Loose Park vs. Penn Valley Park

[brewcrew1000]

On a related note, Loose Park looked like Central Park.  It was a great day to be a KCMO tour guide.  

Loose Park was packed on Sunday for Mothers Day, it really did have a central park feel, i like looking at those plaza high rises off in the distance because it does have that central park feel.

Wonder if that park would be a lot more dense and crowded all the time if it was surrounded by high rise apartments instead of huge houses?

[KCMax]

Loose Park was packed on Sunday for Mothers Day, it really did have a central park feel, i like looking at those plaza high rises off in the distance because it does have that central park feel.

Wonder if that park would be a lot more dense and crowded all the time if it was surrounded by high rise apartments instead of huge houses?

I'd love to see this happen at PVP.

[beautyfromashes]

I'd love to see this happen at PVP.

Amen, I worry that Loose Park ammenities are becoming too overused.  It's impossible to find a picnic table and the playground is a madhouse.  The city should do everything they can to copy what has happened at Loose park to PVP.  ie. spray park, top notch playground, picnic areas with a great view, etc. 

[KC-wildcat]

Amen, I worry that Loose Park ammenities are becoming too overused. 

Seriously?  Can a park be overused?  I would much rather go to a public space that is swarming with activity (ala Central Park) than a quaint, quite little park. 

The city should do everything they can to copy what has happened at Loose park to PVP.  ie. spray park, top notch playground, picnic areas with a great view, etc. 

The best thing the City could do for PVP is have more mounted police and bicycle cops there.  Kids + drug dealers = bad.  PVP will also struggle to equal LP because of the smaller number of proximately located families and children. 

PVP needs an attraction.  Observation tower, ferris wheel, etc.  I dunno. 

[chrizow]

half of PVP should be developed with residential.

[beautyfromashes]

Seriously?  Can a park be overused?  

Have you ever seen 20 kids try to go down the slide at the same time with your kid at the bottom of the pile or had to que up with a 3-year old for the swings for 15 minutes? There is a limit for the number of people a park can handle.  And there is no reason for it.  We have so many beautiful parks in this city, but people will drive for miles to go to Loose Park.  Why is that?  The city needs to make the parks safe, clean, and with the same attractions for all the people.  Why does PVP not have a spray park?

[brewcrew1000]

PVP is not really that accessible, it's kind of hilly and the park is separated by a busy street.  parking is not as good as Loose Park.  You also don't really have a whole lot of destiny or housing immediately around the park, PVP was basically just an worthless piece of land that could not be developed and thats why it was probably dedicated as a park.
I like the idea of putting some housing inside the park, it would be a nice touch and the view would be great.

People like flat parks; hilly and odd shaped parks do not tend to be that succesful.

[beautyfromashes]

^^^^I pretty much disagree with everything you just said.

[KC-wildcat]

Have you ever seen 20 kids try to go down the slide at the same time with your kid at the bottom of the pile or had to que up with a 3-year old for the swings for 15 minutes?

No.  I don't have kids. 

...people will drive for miles to go to Loose Park.  Why is that? 

Because it's arguably the prettiest park in the Metro, surrounded by beautiful homes and amaing shopping/dining.  The exercise trail, tennis courts, rose garden, duck pond, and public shelter/restrooms are also good reasons.   

[KCMax]

IIRC, the land where PVP now sits is where the poor black community in KC lived, before they were all forcibly relocated to make way for a grand new park.

[KC-wildcat]

I'm not trying to be an ass.  I would love for PVP to be on par with LP.  I currently live closer to PVP.  

But, I've got to agree with brewcrew.  The topography and layout of PVP is completely different than LP.  LP is basically a flat square mile surrounded by an exercise trail.  PVP is not.  

PVP could be great.  It's got a nice, central location with great views.  The pond is cool too (when the City isn't fishing dead people out of it).  

It's ripe for redevelopment.  But, comparing PVP to LP is like comparing a strip mall in Independence to the Plaza.  

[loftguy]

IIRC, the land where PVP now sits is where the poor black community in KC lived, before they were all forcibly relocated to make way for a grand new park.

IIRC, you're right Max and also a big part of it was a dairy farm owned, rented, or squatted on, by the Zarda family.  They were recent immigrants, easily "cowed" and they moved west to Merriam.

[bobbyhawks]

I realize that it wasn't a popular idea and that most will make fun of me for agreeing with it, but the plan for PVP in Chastain's light rail initiative was actually pretty interesting.  I think the gondola would be just the type of thing that would both make the park unique, bridge the museums, and allow for people to better use union station as parking for a day in the park or at the WWI museum.  Filling in the surrounding streets would also help to make the park feel less dangerous.  More mounted police would be a nice touch as mentioned earlier.

If I were to come up with a plan on my own, it would involve filling in main street from Union Station north to the Federal Reserve, creating a tunnel with grass covering Broadway/PV Drive from just South of the IRS building to just North of 31st, and creating a free gondola or mini monorail/tram that would circulate around Union Station, WWI, and Crown Center.  Most of the driveways and parking spaces to the South end of the memorial could be filled in and converted into smaller, more spread out walking paths or even eliminated.  Putting a barrier over Broadway would bridge the pond with the rest of the park.  Penn Dr would also need to be mostly removed, helping to prevent some of the trash buildup surrounding the pond.  This is obvously very expensive, but also just my pie in the sky view of things.

[brewcrew1000]

I'm not trying to be an ass.  I would love for PVP to be on par with LP.  I currently live closer to PVP. 

I live within walking distance of PVP as well but we always us Loose Park.  I also think PVP had a bad reputation in the 80's and 90's and people still might be afraid of the park. 
I also know a couple people who recently had their car broken into at the PV Dog Park.

[brewcrew1000]

I think the gondola would be just the type of thing that would both make the park unique, bridge the museums, and allow for people to better use union station as parking for a day in the park or at the WWI museum.  Filling in the surrounding streets would also help to make the park feel less dangerous.  More mounted police would be a nice touch as mentioned earlier.

If I were to come up with a plan on my own, it would involve filling in main street from Union Station north to the Federal Reserve, creating a tunnel with grass covering Broadway/PV Drive from just South of the IRS building to just North of 31st, and creating a free gondola or mini monorail/tram that would circulate around Union Station, WWI, and Crown Center.  Most of the driveways and parking spaces to the South end of the memorial could be filled in and converted into smaller, more spread out walking paths or even eliminated.  Putting a barrier over Broadway would bridge the pond with the rest of the park.  Penn Dr would also need to be mostly removed, helping to prevent some of the trash buildup surrounding the pond.  This is obvously very expensive, but also just my pie in the sky view of things.

Those would be all great ideas, would love to see it in my lifetime.  Maybe the roadway realignment will open the park up and make it great, most people probably don't even realize a pond exists at PVP.

[mean]

I've never really been to PVP, except to buy drugs in the 1990s.

[AJoD]

PVP is not really that accessible, it's kind of hilly and the park is separated by a busy street.  parking is not as good as Loose Park.  You also don't really have a whole lot of destiny or housing immediately around the park, PVP was basically just an worthless piece of land that could not be developed and thats why it was probably dedicated as a park.
I like the idea of putting some housing inside the park, it would be a nice touch and the view would be great.

People like flat parks; hilly and odd shaped parks do not tend to be that succesful.

I'm not from here, and I visited PVP here to take a look around. I parked by some statue that appeared to be an Indian scout looking over the West Bottoms. I could see a lot of the park from Penn to Summit, and also the section across from Penn Dr to Penn Valley Dr. I walked around back by the tennis courts and up to 31st. I couldn't make heads or tails of what this land was supposed to be for, or could be repurposed as.

When people talk about what an underutilized jewel PVP is, I get that it's not stellar, but I really have a hard time seeing what it could be. Is the big lawn between the Liberty Memorial and Union Station, where the fireworks are on Memorial Day, part of the park too? I guess that just seems more like a big lawn, and would be cool with some Jens Jensen style landscaping.

But when I think of the "not-so-safe" big city parks of Chicago, say, like Humboldt or Garfield, PVP just strikes me as too divided by streets and natural barriers to do anything like that.

It's hard for me to understand what people are talking about. Is there someplace that I should go within the park to better appreciate its potential?

[beautyfromashes]

I live within walking distance of PVP as well but we always us Loose Park.  I also think PVP had a bad reputation in the 80's and 90's and people still might be afraid of the park. 

Loose Park used to have a bad reputation too because of a serial rapist who attacked many victims there.  Reputations do change after several decades.

[FangKC]

Penn Valley Park is the most underappreciated asset in the central city--in what it could be.  It's just configured badly, and desperately needs to have the roads and streets reworked to provide more connections.

Indeed, development should be focused on the streets and neighborhoods around the park. There are plenty of areas adjacent to the park that could be redeveloped with high-rise apartments with views of the park.

But for that to happen, a makeover of the park needs to happen.  The City doesn't have the money to do it, so there needs to be a friends of the park campaign with benefactors donating money to make improvements.

PVP does have an attraction: the Liberty Memorial and WWI Museum.  However, that is not enough. People don't go to the memorial and museum and use the park.  So, PVP needs another attraction.

I think the first thing that needs to be done is relandscaping of the park to add more to the visual aesthetic.  It needs more ornamental trees, shrubs, and bushes. It needs to be more like a botantical garden. This would use the topography as an asset. People forget that Central Park is on very diverse topography.

There also should be an indoor conservatory.  Making the park prettier year-round and adding the ornamental trees would create beautiful views that people would pay for.

Broadway needs to be changed from a speedway back into slow-moving parkway. People blast through the park and create danger and havoc to any pedestrian.  There's no need for it.  The connection to I-35 should also be removed. It brings too much fast-moving traffic into the park.

There are plenty of areas around the park that could be redeveloped with high-rise apartment buildings. The west side of Southwest Trafficway has run-down old houses that could be removed and replaced. The whole West Side South neighborhood could be rebuilt and made very dense.

There are several sites along 31st Street where high-rises could be built, and the corner of 31st and Main was considered for one past proposal that never got off the ground.

Crown Center is sitting on several good sites along Main for high-rise apartment buildings that would have great views. I wish there was more of a market for that type of housing.

If I was a billionaire like Jim Stowers or Donald Hall, I would donate a conservatory and botantical garden to the City. That would be a lasting legacy that would benefit residents and tourists alike.

I wish the Kaufmann's wouldn't have placed their memorial garden on Brush Creek in that flood zone. It would have had more benefit in PVP, and could have been a good start to a botanical garden there.

The area in PVP around the Liberty Memorial mall was actually planned to be a civic mall by George Kessler with all the public city, county, state and federal buildings, and museums placed there.  That plan basically got lost when City Hall and JC Courthouse were built inside the Loop, and the Nelson-Atkins was placed on Nelson's former estate.

[mean]

I couldn't make heads or tails of what this land was supposed to be for, or could be repurposed as.

Pretty much. I wish the land between the Mall and Kessler / Main could be developed into, well, anything, but I'm not sure it can. At least not at a price reasonable enough for anyone to do it.

But when I think of the "not-so-safe" big city parks of Chicago, say, like Humboldt or Garfield, PVP just strikes me as too divided by streets and natural barriers to do anything like that.

There was a time when the park, and in particular the area around the Mall, was the place to score pretty much whatever you wanted. Crack? Smack? 15-year old twink? No problem. You pretty much didn't go up there after dark unless you were selling drugs, buying drugs, or looking for anonymous gay sex / prostitution. The cops never seemed to be much of a problem. I hear this is no longer the case, though.

People forget that Central Park is on very diverse topography.

People also forget that Central Park was landscaped to have diverse topography.