GSA may set off downtown shuffle - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Brad Scott, the General Services Administration' s regional administrator in Kansasx City, said he hopes to contact potentiall tenants for the building within a few The largest prospect isthe GSA. As many as 1,00 0 people now working for thefederal government's landlord could head to Scott said. Those employeesd are in more than 300,000 square feet at the Bannistef Federal Complex in southKansas City. The next-largesf contingent, 500 to 600 people, alreadyg work in Downtown for the at 901Locustt St. The DOT is the sole tenant at 901Locustt St., occupying more than 200,000 square feet. The 10-year-old buildin g is owned by a unit of the Southern Ute Indianh Tribeof Ignacio, Colo.
, that buys investment-grade property. The GSA's tenant solicitation also will includrethe , now split between 1201 Walnut St. and City Cented Square at 1100Main St., and the at 9221 Ward Scott said the potential consolidation woul d strengthen Downtown while securingt Kansas City's standing as a regional federapl headquarters. The feds occupy 10.7 milliohn square feet in metropolitanKansas City, nearly half the Heartland Region'd four-state total, which also includese St. Louis. The GSA's Kansas City presencs also outstrips those of regional GSA headquarters inChicago (9.1 millionm square feet), Atlanta (8.9 million square feet), Denvefr (8.5 million square feet) and Dallas-Fort Worth (7.
2 million square feet). Scott said the buildingv proposed forKansas City, containing 616,000 rentabl e square feet, also would provide more downtowmn parking. The East Village where 's new headquarters is being built northeasf ofCity Hall, has displaced upwarde of 2,000 parking spaces mainlhy used by people working in the Richarx Bolling Federal Building, 601 E. 12th St. The proposedc building would needabout 1,200 more spaces.
Othere downtown development probably will further tighte theparking squeeze, Scott "Once you lay in the (Kansas Power & Light once we secure hockey and basketball for the Sprintf Center, once the East Village is laid in, it doesn'yt take a rocket scientist to know we're going to need he said. The Downtown Council of Kansas City is continuingb to push Uncle Sam to locate the new buildintg in the East Sean O'Byrne, the council's vice presidentf of business development, said the project would boost downtownb retail business and draw othe federal agencies and their vendors. Officer brokers said the new building's effect woul be mixed.
Debora Field of said that extinguishinfalmost 275,000 square feet of downtown leases would burden "z market that's already extremely soft and not reboundingh soon." Tim Schaffer of said he expectx Downtown's overhaul to generate office demand by the new federap building's anticipated opening in late 2011. Space vacated by the feds couldr ridethis wave, he The 1201 Walnut building, home to Greatg Plains Energy Inc. and , has one of Downtown'd highest occupancy rates. City Center Square's vacancies are but the building is next door to thePowefr & Light District.
The 901 Locust building was developed for the governmentt but could attractanother "The federal government competes, just as the private secto r does, for labor," Schaffer said, "ans a big part of attracting that labor is havinh a great environment for people to