Feature photo (L to R): Monica Dahl, Michelle Kaiser and Courtney Kounkel. Photo credit: MWM KC | Marcia Charney
Groundbreaking ceremony kicks off today for Charlotte Street Foundation
A groundbreaking ceremony will kick off at 5pm today to celebrate the soon-to-be start of construction for Charlotte Street Foundation’s new campus, located near Roanoke Park.
Charlotte Street Foundation was established in 1997 in response to a lack of creative, social and economic resources for Kansas City artists. The organization has steadily expanded its suite of services to include special commissions, free studio residencies, exhibition and performance space for artists, and advocacy with local and national philanthropic business and civic leaders. Charlotte Street is also the only organization in the region that grants artists direct monetary support.
The new campus – a two-building industrial complex – is located at 3333 Wyoming Street and will offer nearly 25,000 SF of operating space. Charlotte Street’s relocation will repurpose the closed, segregated buildings into a flexible, open, community-focused hub of activity.
The building concept starts with the idea of an artist’s village. Hufft, who leads the design, focused on connections: artists to other artists; artists to the greater community; artists to the Charlotte Street staff; and artists to the surrounding landscape.
The building opens up both vertically and horizontally, starting with inserting a main reception that connects the lower and upper terraces. As the new collective entrance to the building it ensures that everyone passes through the same space regardless of how they access the hilly site. It serves as a lobby, an incubator, a lecture hall with large cascading staircase, and the first space for a chance interaction. From here the building opens up vertically, so that from the reception you can see up to the artist’s studio levels, forming the next level of community interaction.
The final step is the insertion of large openings into the windowless industrial building, providing a glimpse to the outside and connecting the artists to both the surrounding community and lush landscape. The result is a continuous internal village streetscape, where artists step outside their studio to find themselves in an active continuous space, one that connects down to the reception, artist’s courtyard, and beyond.
The foundation moved its offices to the new campus in October and continues to operate their 2019 programming out of various metro area locations. With construction kicking off this summer, current project schedules have the transition of resources to the campus taking place in the first quarter of 2020.
Hufft leads the design along with the project team of Benson Method, who serves as the Owner Representative. Newkirk Novak is the general contractor, 40North is the landscape architect, and engineering support for the project is provided by Lankford Fendler as MEP.
The Charlotte Street Foundation Groundbreaking Ceremony is today, June 12 starting at 5pm at 3325-3335 Wyoming Street. There will be a guided tour and feature artists performing throughout the event.
Healthcare Panelists: Disruptors include tech, politics and consumer-centric market
Several disruptive trends could provide headwinds to the typically stable healthcare development market over the next two years, including insurance industry uncertainty, shifting political power, ongoing consumer demand for mobile connectivity, and a move to patient-centric drivers in service delivery.
Panelists offered insight into those trends and more at MetroWire Media’s 2018 Healthcare Summit on June 26 at Blue Hills Country Club. Moderated by Dan Lacy, McCownGordon Construction vice president of operations, here’s a snapshot of comments:
“The landscape for healthcare in general is the most dynamic it has ever been in KC. If you look from Holmes Road along I-435 to Metcalf Avenue, you’ve had 450,000 square feet of new construction occur. So that corridor and that visibility takes on a rank-and-file in commercial real estate that we have never seen before-- to the delight of investors, to the delight of institutional owners and to the delight of real estate developers.” -Suzanne Dimmel, Senior Vice President, Cushman & Wakefield
“Getting patient care close to home is obviously a big factor, and you also have the search for getting market share, so bringing patients back to the 'mothership' hospitals-- whether it’s tertiary care or regional hospitals-- you see providers really trying to gather that market share.” -Mitch Hoefer, Founding Principal, Hoefer Wysocki
“We are building critical care clinics that are non-traditional in a sense because they are owned by the insurance companies themselves. They are eliminating the middle man to keep costs down, and we are seeing this all over the country.” -Kevin Rogers, CEO, United Excel
“I think you will see growth in outpatient recovery and sending people home with medical equipment that is connected back to the ‘mothership,’ so patients don’t have to recover for the entire time in the hospital. That could actually reduce the numbers of beds.” -Rick Embers, Principal, Pulse Design Group
“We are looking at flexibility in how we design wireless networks because everyone wants to get on the network with their iPad or phone while sitting there and waiting, but that has to be separate and secured different than the patient network. There’s a huge push there as well as a push to get equipment connected from wireless spaces.” -Jeremy Bechtold, Vice President- Facilities, Construction & Real Estate, Saint Luke’s Health System
“When you’re talking about qualifications and procurement from a design-build standpoint, the process gets a lot more streamlined. The goal of design-build is that we’re all looking for better outcomes, so the goal is to provide that in collaborative manner with teams so they can get engaged with the users.” -Matt Miller, Project Executive, Turner Construction
“Tight construction timelines and speed-to-market pressure means contractors need to custom order product with plenty of lead time… as far as disrupters (to the industry), I think it’s going to be the consumer experience of health care, the demand for convenience and the demand for value.” -Meghan Dudek, Principal, Benson Method