How to turn $399,000 into $65,000 in downtown Wichita

Once embraced by Wichita officials as heroes, real estate listings for two floors of a downtown Wichita office building illustrate the carnage left behind by two developers.

A decade ago the “Minnesota Guys” were the darlings of downtown Wichita. With a controversial form of real estate ownership — tenancy in common — they promised to revive downtown Wichita. City officials and civic leaders praised them. The city council found them so endearing that it awarded the Minnesota Guys over $10 million in tax increment financing — later increased at their request — although the developers were never able to tap into those funds. Now the two developers are facing numerous felony charges relating to securities violations.

This week the Wichita Business Journal reports that two floors of a prominent downtown office building are for sale at very low prices. The building is Broadway Plaza at 105 S. Broadway.

In 2007 the fourth floor of this building had an appraised value of $388,000, according to Sedgwick County records. The value fell to $210,900 the next year and stayed at that value for five years. Now the appraised value is $98,000.

The value of the eleventh floor followed a similar trajectory, being valued at $399,000 in 2007, falling to $160,100 for four years, and now appraised at $82,300.

Now the asking price for each floor is $65,000. At attempt at sale at auction earlier this year failed to produce any bids.

In 2011 I reported on how some downtown Wichita properties are plummeting in value:

A strategy of Real Development — the “Minnesota Guys” — in Wichita has been to develop and sell floors of downtown office buildings as condominiums. Some of these floors have been foreclosed upon and have come back on the market. Some once carried mortgages of $400,000 or more, meaning that at one point a bank thought they were worth at least that much. But now four floors in the Broadway Plaza Building, three floors of the Petroleum Building, two floors of Sutton Place, and one floor of the Orpheum Office Center are available for sale at prices not much over $100,000, ranging from $14 to $25 per square foot. Other downtown office buildings — very plain properties — are listed at much higher prices. For example, one downtown property is listed at $82 per square foot. … Some of these floors have had declining appraisals. According to the Sedgwick County Treasurer, the fifth floor of Sutton Place, which is listed for sale at $135,000, was appraised in 2008 for $530,900. In 2009 the appraised value dropped to $215,000.