Luxury apartments nearly ready for tenants in the West Bottoms

Sometime in August, West Bottoms developer Bill Haw Sr. hopes to look out from his renovated Livestock Exchange Building and see beds and sofas going into a new three-story building across the street.

Haw’s Stockyards Place luxury apartment building is preparing for renters at 1505 Genessee St., the heart of Kansas City’s historic stockyards district.

The new 11-unit apartment building — the first new housing in the district to be built from scratch in about a century — is a modern contrast to its next-door neighbor, the 106-year-old Daily Drover Telegram Newspaper building that now houses Amigoni Winery’s tasting room.

“It’s high end,” Haw says of the $7 million-plus Stockyards Place. “It’s polished concrete floors, top-of-the-line kitchens, beautiful metal work railings by Pakistani artist Asheer Akram on the balconies.”

It’s also a test to see whether renters are ready to pay high-end prices in the West Bottoms, an area where housing inroads so far are modestly priced conversions in old warehouse buildings. Rents are expected to range from about $1,600 month for a studio up to $5,600 a month for the building’s only three-bedroom unit.

Haw, who’s invested more than $20 million in West Bottoms property and renovations, has high hopes for residential development in the area. He’s also signed an agreement to sell the former Golden Ox restaurant parking lot on Genessee to developers who plan a 230-unit, market-rate apartment building on the site.

“My goal has been redeveloping the stockyard district from a rat-infested place to an identifiable neighborhood for people to live and work,” Haw said. “I want to see families living here.”

He’s well aware of livability factors affecting West Bottoms’ perceptions. At the north end of the area, on the other side of Interstate 670, a new minimum security prison is going in. But Haw thinks the prison is a non-issue as far as his projects are concerned; it’s too far away.

Also, the fate of Kemper Arena and the American Royal — the reasons why some visitors go to the West Bottoms — remains in question. As for Kemper, Haw hopes it will get a lot more use under a Foutch Brothers plan to make it a site for youth sports. He’s lined up to be an investor if that happens.

And Haw said he won’t be sad if the American Royal moves to Wyandotte County. Except for the once-a-year barbecue contest, he said, the American Royal adds little jolt to the West Bottoms economy. He’d rather the site be developed for year-round use.

Principals making Stockyards Place happen include CentricProjects, general contractor; KEM Studio, designer; Foss Seligson & Lafferty, architects/planners; BHC Rhodes, civil engineers; PKMR, engineers; PMA, engineers; and Livestock Exchange LLC. The development received a 50 percent property tax abatement.

This story was originally published June 9, 2015 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Luxury apartments nearly ready for tenants in the West Bottoms."