GBA Project Awarded Kansas City Business Journal’s 2022 Capstone Real Estate Award
The Congress Logistics Center was recently awarded the Kansas City Business Journal’s 2022 Capstone Real Estate Award in the Industrial Category! GBA provided architectural and engineering design for the project.
Warehouse Location and Current Tenant 
The 637,000 square foot warehouse, Congress Commerce Building B, is located at the northwest corner of NW 112th St. and N. Airworld Dr. in Kansas City, Missouri.
The building is currently leased to Niagara Bottling, LLC, a family-owned and operated bottling facility, which advertises this location as having the most technologically advanced equipment and fastest bottling lines in the world. According to KC SmartPort, this new bottling location will create more than 100 jobs in KC’s food and beverage manufacturing sector.
Project History and Details
In 2018, VanTrust Real Estate received approval to update an older 155-acre industrial master plan that included enlarging a warehouse on one of three tracts it owns.
VanTrust Real Estate hired GBA to produce the building’s schematic design and construction drawings, assist with the pre-bid and bidding process, and manage construction administration.
Initially designed as a speculative warehouse, Niagara Bottling, LLC identified the project as a potential second location in Kansas City to house their manufacturing equipment. By sealing the deal before completion, GBA and partners were able to incorporate modifications to the buildout midway through construction to save time and money.
“This warehouse project was a perfect fit for the GBA Industrial Design Studio due to our extensive experience in the market, specifically industrial warehouses,” said Molly Oller, GBA Director of Process Architecture and Project Architect. “With architects and engineers who are subject matter experts, the team assembled quickly to design a quality warehouse in a cost-effective way. It’s great to see this project recognized as a Capstone Award winner and I am proud of our team that stepped up to the plate!”
Completed in 2021, the project was delivered to the client in a design/bid/build format that consisted of a 36-foot clear height, insulated load-bearing exterior tilt-up concrete wall panels with interior steel columns and a TPO roof membrane. The build-out included (4) 12’x14’ drive-in doors and (63) 9’x10’ overhead doors with a 130-foot truck court. The remaining potential overhead door positions were designed to have knockouts for future overhead door installation.
The building was designed to be flexible, aesthetically pleasing and energy efficient while minimizing maintenance. Occupancy could range from a single tenant up to four tenants with each having their own entries and drive-up doors.
Kansas City Business Journal Capstone Awards
The 2022 Capstone Awards honor projects completed in 2021 and are judged on the following categories: adaptive reuse, architectural design, community impact, industrial, mixed-use, multifamily, office, retail, sustainability and transaction.
The projects selected exemplify how the region’s developers, architects, general contractors and others in the industry push the envelope and create projects that transform neighborhoods and communities.
Learn more about the Capstone Awards and view the other winners, visit bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2022/04/29/2022-capstone-awards-meet-the-honorees-judges.html.