By Kevin Collison
The East Crossroads may be getting a new residential option for people who want to own their homes rather than rent with a plan being pursued for what’s now a parking lot at 19th and Locust.
Developers Lance Carlton and Lee Berman are planning a 13-unit townhouse project on a site next to the Arte KC apartment development.
“We believe there area people who are renting downtown who like downtown and want to be owners,” Carlton said.
“Lee and I looked at what’s successful in today’s market and that’s in the for-sales market in urban neighborhoods.”
Until the 341-unit Arte development, formerly Artistry KC, opened in 2020, the East Crossroads had no new housing opportunities to go along with its increasing popularity as a homegrown entertainment, microbrewery and shopping district.
Carlton had worked with Milhaus, the Indianapolis developer of Arte KC, in the past on a couple urban projects and persuaded the firm to sell the half-acre lot where the townhouse project is being proposed.
“We’d love to do smaller, 50-unit apartment projects, we’re good at it, but in today’s market, with the cost of construction going up, rents aren’t keeping pace with inflation,” Berman said.
Instead, they decided a townhome project that would offer people an opportunity to buy relatively large, 2,300 square-foot homes, would appeal to the same demographic buying residences on the Westside and Beacon Hill.
“They’re going to be awesome townhomes, four stories, rooftop deck, with a view of downtown,” Berman said.
The proposal calls for each townhouse to have three bedrooms, three and a half baths and a two-car garage.
The asking price for the townhouses hasn’t been determined.
The developers plan to submit a permit application to the city within the next couple weeks. Both said the City Planning Department has been helpful reviewing their development plan.
If the process goes smoothly, work could begin this Fall.
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Sounds like these will still be out of reach economically for most buyers, but a) I’m really happy someone is proposing something besides more apartments; and b) I’m really happy people are looking at East Crossroads for more housing development.
Not being a developer, I wonder what the cost differential is between something like these, and building smaller, more modest townhomes but being able to build more of them on the same amount of space.
I’m also curious if you know anything about the status of Via KC in the Freight District. It seems like it’s just been a hole in the ground for like a year now. The entirety of Three Light went up in the time it’s taken them to dig out that garage. I live in the area and when I go for runs I often go down there and never, ever see it being worked on. Just curious.