At the top, the spacious room was dark and cold, empty and unfinished. Metal siding rose 15 feet on three walls - where the Midwest's largest clock used to be. Someday soon, those walls will become colossal picture windows.

The real estate agent had told these condo-hunters to 'use your imaination.' Now a few of them did just that. They imagined seeing sunsets on the horizon past Kansas Speedway, or watching planes descend below them to Downtown Airport, or even hearing the pounding of rain against the windows in a storm.

Welcome to downtown's newest hot property, skyscraper living in the downtown loop. Welcome to the 909 Walnut building, the largest and riskiest of downtown's leaps into urban housing.

The twin-spired former Fidelity National Bank building rises 35 stories, the sixth-highest tower in Kansas City. It sat empty for years, riddled with safety concerns, seemingly headed for demolition. Now out-of-town developer Glenn Solomon is converting it into the tallest apartment building in Missouri, topped by the most expensive condominium downtown.

'This building is going to be a destination,' Solomon declared.

With this project's size and stature, it is symbolic of downtown's transformation froma primarily daytime office market to more of an around-the-clock, live-work-play environment. But with the project's grand ambition and $55 million cost, it is also a test of that transformation.

'If that project can come off, it says downtown KC has arrived,' said Bob Mayer, a real estate financing executive with MR Capital Advisors and a member of the Downtown Council's Housing Task Force. The 71-year-old building is only in the first stages of reconstruction. Already, though, it's drawing the curious.

First looks

Just inside Solomon's Simbol Commercial office in City Center Square, a big-screen television greets office workers entering the downtown office tower off Main Street. The TV plays a continuously running video- a virtual tour of the planned 909 Walnut project.

Lonnie Smith, who works across Main Street in the AT&T tower, walked by that video almost daily on the way to City Center's food court. He's thinking about downsizing from his south Kansas City house to a condominium. So he stopped at the video one day and told himself, 'Hmmm, I need to check that out.'

That's how he and friend Robert Wakefield came to don hardhats and enter a dusty, unlighted elevator in the 909 Walnut building one day last month. With them were two UMB Bank executives, one of whom also had been intrigued by the video.

The elevator doors closed, and the prospective buyers filed out and climbed some narrow stairs to the 32nd floor and the first of three levels of the top 4,200-square-foot penthouse, now on the market for $1.2 million. The space was gutted. The bare plaster had a lavender hue. A piece of old newspaper was stuck to the ceiling, advertising a box lunch for 25 cents.

Lonnie Smith was expecting a finished layout of rooms. Robert Wakefield stood silently at the bank of windows along one of the walls.

'Fabulous view, isn't it?' asked construction manager Harold Petsch, one of several times he would pose that question on the tour.

A high-rise comeback

The answer to that question helps explain why high-rise living is making a comeback in downtowns across the country.

Skyscraper apartments used to be available only in the nation's largest cities or on the coasts. But now they're showing up in mid-tier Midwestern cities where the downtown housing craze has already used up available low-rise buildings.

In Cincinnati, baseball star Barry Larkin moved into the penthouse of an office/condo tower on the downtown riverfront. And in Milwaukee, a 33-story tower is under construction, with half its units already sold.

In Kansas City, apartments weren't the first thing Glenn Solomon had in mind for the Fidelity building, which won an architectural award after it opened in 1932. The Dallas-based developer bought it three years ago during a buying spree of historic downtown properties, mostly in Dallas. He intended to fill the Fidelity property with tech company offices and equipment. But that market shriveled at the same time downtown's housing market took off.

So he switched gears and took on a partner in the housing subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark Corp., and now his 179-unit project is the largest among the 2,500 units in construction or planning phases downtown.

'If downtown housing works in a low-rise, it should be able to succeed that much better in a high rise,' Solomon said. 'This is such a special opportunity for Kansas City and downtown, to have such an architecturally significant building back in service.'

The prospective buyers climbed another floor in a plaster-chipped stairwell, traipsed through a long, dark, windowless space and came upon the spiral staircase to the top floor. One by one, they mounted the rickety stairs and stood in near darkness in a space the size of half a basketball court.

Construction manager Petsch trained his flashlight on the metal sided walls. 'This is level 35' he said, 'and the large panels you see here were the faces of the clock. The view up here is going to be fantastic'

The prospective buyers hardly said a word, then filed back down the spiral stairs, across the windowless room, up more stairs, then through a window opening to a narrow outdoor terrace. A cold wind hit their faces. They stood and stared around them. A plane took off at Downtown Airport. The giant 'Commerce Bank' sign atop the building across the street was now at eye level.

'This would be a fun place in an electrical storm,' joked one of the condo-lookers, UMB Vice President David Barker.

Soon the tour ended, and back on the first floor, the prospective buyers thanked real estate agent Mary Riffel for showing them around with Petsch.

'It's beautiful,' said Peter Murphy, the other UMB executive.

But by their expressions and questions, Riffel knew she didn't have a buyer yet. One wanted to see room layouts. Another thought it was too pricey. And on and on.

'In the early stages of a project, it's so hard to sell,' Riffel said later. 'People are like, 'What if, what if.'

'It's going to take someone who can see the possibilities, admire the uniqueness and really want something different.'

Just as with the rest of downtown.