New developments could complement Civic Park

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Civic Park officials are just beginning to look at the way two new private developments can enhance the park's development. The Feb. 3 announcement by John Q. Hammons that he will build an office building and a baseball stadium in the center city area has those affiliated with the park development excited about the prospects.

Bill Compere, chairman of the Civic Park Advisory Board, said it is too early for the park's planners to know how the office building will fit into the park. The office building will be near the Federal Courthouse on Trafficway, where a metal warehouse building used by Consumers Supermarkets now stands.

Though Compere said the committee hopes to have some input on the building's design, he has "no anxieties" about its fitting into the park's overall design. The advisory committee is working with LMN Architects to develop design guidelines for the park.

Previously, the committee had to study a Walgreen's development at the corner of St. Louis and National to make sure its design would fit in with the park's overall design. As of yet, the advisory board had not set forth a list of design guidelines. Compere said the group hopes to have guidelines and a plan for phase I, comprising the park's first 35 acres, in the next 60 to 90 days.

Benjamin Alexander, senior planner with the city and coordinator of the Civic Park project, said he was assuming the office building, which will not be in phase I but will be in the Civic Park area, will match the theme of Hammons' other developments in that area, such as the John Q. Hammons office building and the Hammons Tower.

Tom Finnie, city manager, agreed, saying he was confident that whatever Hammons built would be compatible with what is already in that corridor.

"With the Walgreens store, you had a situation where there was a desire to place a suburban store in this urban setting. We wanted something that reflects the urban area and sense of downtown. ... For Mr. Hammons, it wouldn't make sense for him to do anything that's not consistent with what he's already done," Finnie said.

Mark Harrell, president of Plaza Realty, a commercial real estate and property management firm owned by Hammons, said the building is projected to have four floors, each with about 20,000 square feet of space.

He said the building will contain "Class A office space," defined as "new or very well-maintained, top of the market space." Such space typically rents for $13 to $18 per square foot, he added.

Harrell said Class A office space in the center city area is about 98 percent rented, and that demand continues to be high for that type of space.

"Downtown continues to build as being the center for corporate businesses," Harrell said.

The new office building will be about half the size of the Hammons Tower and a little larger than the John Q. Hammons office building, Harrell said. The floor plates will be larger in the new building, meaning that there will be more space available on a single floor.

"For a larger client, it could be desirable to have two floors instead of four and therefore have a larger contiguous space," Harrell said.

Hammons owns the land where Consumers' metal building is now, Harrell said. That building will be razed to make way for the office building.

Harrell said he is in preliminary discussions with potential tenants and anticipates that there will be both local and regional interest in the building.

"We continue to have dialogue with some great candidates and hope to award those actual contracts later, once the building is nearer completion," Harrell said.

For the baseball park, which has no definite site yet, Alexander said the hope was to possibly coordinate some parking between it and the ice rink that is to be part of Civic Park's phase I.

The developers of the park are now focused on phase I, and on what they are calling phase IA, a 16-acre tract of land owned by Conco, which is to be donated to the park effort. The 16 acres, much of which is now underwater, could assist in the developing of phase I, since "we have a lot of things we need to get into phase I, plus green space," Compere said.

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