Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services signs new downtown lease

Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services signs new downtown lease

Written by Carrie Rengers

Published in the Wichita Eagle

February 19, 2014

WICHITA — Another state agency has signed a lease at 266 N. Main St., which is known as the former Ryan International Airlines building, and this will be the final one because the building is now full.

“The building represented the chance to put some agencies together under one roof,” says Mark McGivern, director of the Office of Facilities and Procurement Management within the state Department of Administration.

“It made sense from our end.”

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services will join the Kansas Corporation Commission, the Kansas Department of Labor and the state Board of Indigents’ Defense Services.

The Department on Aging has a 10-year lease for 5,666 square feet on the second floor. It’s slated to move in the first of September.

Currently, the department is in the Finney State Office Building at 230 E. William.

In June, Have You Heard? reported that nine state agencies, including more than 700 employees, will leave the city-owned building when the state’s lease expires on Sept. 30.

“The Wichita office market was quite attractive,” McGivern says.

He says the former Ryan building was especially attractive.

“We liked the fact that the agencies remained downtown at that location,” McGivern says. “We thought it presented an opportunity to improve our office situation, so we took advantage of it.”

Craig Simon of Landmark Commercial Real Estate handled the deal.

Simon also did the deal when Tom Schmeidler of SBA Construction and his brothers and another investor purchased the building out of foreclosure in July. Simon has been filling it up since then, particularly with the state leases.

“That worked out really well for them,” Simon says of the building owners.

McGivern says it’s a good deal all the way around.

“It will serve the needs of our state agencies, in my opinion, for a good long time.”

Read more here: http://blogs.kansas.com/haveyouheard/2014/02/18/kansas-department-for-aging-and-disability-services-signs-new-downtown-lease/#storylink=cpy