Incite Design Studio hires leadership team for new Overland Park office

Incite Design Studio, LLC (iDS), a client-focused architectural design firm, has hired a new leadership team to open its third office.

The recent office addition, located in downtown Overland Park, Kan. at 7930 Santa Fe Drive, will join the firm’s two other offices in Kansas City, Mo. at 110 West 18th Street and in St. Louis, Mo. at 1800 Lafayette Avenue.                                                 

Brian Foxworthy, president of iDS, also recently announced his team for the new Overland Park office. Architect, Duane Cash will lead the team as office director to manage and grow the firm’s efforts in Kansas. Project manager, Mike Brown and job captain, Ariel Peisen Burow will join Cash.  

Foxworthy, who has built the firm from the grassroots into one of the largest education-focused firms based in Kansas City, says he is happy to have found someone with the same core values as himself (in Cash).

“Cash believes in forming relationships and building a practice based on quality service. When the opportunity presented itself to bring him and his team into the iDS family, I jumped at it. It’s not often you meet a group of like-minded folks that understand your vision of success and share your dedication to designing inspiring spaces for our future learners. We couldn’t be more excited to see what the future holds for our firm” Foxworthy said.

Following the firm’s tagline of “architects building relationships,” iDS has developed lasting relationships with school districts across the state of Missouri. The opening of incite Design Studio Kansas shows the commitment to forming relationships with districts throughout Kansas as well.

Cash says their goal is to better serve the Kansas education clients with a studio comprised of a few dedicated teams that can be focused on service.

“Our belief is that when firms get too big, they start to lose the agility, responsiveness, and dedication that our clients deserve. With this approach of three studio offices, we provide the muscle of a big firm, but with the individual guidance, creativity, and empathy of a smaller firm,” said Cash. 

“I’m exhilarated by iDS’s dedication to client service, progressive design, student focused learning, and the use of pioneering technology,” said Cash.

The firm is growing in all three offices. Besides opening the Kansas office, they recently hired Aaron Ledesma as a project manager and Connor Privett as an architectural designer in the KC office.  Marena Modica was hired to head up the interior design efforts in the St. Louis office.

Developers face post-pandemic challenges

a MWM CRE event recap

Roxsen Koch, shareholder with Polsinelli PC, and Jason Swords, principal with Sunflower Development Group, joined moderator Christine Johnston, CPA, CGMA, CMA, partner with MarksNelson LLC, for a live webinar discussion hosted by CREW KC this Tuesday.

The panelists discussed tax increment financing (TIF) in Kansas City, Mo., economic development incentives and future challenges facing developers in a post-pandemic world.  

Koch began with explaining that TIF is an economic tool enabled through the State of Missouri which allows developers to capture the tax increment that a real estate project generates in order to finance a project which otherwise might not be financially feasible. 

Although TIF has been used by developers on many prominent projects in Kansas City, Mo., its future use may be more limited, especially to finance any hospitality and retail project in the immediate future, according to Swords.

“I think that’s the tool for keeping jobs,” Swords said.

Koch, who was involved with the financing of the Loews Kansas City Hotel project, said TIF financing along with several other economic development tools, were incorporated into the hotel project.  Although its opening was delayed, the hotel recently opened amid the pandemic.

“Obviously, timing is everything. We were very fortunate to obtain the financing when we did. In today’s market, I don’t think you would see the project come forward. Any project of this nature in Kansas City, Missouri really would be substantially on hold until we knew more about what the world in the future would be,” said Koch. 

According to Koch, there are a lot of challenges amongst successfully financing a project today. 

“You need to have investors who want to have a certain return on their investment to be committed to the project. You have to show you have a team that’s knowledgeable in the construction of that particular project and the operation of that particular project,” said Koch. 

Swords predicts that getting a deal financed in the next few years is going to be tough.

“We’re only seeing the beginning of the triage that is out there. Fifty percent of our small business tenants aren’t going to make it. I think there’s a lot of money on the sidelines waiting for distressed assets,” said Swords. 

Both Koch and Swords agreed that TIF will always be a tool for developers in Kansas City. 

“If policymakers do not embrace the use of TIF on projects that the city wants to see developed, then investors will simply take their money someplace else and they won’t invest in Kansas City,” said Koch.

Swords acknowledged that although obtaining incentive tools from Kansas City, Mo. is not an easy process, the city has been a leader in spurring redevelopment. 

The duo agreed that the one market segment where consumer demand remains strong is housing. 

“I think that everything else is too spec, too tough, too difficult. Housing is the only kind of project we’re working on today,” said Swords. 

Koch added that developers still need economic development tools to make housing projects happen. Although TIF is not typically used to finance housing, Koch noted that there are other economic development tools available to developers such as tax abatement.

“I think that the important thing is to sit back and be prepared for what’s to come. None of us really knows what that looks like right now,” Koch said.