Teva Pharmaceuticals made big news when it announced that it would be moving its headquarters from Kansas City to Overland Park, Kansas.
That announcement came just more than a year ago. Today? The company’s move to its new 154,268-square-foot office building is moving ahead of schedule. Teva’s 400 employees should move into their new office this September.
Block Real Estate Services has played a key role in this. A recent blog post on the company’s Web site explains the working relationship between Teva and Block. (By the way, Block Real Estate Services’ blog is one of the best company blogs that I’ve run across in the CRE industry.)
Sprint sold the 18-acre site in Overland Park that would eventually become Teva’s new home to Block Real Estate Services. Block broke that site into three parcels. Teva is taking up two of these with its Class-A office building. There is now room for another 100,000-square-foot building on the site.
Construction on the Teva office building began last June. The $46 million project was put on a fast-track schedule, meaning that construction would take just 12 to 13 months.
The schedule held, and Teva is expected to complete its move-in in early September.
The project is just one of the many that has made the Kansas City area one of the Midwest’s bigger success stories during the country’s slow economic recovery. Kansas City and its suburbs have certainly suffered during the economic downturn and its aftermath. But the region — like others in the Midwest — has been largely resilient, too.
Credit that to the area’s natural conservatism when it comes to commercial real estate: The Kansas City area didn’t have to deal with too many empty spec buildings when the country’s economy collapsed. Credit it, too, to vision. As the Teva project demonstrates, Kansas City-area brokers and developers aren’t shy when it comes to tackling big, innovative projects.
