With a new baseball development deal, construction should start soon, right? Wrong.
Now that the city of Wichita has finalized details for a single firm to move forward with development plans around Riverfront Stadium, it’s logical to expect the much-delayed construction finally will commence any day now.
However, that’s not the case.
The earliest dirt will move will be next summer — the same time that the original development deal was supposed to be completed by.
At the latest, Overland Park-based EPC Real Estate Group has until next fall to start construction on the revised plan — a more than $100 million project that still includes a hotel, retail space and a parking garage but now has apartments in place of an office structure.
This may seem like a long wait on top of already protracted wait, but EPC executive vice president Austin Bradley said it’s not because the firm isn’t jumping on it immediately.
“We’re diving in head first.”
Between now and next fall, EPC has to submit finalized plans to the city.
“It’s kind of a multi-tier milestone,” Bradley said of benchmarks the firm has to hit.
If EPC hasn’t commenced construction by next fall, he said, “We would be in default, and the city could buy back the property.”
If it came to that, the city would pay the same $1 an acre it charged EPC and the Wind Surge development group before that.
Bradley said it won’t come to that.
“We’re targeting summer.”
Though that’s his ideal goal, Bradley said there are too many unknowns at this point to conclusively say that will happen.
“We need to get into this. It’s still pretty fresh.”
In early August the city voted to buy back two of the 4 acres of prime riverfront land it sold for $1 apiece to the New Orleans Baby Cakes in an effort to lure a Minor League Baseball team to Wichita.
That was the solution to about a year of fragile negotiations the city had with Wichita Riverfront Limited Partnership — the development group for the team that became the Wichita Wind Surge — and EPC, which WRLP had brought in as a partner.
The partners had technically started construction, according to their contract with the city, last summer by putting up construction fencing. Then that fencing disappeared and developers rescinded a building permit they’d filed. Except for continued failed negotiations, everything remained at a standstill until last month.
While Bradley still can’t say for sure when construction will start, he said he can say when it will end.
“We’ll be done within two and a half years.”
Why the wait?
There are two main things preventing construction from starting today:
Site revisions and the Arkansas River.
The city, working in conjunction with EPC, is responsible for riverfront improvements, such as enhanced paths and gathering spaces.
Bradley said there are a lot of jurisdictions involved, and there are a lot of approvals needed before lowering the river’s level in advance of development.
“That’s just a process,” he said.
He described it as “just kind of a different layer of complications.”
The development’s buildings will sit east and west of McLean, and the plan for the east side remains pretty much the same.
That includes one of New York-based Dream Hotel Group’s concepts called Unscripted Hotels.
“That’s right on the river,” Bradley said. “It’ll have a high level of engagement with the public.”
What he means is the plan is for the hotel to be more of a community space for Wichitans to use rather than simply being a place for out-of-towners to stay.
The approximately 160-room hotel, which will have seven or eight stories, will be situated between McLean and the Arkansas River.
There will be a marquee restaurant, a coffee bar, a lobby bar and a rooftop lounge with cocktails and light fare. From there, guests will be able to see into most of the stadium.
There will be a fitness center and conference and event space. A pool is under consideration.
In contrast, the west-side plan has changed.
“It’s totally different,” Bradley said.
Instead of a six-story office complex with a sky bridge to the hotel, there will be 180 high-end multifamily units on top of commercial retail space. The apartments will be situated west of McLean and north of Maple, or by the stadium’s right field.
The apartments will be on about the same level as EPC’s nearby 225 Sycamore apartments in Delano.
There also will be a parking garage with about 280 spaces that EPC will build, sell to the city and lease back. Anyone from the apartments, hotel, ballpark or greater community will be able to use the garage.
On top of the garage, there will be a pool for the apartments.
“So you can literally be swimming and overlooking the baseball field,” Bradley said.
The redesign from office to apartments and changes to the garage require a lot of design changes, which is a big part of why EPC can’t get started on construction for another dozen or so months.
“We need every bit of that if not more,” Bradley said of the extra time. “It sounds like a lot of time, but that’s . . . what our design team needs.”
Cost analysis
When EPC and WRLP first announced their plans in December 2021, they anticipated the development would cost about $65 million.
At some point, that jumped to about around $75 million.
Now, it’s projected to be more than $100 million due to rising costs in construction and the cost of reconfiguring the project.
“It’s all of those things coupled together,” Bradley said.
He’s confident in the project and that the expense will be worth it.
“We very much believe in the area and feel like we are part of the community.”
Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson is similarly positive.
So does he think that means years from now, the drama behind the ballpark and its development will be mostly forgotten, and Wichitans will think of it all as a success?
“I do,” Anderson said.
“I feel like that if this development occurs as we all anticipate it, we will look back and realize it may have been a challenge to get where we are today, but I truly think that this is just the first project of many surrounding the ballpark and the riverfront. We’re seeing some real change and some real momentum in downtown.”
