Following a public RFP process, the City Council of North Kansas City has unanimously approved a development agreement with Blume NKC LLC, a project led by Box Real Estate Development (BoxDevCo), at the corner of Burlington and North Oak Trafficway in Northgate Village in North Kansas City, Mo.
Blume NKC, a community of vertical mixed-use townhomes and commercial buildings, will combine European live/work design standards with a modern-industrial architecture style inspired by historic North Kansas City buildings.
Blume NKC will be BoxDevCo’s second project in the Kansas City area to incorporate the vertical mixed-use townhome product line called Blume.
Blume (German for “bloom”) was originally developed in 2019 by BoxDevCo as a response to an RFP issued by the City of Shawnee while researching Shawnee’s European sister cities via Google Earth. What they saw inspired them - a wide range of small businesses in a walkable environment with residential space above.
Blume was designed to allow creativity to blossom and provide entrepreneurs and work-from-home executives a live/work opportunity unparalleled in the Kansas City area and throughout most of the United States.
Blume Shawnee, designed prior to the global pandemic which forced many to work from home, is currently under construction and scheduled to open in early 2022.
To ensure the idea was a good fit for North Kansas City, BoxDevCo executives researched the historic development patterns of the city and quickly realized that they were rooted in many of the principles guiding today’s New Urbanist approach. The Blume NKC site was originally part of a master-planned residential community that enabled workers to easily access nearby industrial jobs.
“The suburbs were developed for cars. Cities are designed for people,” said Russell Pearson, director of development with BoxDevCo. “Most European cities, and many US cities, were designed before the advent of the car. For your daily life, you walked places - to the market, to your job, to your family and friends. While ‘walkability’ is often positioned as a modern idea, it’s actually deeply rooted in the past.”
At Blume NKC, Box Real Estate Development is working to connect the city’s past with the lifestyle needs of the future. Every townhome includes a small commercial space on the ground level that can be occupied by the resident or a third party, providing a wide array of possibilities over time.
“The key to a space feeling like home is a private entry,” said Pearson. “The average apartment renter in Kansas City stays for 12-24 months. Shared hallways and lots of doors feel more like a hotel than a home, and they create a transient nature to a lot of apartment buildings. With your own front door, Blume will feel like home. We’re more like a single-family home than an apartment.”
“With Blume, we’ve created a hybrid model, and hopefully created an opportunity for our residents to have the benefits of being close to work and yet still be able to have separation when they go home upstairs,” said Justin Larson, director of development services with BoxDevCo.
Blume NKC can deliver financial benefits as well. Each space will be initially available for lease; however, after the 10-year Opportunity Zone requirement expires each Vertical Mixed-Use Townhome (a term coined by BoxDevCo) may be purchased individually through the use of a townhome plat. The ground floor commercial spaces can be used for a variety of offices or retail uses allowing small businesses a storefront in the heart of a bustling neighborhood.
For those who want to own, BoxDevCo has developed a purchase option program that preserves the Opportunity Zone status of the property and allows occupants to earn equity over time.
Blume NKC is forecasted to break ground in early 2022 and will be available for occupancy in early/mid-2023.
Other project partners include Clockwork Architecture + Design, Ochsner Hare & Hare and Olsson.