A potential affordable housing apartment complex may be coming to WaterWalk downtown, but it’s got to make it through the Wichita City Council on Tuesday first, with an initial step of seeking tax abatements and industrial revenue bonds before heading to the state to seek tax credits.
“I don’t have any idea of why they wouldn’t be supportive,” said Jim Korroch, president of the DeBoer family’s Consolidated Development.
Some residents of the WaterWalk Place condominiums don’t have as positive of a view, and Korroch said he expects some of them to show up for the meeting.
More than anything, residents seem to have questions about the new plan. Chief among them is what does affordable housing mean?
Indiana-based Annex Group is the potential developer of the 186-unit complex, which has the working name of Central at Water Street. There would be one-, two- and three-bedroom units that rent for $600 to $1,400 next to the WaterWalk fountains.
The apartments would include a community room, a fitness area, a community garden, patios and balconies and washers and dryers but no pool.
Korroch, who is one of three trustees who have overseen development at WaterWalk since the 2021 death of developer Jack DeBoer, said Annex is experienced in this area and opened a similar development called Union at Purple Heart Trail near 127th and Kellogg.
He said these types of affordable apartments also are known as workforce housing, meaning it’s for people in the workforce who are making $60,000 or less. That includes a variety of people in a variety of careers.
Some of those careers, Korroch said, support a lot of the needs already in downtown or coming to downtown, such as the Wichita Biomedical Campus.
“This is exactly what Wichita needs.”
He said City Council members have stated they want more affordable housing.
“This is a great solution to that.”
Condo residents, though, wonder if it’s what WaterWalk needs.
Resident Kent Voth said WaterWalk “has not been being developed in the fashion originally advertised.”
“The developer has for many years taken his eye off the target for this piece of land.”
Initially, Voth was opposed to the development but changed his mind after Korroch met with a few dozen residents on Sunday to discuss their concerns.
“It’s really a matter of the alternative,” Voth said. “If this project doesn’t go through, there may be others that are less pleasing and more objectionable. It’s the devil you know versus the devil that you don’t know.”
Also, Voth said, Korroch “was very above board, and what he offered seemed very truthful and accurate.”
“I trust that (the Annex developers are) going to be just as straightforward as Jim in explaining things and answering questions.”
Change of plans
While DeBoer was still alive, he had a previous plan for the more upscale Gateway Apartments, which at the time Korroch said would be something of a gateway into downtown along Main Street just off of Kellogg.
Plans changed with the pandemic, he said, when the numbers no longer made sense.
Korroch said original plans for WaterWalk had development a bit backward.
“‘You’ve got to have a critical mass of people living down there before the retail and the restaurants and the shops can happen.”
He said the almost $50 million apartment project represents almost as much as the $57 million spent so far on the condos, the Fairfield Inn & Suites Wichita Downtown, the former Gander Mountain building and the Realtors of South Central Kansas building.
Affordable over upscale isn’t a change in WaterWalk plans, Korroch said.
“No. WaterWalk is there . . . for the community.”
Annex is seeking a sales tax exemption on construction materials of about $1 million and tax abatement in the form of paying 50% of property tax for the next 10 years.
The developer is asking City Council to forgo roughly $90,000 a year in taxes for a decade.
“This property pays zero tax right now,” Korroch said.
“This group is not asking for much.”
If Annex gets Council approval for the tax abatement and sales tax exemption, it then would seek tax credits from the state in October.
Without all of these, Korroch said the deal won’t happen.
Bigger changes?
WaterWalk has struggled since its inception in 2002.
For instance, instead of landing a Bass Pro Shop as hoped, the development got a Gander Mountain store that went bankrupt and closed.
Much of the development has sat vacant for decades.
The apartments represent about a third of what’s left to develop at WaterWalk.
If they do happen, Korroch said, it could be the beginning of bigger changes there.
“Absolutely. No question about it. To me this is the catalyst of WaterWalk.”
The city still owns the WaterWalk land, but the DeBoer family has a 99-year lease, 76 of which are left.
Though Korroch wants to see development happen, and quickly, he said that doesn’t include immediately doing something upscale along the prime riverfront area to the west of the condos.
For now, he said, “We wanted to make sure the view of the condo owners of WaterWalk was preserved as much as possible.”
Korroch said the apartments would preserve almost all of the river view, which he acknowledged may one day change with future development.
Also, he said there’s “not the political will” for the kind of incentives a more upscale development would require.
There already have been millions of public dollars spent on WaterWalk, including some of the public infrastructure.
Korroch said DeBoer’s widow, Marilyn, who is in her 90s, would like to see the development progress in her lifetime.
“There’s a real sense of urgency now to do something and to do it right.”
