The Colliers Government Solutions team represents owners of government-leased properties nationally. So, we travel a lot. This slideshow profiles my trip earlier this year to Kansas City–both Missouri and Kansas. Yes, there is snow on the ground because I took these photos several months ago and I’m just now posting them to the blog. (Use arrow buttons to advance slides)
When I'm traveling, I have a knack for running into extreme weather. Last year I walked out of the Fresno, California, airport into a 109 degree blast furnace (a record high for that year--see "Greetings From Fresno"). Last March when I visited Kansas City, I shuffled out of the airport into one of the coldest days in K.C. history. The HIGH temperature did not exceed 5 degrees fahrenheit, an all-time record for Kansas City in March. The cold temperature brought a lot of snow too. Fortunately, my car (here driving off the Hertz rental lot) had 4-wheel drive. The IRS has a ton of real estate and some huge buildings (after all, they process more than 240 million tax filings every year), yet none are larger than this remarkable facility at 333 W. Pershing Road, just south of downtown Kansas City, MO. This 1.4 MSF IRS campus integrates the newly constructed service center you see here with an adjacent historic post office building that serves as the public entrance to the facility. The federal government has a high probability of renewal, especially when the building was purpose built for their use. Yet, every once-in-a-blue-moon the tenant will up and leave a built-to-suit building solely for the purpose of finding lower rent. Such was the case in Kansas City in 2012 when EPA vacated this building at 901 N 5th Street in Kansas City, KS, and moved 21 miles outside the city to occupy a former Applebee's corporate headquarters in Lenexa. They left behind this 203,000 RSF office building with stunning glass atrium and roof. That is Kansas City, MO, you see of to the right through the glass wall. Just down the hill from the aforementioned EPA regional headquarters is the EPA Science & Technology Center, where EPA tests air, water, soil and toxic waste. The LEED Gold facility, built in 2003 for @$21 million, is one of 10 EPA regional labs in the U.S. Here is the entrance to the Bannister Federal Complex, the sprawling 310-acre, 5.1 MSF federal campus that has housed the federal government since WWII. The bulk of the Bannister complex--more than 3 million square feet--had been devoted to the National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City plant, a facility that manufactures or procures most of the parts that comprise our nuclear weapons arsenal. That plant has recently relocated and the major remaining tenant, GSA, will be moving to a leased facility next year. This campus will be completely redeveloped in 2016. This aerial (care of Google Maps) shows the new National Nuclear Security Administration plant--now named the Kansas City Responsive Infrastructure, Manufacturing and Sourcing (KCRIMS) campus--under construction about eight miles south of the Bannister Federal Complex. The aerial is a bit dated because the 1.5 MSF, LEED Gold facility is complete and NNSA completed its move-in last month. Aside from its unique purpose, the facility is also notable for being the second largest GSA lease in the United States. The Kansas City Plant existed for 65 years at its Bannister location. How long will it operate here? The Kansas City area is home to more than 25 million square feet of subsurface real estate, most of it converted from former limestone mines. The federal government is one of the largest tenants in these underground facilities, typically using them for low-cost, humidity and temperature controlled archival and file storage. Some of these underground warehouses are even Energy Star certified. See our "Archiving the Federal Government" blog article for more info on these unique facilities.
Cold as a...
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Nation's Largest Leased IRS Facility
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Sometimes the Government Does Not Renew
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EPA's Regional Lab
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Bannister Federal Complex
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The New Kansas City Plant
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Underground File Storage
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