On a corner of Troost Avenue where Wonder Bread used to be baked and distributed, a local development partnership is cooking up a redevelopment project called Wonder.
Exact Wonder LLC bought the roughly 115,000-square-foot bakery building at the northeast corner of 30th Street and Troost about a year ago and plans to convert 80,000 square feet of it into 84 market-rate apartments. An additional 35,000 square feet will be leased for restaurant, retail and office uses.
Built for Campbell Baking Co. in 1915 and added onto five times through the years, the long-vacant brick building had attracted few prospective buyers, allowing partners Caleb Buland of Kansas City and Ilan Salzberg of Denver to snap it up for just a little more than $500,000, said their incentives consultant, Bob Mayer of MR Capital Advisors.
But conversion of the historic property, the oldest portion of which predated sliced Wonder Bread by 15 years, is expected to cost nearly $15 million, Mayer said.
Therefore, the developers plan to seek public assistance via a property tax abatement next month from Kansas City’s Planned Industrial Expansion Authority. Mayer said the site is in a PIEA district, meaning the area already has been declared blighted. A financial analysis to determine the size of the financing gap the developers need to fill via the abatement already is underway, he added.
Buland is a partner with Exact Architects and has worked on the design of several historic preservation projects for Foutch Brothers LLC and other developers, Mayer said.
Elizabeth Rosin of Rosin Preservation completed the research necessary to get the so-called Campbell-Continental Baking Co. Building listed on the National Register of Historic Places earlier this year, making its redevelopment eligible for state and federal historic tax credit financing, as well.
Campbell Baking moved its headquarters to the corner of 30th and Troost in 1915 and expanded its plant there in 1922. During the same year, the company became part of the United Bakeries Corp., which became part of the Continental Baking Corp. in 1925, Rosin said.
Campbell Baking retained its original name and continued to produce some of its locally recognized baked foods under Continental’s ownership. But the 30th and Troost plant was used largely to produce Continental products, which included the signature Hostess and Wonder Bread brands it obtained via the 1925 acquisition of Indianapolis-based Taggart Baking Co.
In 1995, Kansas City-based Interstate Bakeries Corp. acquired Continental and took over its facilities, including the building at 30th and Troost, where manufacturing continued until the plant was shut down in 1997.
Mayer said the repurposing of the property as Wonder will add to the development momentum that’s been building along Troost — Kansas City’s former racial dividing line.
With nearby redevelopment projects like those at Beacon Hill and the intersection of Armour Boulevard and Troost, the area is starting to resemble the Crossroads Arts District in its fledgling days, Mayer said.
Located adjacent to Kansas City Public Schools’ new administrative offices, Wonder will be a trendy project that millennials will want to be a part of, he added.
Close to workplaces like Hospital Hill and entertainment hot spots like Martini Corner, the project will include one- through three-bedroom units with surface and structured parking and lots of amenities.
“The building will feature large loft apartments with huge windows, boutique commercial/retail spaces on the corner of 30th Street, and an artisan and services business incubator,” Buland said. “Amenities will include indoor secured parking, large outdoor patios, a green rooftop, public fitness club and the mixed-use services on site.
“I think we are the first major construction on that block in 30 years, and we can’t wait to break ground.”
The developers hope to start construction before the end of the year and have units ready for occupancy by late summer or early fall next year.
Source: Kansas City Business Journal, http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2016/09/08/historic-kc-bakery-slated-to-be-wonder-lofts.html
M R Capital Advisors LLC 