Another architecture firm to land in the Kansas City Crossroads

The “creative vibe of the Crossroads Arts District” has pulled another Kansas City architecture firm to relocate from suburban-style office space to the urban core.

ACI Boland Architects will move over the second weekend in September from offices at 1421 E. 104th St. in south Kansas City.

“Architects are creative people, and especially with the new streetcar, we really wanted to be here,” said Suzie Apel, the firm’s director of marketing. “In our current space, we look out at a cemetery. It’s a beautiful cemetery … but it’s a cemetery.”

About 40 firm principals and associates will move into a two-story space at 1706-1710 Wyandotte. The new 13,000-square-foot offices will be in a former Film Row building that now is owned by Walnut Creek Ranch LLC.

The building is among several in the Crossroads that have been redeveloped by Shirley Helzberg at the corner of 17th and Wyandotte, including the old Webster School that was turned into a restaurant and antiques store.

ACI Boland leaders in the Kansas City office are Michael Kautz, Vic Mosby and Sam Beckman. The firm will retain its St. Louis office headed by Rick Clawson.

The firm was founded in 1979, and it underwent a leadership, ownership and branding change in 2013.

The ACI Boland move echoes an announcement made in January by Hollis + Miller, an architecture firm that is relocating from offices in Overland Park and Lee’s Summit. Hollis + Miller will move into the top three floors of the 10-story Corrigan Station building at 19th and Walnut streets when that renovation is finished. The project is targeted to be completed in December.

The new ACI Boland office combines two buildings that now are connected. The firm is doing its own tenant improvements following building shell renovations by Helix Architecture.

Other companies involved in the move and renovations are JE Dunn Construction, Designhaus, Lacy & Co., and CBRE.

Apel said some of ACI Boland’s recent work includes the Mid America Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Hospital and Liberty North High School. The firm also is working at Shawnee Mission Medical Center and with the Shawnee Mission School District on its administration building, aquatics center and several elementary schools.

This story was originally published August 30, 2016 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Another architecture firm to land in the Kansas City Crossroads."