The city and Cordish are partners in a 99-year development agreement struck in 2004. It provides that the city build underground parking garages with each new apartment high-rise.

With construction on Three Light expected to begin soon, Cordish asked the city for an amendment to the 2004 pact that appropriates $17.5 million for a third garage. The request has raised questions about how heavily the city should continue subsidize Cordish — given the success of One and Two Light and growing spending pressures on the municipal general fund — without getting more in return.

Councilwomen Alissia Canady and Katheryn Shields introduced a resolution earlier this month directing Schulte to renegotiate the agreement with Cordish. The resolution called for at least 15 percent of the units in Three Light, and any future Cordish projects downtown, to be set aside for low and moderate-income tenants.

The company said the financing structure of Three Light did not permit affordable units. But it offered to reduce the 99-year agreement by half and set aside 10 percent of units beginning with Four Light.

Schulte said Monday that the scenario under discussion calls for Cordish to convert the Midland building, at 13th and Baltimore, to affordable housing at the same time it is constructing Three Light. In exchange, the city would still build the $17.5 million garage and appropriate an additional $3.8 million to pay for additional parking.

The 12-story Midland building, which Cordish owns, is adjacent to the 1920s-vintage theater. It has long been a part of the company's downtown housing plans. In 2012, Cordish said the building would be converted into 63 market-rate apartments. The proposed affordable units would be available to tenants who made up to about $50,000 a year, the city's median income.

Canady said Monday that she could not support the new proposal. She said any new housing downtown needs to include a mix of incomes. Such concentration of low-income tenants — 100 affordable apartments in a building envisioned to hold 63 market-rate units — was undesirable

"It's not good for families, and it has a negative impact on the community," she said.

Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner, who attended the editorial board meeting along with Council members Jolie Justus and Jermaine Reed, said the idea seemed to address concerns about affordability. He also and that it was not fair to ask Cordish to reconfigure Three Light to include low-income units at this point.

"You're looking at steel tariffs. The cost of construction is going up, the cost of borrowing is going up," Wagner said. "All of those things are moving."

This story was originally published March 19, 2018 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Cordish considers Midland office building for affordable housing."