New $20 million plan to redevelop midtown Loretto building emerges

After years of delay, a new development group wants to pick up on a plan to turn the former Sisters of the Loretto building in midtown Kansas City into 121 hotel rooms.

Loretto KC Hotel Redevelopment Corp., a business that includes principals from Dallas-based Behringer Lodging Group and Block Real Estate Services broker Matt Levi, presented a plan Wednesday morning for a $20 million conversion of the stately building into a boutique hotel.

John Bregin Jr. owns the building and since 2012 has had a contract to sell the campus to a group that had planned an American Indian Center of the Great Plains. But the sale never closed. In the meantime, the property has fallen behind on three years of property taxes.

Bregin said that the property taxes were not paid during the time the property was under contract to the group planning the American Indian Center, based on the terms of the deal.

When that contract was terminated in 2015, Bregin said he wanted to pay the property taxes in full, but the Behringer Lodging Group requested that it pay the taxes at the close of its sale.

Behringer Lodging Group has since taken interest in the Loretto, which leases some of its rooms for apartments and rents space for weddings.

The current hotel plan includes space for a 1,000-square-foot restaurant and an adjoining bar. The hotel would be operated by Sage Hospitality, which operates hotels large and small, including the well-known Crawford Hotel at Denver’s Union Station.

Future plans involve a separate structures on the campus for apartments.

The development team brought its plans before the Chapter 353 Advisory Board for an amendment on a previous tax abatement plan to allow for a larger hotel. The board recommended approval of the amendment, which will go before the Kansas City Council for its final say.

The Chapter 353 abatement on the property lasts until 2022, which at this point abates 50 percent of property taxes on the Loretto campus.

Mathew Comfort of the Behringer Lodging Group, said the development team plans to seek state and federal historic tax credits.

The Volker Neighborhood Group sent a letter to the developers expressing their support for the project.

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 11:40 AM with the headline "New $20 million plan to redevelop midtown Loretto building emerges."