Another planned addition to downtown’s WaterWalk development isn’t going to happen

Much like the office building the late Jack DeBoer nixed at WaterWalk, so too have his successors axed plans for a $40 million luxury apartment complex at the downtown development.

“This is no longer moving forward,” said Mimi Oliver, CEO of the WaterWalk hotel brand.

“We’re just laser focused at growing WaterWalk,” she said of the hotel chain, “and expanding our footprint across the country and hopefully in Wichita.”

There are 10 of the hotels nationwide, including the flagship one across from Riverfront Stadium in Wichita and ones that opened in Phoenix in February and Atlanta this week.

Four more will open this year, and Oliver said she hopes to bring more to Wichita within three or four years.

When asked if the Gateway Apartments are on hold for now and if there’s as chance that plans could be revived, Oliver said that “on hold is a . . . good phrase.”

“I mean, it’s possible in the future.”

It wasn’t long into the pandemic in the summer of 2020 when DeBoer, who died in March 2021, decided he would not build a 115,000-square-foot, five-story office building at the southwest corner of Waterman and Main.

He said he was looking at other possibilities for what to do there while “rummaging around trying to figure out what the world’s going to be like when this whole thing passes.”

Then in October 2020, Jim Korroch, who was representing DeBoer at the time, announced the Gateway Apartments, so named because of how they were supposed to be situated along Main Street just off of Kellogg.

“That is the gateway to downtown,” Korroch said. “It is going to give a real boost to what it looks like.”

There were supposed to be about 126 units at the southwest corner of Waterman and Main, where the office was planned.

There also were supposed to be another 100 units in a separate building at the northeast corner of Dewey and Main streets. That’s just east outside of the WaterWalk development. These units would have been closer to Kellogg.

Construction was supposed to start in January 2021 but was delayed due to financing issues.

“It’s a big project, and it’s a tough time in the financial markets right now,” Korroch said that month.

At the time, he said the holdup didn’t have to do with complaints from residents of the WaterWalk condominiums about potential parking costs and concerns related to the apartments.

Regardless of whether the Gateway Apartments project is revived, Oliver said, “Of course, (we’re) still invested in downtown and want to see development take place there.”