Horizons

Riverside ‘Open for Business’ with 260-Acre Office and Industrial Innovation Project
City Names Briarcliff Development Co. to Lead Horizons

Riverside on Tuesday named a unit of Briarcliff Development Co. to develop Horizons, a 260-acre site at Interstate 635 and Missouri 9, and unveiled a plan calling for a park-like setting to be home for a projected 5,900 jobs over the next generation.

Briarcliff Development said construction would begin this year on an estimated $12 million plan, including 25 acres of lakes, three miles of tree-lined canals and land set aside for public use and recreational purposes that is projected to connect to the Missouri River Trail.

“Riverside is open for business,” declared Mayor Kathleen Rose. “In the years since the state-of-the-art Missouri River levee was built to protect hundreds of acres in our community, we focused on creating the best possible economic development initiative for land the city owns. We have that today.”

Nathaniel Hagedorn, COO of Briarcliff Development Co., said that Briarcliff Horizons LLC, a unit of Briarcliff Development, projects that 2.6 million square feet of total building area will be constructed on 260 acres of city-owned land over the next 20 years with a total estimated private investment in excess of $300 million.

“Horizons, as the name implies, is about long-range vision,” Hagedorn said. “The city challenged us to think beyond what was possible and to focus on what was extraordinary. The city pushed us to bring a new attitude, and we’re excited by both the committed partnership we’ve developed with the city and the innovative plan that Riverside has embraced.”

Rose said today’s announcement represented an evolution fostered by the 2010 update of the city’s Master Plan prepared by BNIM Architects of Kansas City. The update was fueled with input from four town hall meetings, community surveys and dozens of internal planning meetings. Five proposals to develop the Horizons site in accordance with the Master Plan’s vision were reviewed before the city chose Briarcliff Development.

“Horizons is about vision, commitment and partnership,” Rose said. “We engaged the community in this process, and Riverside residents challenged us to think about the best possible project, because our town and the entire region will live with this decision for the next 50 to 100 years. The Board of Alderman is committed to this approach, and Briarcliff Development brought us the creative solution the community said it wanted.”

A key to the vision, Rose and Hagedorn said, is the nature of the infrastructure improvements. What is now an open field – highly visible to 75,000 passing vehicles each day on Interstate 635 and Missouri 9 – will be transformed into a amenity-laden setting with water features, canals and lakes with adjoining pathways, trees, landscaping and public recreational opportunities. A community amphitheater appears in an initial concept drawing for the site, and it is hoped that Horizons can be connected in due course to the nearby Missouri Riverfront Trail.

Briarcliff Development already has been a Riverside partner through Briarcliff Professional Plaza, and the company is a neighbor through its own nearby Briarcliff office and boutique retail space as well as hundreds of residential homes, condos and apartments. Both Hagedorn and Rose said Horizons complements and extends Briarcliff’s current development by providing additional corporate office options in addition to the industrial innovation opportunities.

“Both offices and industrial innovation sites can be successful because Riverside is minutes from both Wheeler Downtown and Kansas City International airports as well as all three major interstate highways serving the Kansas City area,” Hagedorn said. Rose added that the site’s close proximity to both major airports serving Kansas City should hold special appeal for companies whose business requires easy access to air travel for executives and professional staff.

“Horizons has the potential to become the Kansas City area’s premier corporate office site,” Rose said. “This is the right vision, as citizens asked us to have, and the right plan to implement that vision.”

Hagedorn said initial planning calls for 1.1 square feet of office space and 1.5 million square feet of industrial innovation space on 260 acres of city-owned land framed primarily by Interstate 635 on the east and south and Horizons Parkway on the west.

Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, and Hagedorn expects to have building sites available as early as spring 2012. The flexible master plan prepared by NSPJ Architects, Prairie Village, Kan., accommodates building sites ranging from 20,000 to 500,000 square feet for buildings up to four or more stories.

Today’s announcement followed formal approval of the development agreement by the Riverside Board of Aldermen. A groundbreaking will be held this summer.