A vision for the next decade of downtown development in Wichita’s core is coming soon.
By early 2025, the City Council will be asked to sign off on an updated master plan that’s being produced by Downtown Wichita, the nonprofit booster group that has been collecting market research to promote development since releasing its first downtown plan in 2009.
On Tuesday, the council unanimously voted to give Downtown Wichita $50,000 out of the city’s Economic Development Fund to help hire a consultant and produce the report. The Sedgwick County Commission also gave $50,000 last month, and the downtown development group privately raised more than $330,000 to support the initiative.
Downtown Wichita President Jeff Fluhr said he sees a “direct correlation” between the current downtown plan, finalized shortly after he moved to Wichita from Baton Rouge, and the $1.7 billion of investment in the city’s core since 2010.
“We didn’t envision the Wichita biomedical campus, but what we did envision was creating an environment where possibilities become reality,” Fluhr said, referencing the joint Wichita State and University of Kansas venture that’s expected to bring 3,000 medical students downtown. It’s currently under construction on $1.3 million of downtown land donated by the city .
“That site has been a parking lot for a number of years — probably a couple of decades. Now, it’s being transformed into an epicenter of the largest investment in downtown’s history.”
By Fluhr’s count, 110 projects have been completed downtown in accordance with the plan. Others have yet to come to fruition, like the promised hotel, retail space and parking garage near Riverfront Stadium, which were originally supposed to be completed in 2024 . Development is now expected to begin this summer or fall.
“I love the revitalization that’s happened in our city’s core since I’ve been a Wichitan, so thank you for that,” council member Becky Tuttle said Tuesday. “It has often been said that a goal without a plan is just a wish, so having a solid plan that has community engagement and can be evaluated to make sure that we’re fulfilling it is vital for Wichita and for our downtown core really to be what it can be.”
‘Everybody’s neighborhood’
The idea for a downtown master plan was born in 2008 when then Mayor Carl Brewer held a series of community meetings promoting his vision for downtown as “everybody’s neighborhood.” Brewer died in 2020 but his revitalization project lives on.
“I always want to uplift the vision of Mayor Brewer working on downtown redevelopment and seeing that this plan has really brought to life a lot of things that even weren’t envisioned back then,” council member Brandon Johnson said.
Fluhr said Downtown Wichita’s goal is to “unlock the unknowns” through market research that quantifies the demand for various types of development.
“The more we do that, the private sector can step in,” he said. “They understand what the market is telling them we can create as far as residential, commercial, hospitality.”
That research is also instructive for public officials, Fluhr said.
“I think it’s great for the public sector because that also allows you knowledge about how do you invest in infrastructure that supports what we want to see happen in the private sector market.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, he offered his support for Wichita’s downtown parking plan , which raises meter rates and fines for violations while encouraging the City Council to sell off underutilized surface parking lots to developers.
“Every surface lot, we look at a surface lot as a development site. We want something built on it,” Fluhr said.
Riverfront questions
Vice Mayor Maggie Ballard asked Fluhr to explain how the updated downtown plan will differ from the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan, a pre-COVID road map for transforming the east bank of the Arkansas River that called for both the Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center and the former Central Library to be razed.
That plan, which cost taxpayers $200,000, ended up backfiring on Downtown Wichita and the city’s other major business interest groups amid public outcry over the planned destruction of both structures.
“The Riverfront Legacy Master Plan was more myopic, if you will, on a defined area,” Fluhr told Ballard.
“That work was helpful in that it helped us understand more clearly some of the passion, if you will, around some of the assets along the riverfront. How is it that we embrace those and go forward?”
The city is currently in the process of choosing an applicant to repurpose the library, and crews recently completed a new blue roof on Century II, which is now operated by a private company.
“The library has a lot of opportunities for it. I know the community has interest in CII and what happens there,” Fluhr said. “I think that we probably will not get into the programmatic aspect of those [in the plan], but how you continue to develop around those areas is a key piece of our riverfront.”
Detractors of the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan said not enough was done to solicit and incorporate feedback from community members before final designs were produced. Fluhr said the updated downtown master plan will feature plenty of opportunities for public engagement.
Housing demand
As Wichita’s vision for downtown comes together, one major factor to consider is the need for more housing. The city is currently short 40,000 housing units , including roughly 20,000 rental units.
With several thousand students, instructors and other university employees set to converge on the biomedical campus in the spring of 2027, the demand for affordable housing is only expected to increase.
Many of the downtown apartments that have opened in recent years, from the River Vista Apartments to The National and 225 Sycamore, are luxury developments. Vantage Point Properties’ planned $90 million complex at the corner of Waterman and Washington will also feature luxury apartments.
“I would say that we’re fortunate that we’ve seen an increase in the number of units. And yes, we’ve seen an increase in the price per square foot in these, but that also helps in how you can build these as well,” Fluhr said.
He suggested that the City Council may need to offer further economic incentives for developers to justify building or renovating units with less expensive price points.
“As we look to the future on housing affordability, one of the things that we want to challenge ourselves to do is to look at other cities to say, ‘How are they making different price points available in that market?’ So, could it be new policy that we need to consider? Possibly,” he said.
Private investment in homeless services
One common complaint from the business community is that unhoused residents living close to social services in the city’s core detract from downtown’s overall appeal.
Fluhr said for the downtown vision to be realized, the public and private sectors will have to come together to better provide for the city’s homeless population. He lauded the council for its efforts to build a Multi-Agency Center , complete with a year-round shelter, a navigation center for connecting people with resources and supportive housing units.
City Manager Robert Layton’s preliminary estimate is that it will cost roughly $2 million to operate the facility annually. For that to be sustainable, the private sector will likely have to step up and contribute, something Fluhr said Downtown Wichita will help facilitate.
“Now that we have a better understanding, it’s getting clearer what the funding gap may be, we’re pulling the private sector together to say, ‘How do we approach this creatively?’ What parts of it may be done through philanthropy? What may be done through other resources?” he said.
Ultimately, Fluhr said, that investment in improving conditions for vulnerable people will help downtown Wichita realize its potential.
“The connectivity, the walkability, the safety, the cleanliness — all those things are real critical pieces.”
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