KC's Condo Boom is OVER!!!

OR I was considering titling this one: TKC KILLED THE CONDO BOOM! But then again I had nothing to do with the impending recession or the subprime scams that are threatening to sink the U.S. economy.

I'm not going to lie, The Accardo Condo Tower on Broadway was imposing and ambitious project but now that it's not going to happen, it leaves a lot of doubt about the future of KC's Downtown Renaissance . . . In other words, it makes the future uncertain for all of the chumps already holding onto Downtown Real Estate. The Star's Story about the demise of the Condo Tower's is straight forward and scary (if you have any money in real estate):

In the end, a slumping metropolitan housing market coupled with buyer uncertainty about purchasing an expensive condo sight unseen finished The Broadway proposal, said Chris Accardo, spokesman for the project.

“It’s just too risky of a marketplace for us to dive into this,” Accardo said Thursday.

The $60 million project, proposed by the Accardo family and DST Realty in January 2006, opened a sales center a year ago in the Crossroads Arts District. At the time, backers expected that 50 percent of the units, priced from $190,000 to $500,000, would be pre-sold and construction could begin last spring.

While backers had commitments for 30 percent of the 133-unit development, the sales pace had slowed appreciably in recent months. The project was competing with more than 21,000 new and existing homes on the market in greater Kansas City.

If you read that statement closely, it translates to: KC in the middle of a housing glut.

Even worse, from what I've heard and seen they're having a hard time giving away Downtown condos for rock bottom prices. Why? Because, until this city addresses crime and the may homeless bums that make downtown far less glamorous than any of the marketing lies you'll read in Urban Times . . . People just aren't going to risk hundreds of thousands of dollars on an image with very little substance and/or promise for the future.

Finally, for me this is an unexpected ending for this story because I was sure that the condo would go up and further lead to the destruction of the Westside . . . Looks like, once again, being poor and staying in the same place pays out if you can avoid being paved over.

Here's some previous posts on the subject:

Kansas Condo City

Didn't you know the Accardos own the Crossroads?

And here's a video I put together featuring a protester and the opposition to the huge Condo Tower: