KC Convention Center wins top global rating for clean, healthy facilities

Kansas City’s largest event space, the Kansas City Convention Center, has achieved accreditation from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) STAR™ program for its cleaning, disinfection and infectious disease prevention practices.

The City of Kansas City worked with Visit KC to earn this designation, which is recognized by industry leaders as the gold standard for prepared facilities. The GBAC STAR program verifies that the Kansas City Convention Center has implemented best practices to prepare for, respond to and recover from outbreaks and pandemics such as COVID-19.

“The GBAC STAR accreditation empowers facility owners and managers to assure workers, customers and key stakeholders that they have proven systems in place to maintain clean and healthy environments,” said GBAC executive director Patricia Olinger.

“By taking this important step to pursue its accreditation, the Kansas City Convention Center has received third-party validation that it follows strict protocols for biorisk situations, thereby demonstrating its preparedness and commitment to operating safely.”

The result of a rigorous, 90-day application and review process, the accreditation was praised on Thursday by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“I applaud the Kansas City Convention Center for reaching the prestigious Global Biorisk Advisory Council STAR status,” said Mayor Lucas.

“Kansas City takes seriously our responsibility to keep our residents and visitors alike healthy and safe, and this is yet another example of that commitment. Thank you to the Convention Center and Visit KC for their work to achieve this status.”

To achieve GBAC STAR accreditation, the Kansas City Convention Center was required to demonstrate compliance with the program’s 20 core elements, which range from standard operating procedures and risk assessment strategies to personal protective equipment and emergency preparedness and response measures.

“Our staff is dedicated to keeping our facilities clean and safe, and we are gratified by this recognition of our work and our commitment to our customers,” said Oscar McGaskey, director of the Kansas City Convention Center. “Our staff will keep it up with continuous training.”

The KC Convention Center is the third facility in the region to achieve this distinction, following the Overland Park Convention Center and Arrowhead Stadium.

“Meetings and conventions are significant economic drivers for our destination, and this third-party endorsement reinforces our City’s dedication to resuming that important business responsibly,” said Visit KC president & CEO Jason Fulvi.

“I applaud and thank our partners at the KC Convention Center, as well as Mayor Lucas, the City Council and the KCMO health director for working with Visit KC to implement safety procedures throughout our community, all of which will help position Kansas City to welcome visitors and attendees back safely and effectively when the time is right,” Fulvi said.

To learn more about the GBAC STAR program or view a list of accredited facilities, visit www.gbac.org. For information about the KC Clean Commitment and other ways Kansas City is responding to COVID-19 as a convention industry, go to VisitKC.com/SafeMeetings.

Amazon, Zoom, robot megatrends set new pace for CRE

The Kansas City chapter of CoreNet Global hosted futurist Nikki Greenberg for a virtual presentation on Thursday, November 5.

Greenberg, an architect by trade, worked in real estate development in Sydney, Australia before relocating to New York four years ago where she founded Real Estate of the Future, American PropTech and Women in PropTech.

According to Greenberg, the pandemic accelerated technological changes that were already underway and created opportunities for the commercial real estate industry to embrace these changes.

“We have a construction site without a blueprint. The world has fundamentally changed. The industry’s been blowing up, and there’s rubble everywhere. As real estate professionals, it’s up to us to decide now that we know that things have been dismantled, what do we want to build . What do we want the future to look like for our industry, our assets, for our buildings and for the people who occupy them,” Greenberg said.

Although technology is changing at an exponential rate, Greenberg said we tend to think about the here and now; however, there are several megatrends that are going to cause fundamental shifts within the commercial real estate industry.

The pandemic increased the prevalence of checking in with our devices, using QR codes and other methods of touch-free entry into buildings. Greenberg said these types of technology are here to stay.

“So you do want to be thinking about your touch-free access and how you’re using technology for your building and your spaces to make it a more pleasurable experience,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg said that because of the uncertainty of when people will return to the office and what future space requirements will be, flex space operators are the future because they are flexible and nimble. Flex space is designed to respond to current conditions and absorb risk.

“They have desks that anyone can jump in on, depending on the provider. So, you give that uncertainty over to a third party. Then it becomes a shared space and you’re not having to have redundant space that’s not being used,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said that Amazon represents a megatrend, and the real estate industry needs to watch what Amazon is doing.

“Amazon is very much making a new market. They are big consumers of real estate and of course all of the technological changes that they’re bringing--drones, robots, and so forth--and that’s going to start impacting our assets and sales,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said that nine out of the top ten purchases on Amazon this year have been electronics, including laptops, iPads, ear buds and AirPods - devices that users can move around their space.

“So people aren’t wanting to have a fixed workspace; they’re not buying desktop computers. They’re wanting to choose where they work. So we should be thinking about that in terms of workplace design. People want to choose where they work,” she said.

Greenberg said using robots represents another megatrend.

“I think within our industry, robots provide a huge opportunity and will be hugely disruptive, but we just aren’t speaking about them enough,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg noted that in warehouse spaces, robots can move parcels; in office spaces, they can deliver parcels to desks; and on college campuses, robots deliver food. And, she said, all the delivery companies have been experimenting with drones and are working to obtain clearance to make drone deliveries.

“In the future, how are packages being delivered? Are they coming through the front door or through a loading dock or are they coming through the roof or a window,” said Greenberg.

Another megatrend is the emergence of Zoom, which, Greenberg said, fundamentally has shifted the way we work.

“So you have to think about how you design for Zoom to connect people that are working from home or working from a third place with those that are in the office working there physically or in a Board room,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said it’s up to us to choose how much we want to embrace the new technologies and new ways of working.

“The reality is that as the way we live changes, the way we provide our spaces to facilitate the activities happening inside needs to change alongside with it,” she said.

Opus industrial spec begins construction, leasing

Project developer, design-builder, architect and engineer of record, The Opus Group, has begun construction on Heartland Meadows Commerce Center, a 182,000-SF industrial development located within the Heartland Meadows Industrial Park.

It will be the first speculative building constructed in the Liberty, Mo. park within the last decade, yet another example of the current, unmistakable strength of Kansas City’s industrial market.

Kessinger Hunter has begun marketing space for up to eight tenants in the newly announced building.

“We’re thrilled to be leasing this new, modern space in the Kansas City market. It’s exciting to see how much the Liberty market has grown and continues to grow. There is demand for spaces like this in a well-established industrial park with a strong labor pool and will serve the needs of businesses and the community alike,” said Matthew Severns, principal in industrial brokerage at Kessinger Hunter.

The speculative development will provide four double entrances, 220 parking stalls, 32-foot clear height, up to 43 dock positions, two drive-in doors, and trailer parking.

Located at 2810 West Heartland Drive (northwest corner of Shepard Road and West Heartland Drive), the location offers nearby access to I-35 and U.S. Highway 69.

Each double entrance emphasizes a wide architectural design element that consists of contrasting colors and projecting canopies. The projecting canopies are designed with high-quality composite panels and illuminated soffits with available overhead wall area to accommodate tenant signage.

The warehouse space features clerestory windows for exceptional natural daylight and uses energy-efficient LED lighting. Construction is scheduled for an August 2021 completion date.

For leasing information, please contact Matthew Severns or Patrick McGannon at 816-842-2690.

Flexibility, vision key to KC law firm's success

Until the 2008 financial crisis, Mandi Hunter’s law practice focused on representing banks and lenders in litigation.  During the recession that followed, she began more real estate transactions work, including loan modifications.

In the wake of the recession, Hunter saw a market in the Kansas City area for a law firm that was based on real estate and secured transactions work —a firm that could handle a matter “from the ground up.”

Hunter realized her vision in 2014 and opened the Hunter Law Group, P.A., a full service real estate-focused firm. 

Today that law firm is staffed by four attorneys who have more than 90 years of experience between them:  Hunter, Stephanie Hammann, Susan DeCoursey and Christine Schlomann.  The firm also has one paralegal.

The firm handles both real estate litigation and transactions work.  Their clients include banks, agencies and brokerages, contractors, developers, investors and others with matters that touch on real estate.

“We know how to get a deal done,” said Schlomann, who recently joined the firm.

Hunter said the attorneys in her firm give clients a more personal level of service than the larger law firms at more client-friendly rates.

“We’re just as effective but much more efficient.  We’re not burdened by the red tape of the big corporate firm.  It gives us more flexibility,” said Hunter.

“We have a really collegial environment, and I feel like we have that with our clients too,” said Hunter.

Hunter said the biggest challenge the firm currently faces is litigation during COVID.

“It’s a whole different ballgame in terms of practicing.  How you’re interacting with the courts and opposing counsel, depositions, trials, that’s been the biggest impact on our practice due to the pandemic,” Hunter said.

“It’s very hard to do an evidentiary hearing or a trial with everyone in a different room, and all you see is just what you can see in front of the camera,” said Schlomann.

Hunter said she does not have any current plans to grow the firm, but the firm does have the ability to grow and adapt if the need arises, as they have from the beginning.

“There is not much that walks through the door that we would have to send away,” said Hunter.