KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Less than a month after the project received the green light from city leaders, Waddell & Reed announced Friday it has signed a lease for a new downtown office building.
The building, at 14th and Baltimore, is projected to be 18 stories tall and contain 260,000 square-feet of office space.
The company, which is currently located at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Lamar, will bring 1,000 employees to the new downtown location.
“This site offers the opportunity to showcase downtown Kansas City to the thousands of visitors to our company, including management teams from major corporations across the country,” Waddell & Reed CEO Philip Sanders said in the release. “We were founded in Kansas City, MO, in 1937, and while this allows us to return to our roots, we look forward to continuing to be a strong, fully engaged partner to both the downtown and broader Kansas City community.”
Building details announced Friday include a rooftop terrace level offering views of downtown, and plans to seek LEED V4 Gold certification.
The company plans to break ground on the building by the end of March, with construction complete and employees on site in the first half of 2022.
Part of the approval process last month by members of the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council included a debate of the local incentives called for in the project. The debate eventually led to the reduction of some incentives, including lowering the property tax abatement during the contract.
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