Target

[flyingember]

One of the huge holes to drawing more suburbanites into living downtown is a general purpose retail store.
Take a look at a map and find every Target, Walmart, Kmart/Sears and such in the area. The only urban store near downtown is Costco and they require a membership. The others are a long bus ride away for people on the east side or midtown

Target already does multi-story stores in tight footprints and targets downtown demographics better than walmart. They also do stores well that don't stand out. Their store inside the Chicago loop they kept the historic entrance intact.

here's a photo of that store. Notice how subtle the signage is from that angle.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumsinnow/8017953369/

this is one company that the city should offer the entire book of financial concessions to get downtown

[loftguy]

One of the huge holes to drawing more suburbanites into living downtown is a general purpose retail store.
Take a look at a map and find every Target, Walmart, Kmart/Sears and such in the area. The only urban store near downtown is Costco and they require a membership. The others are a long bus ride away for people on the east side or midtown

Target already does multi-story stores in tight footprints and targets downtown demographics better than walmart. They also do stores well that don't stand out. Their store inside the Chicago loop they kept the historic entrance intact.

here's a photo of that store. Notice how subtle the signage is from that angle.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumsinnow/8017953369/

this is one company that the city should offer the entire book of financial concessions to get downtown

I agree.

[earthling]

That would be nice but urban Targets are located where there is higher density. Downtown population might need to bump 10K more before Target even considers it. Though considering the closest is Ward Parkway Center, a downtown Target would attract Midtowners too.

[beautyfromashes]

Said it before, I'd put it at the 63rd and Troost in the Landing Shopping Center. It would revitalize that entire area, be accessible easily from 71 Highway, already has a large parking lot and not too far from the East Side to be available. Plus, it could be the beginning of the elimination of Troost being a dividing line in this city.

[chaglang]

Completely agree. Armour & Troost would also be a pretty sweet location.

[Eon Blue]

A downtown Target would be great, especially considering they're willing to locate in an existing building. Just think of the possibilities among the buildings currently awaiting rehab.

[brewcrew1000]

Completely agree. Armour & Troost would also be a pretty sweet location.

How about Armour and Main, they could use one of the old Hostess Buildings, wouldn't have to build anything new

[chaglang]

Because Troost needs the new development more than Main does.

And it's closer to my house.

[flyingember]

That would be nice but urban Targets are located where there is higher density. Downtown population might need to bump 10K more before Target even considers it. Though considering the closest is Ward Parkway Center, a downtown Target would attract Midtowners too.

don't forget east side too. and eastern KCK. both are closer to downtown than the existing stores.
and if you're limited to the bus those stores are really unreachable or much further all other things being equal.

[flyingember]

Said it before, I'd put it at the 63rd and Troost in the Landing Shopping Center. It would revitalize that entire area, be accessible easily from 71 Highway, already has a large parking lot and not too far from the East Side to be available. Plus, it could be the beginning of the elimination of Troost being a dividing line in this city.

not instead.

Too. put one there too.

that's about as far from downtown as the walmart at blue ridge is from downtown. it's also farther from an existing target as some of their other stores are apart.

you would get more unique populations into each store and that would allow a better product focus at each location to fit the needs of the community.
just the income differences would mean a different product selection right there and that's before a downtown store having product sizes focused on small apartments. i.e. more wall mounting shelving than huge bookcases and smaller packages of TP.

[mgh7676]

An urban Target and YMCA would go a long ways in helping to make the East Village development a success

[loftguy]

A downtown Target would be great, especially considering they're willing to locate in an existing building. Just think of the possibilities among the buildings currently awaiting rehab.

I can not think of any, that would be a candidate.

[kboish]

A downtown Target would be great, especially considering they're willing to locate in an existing building. Just think of the possibilities among the buildings currently awaiting rehab.

I can not think of any, that would be a candidate.

I agree. That is almost the danger of them coming DT as well, especially inside the loop. They could build a Target in the North or East loop and put a TON of parking around it...instead of doing a proper urban store as initially suggested. I am all for a DT target, but still do not trust our gov to help/force them to do it urban appropriate in that setting.

[flyingember]

I thought of a good sign for Target treating KC well if they brought an urban store.

They have a store in downtown Minneapolis.

They didn't build on a massive parking lot to build an suburban style store even though there's tons available in that downtown I bet the city would love to redevelop around. They actually built on a street with zero car traffic, only city busses.

[ThaMexican]

The store in Downtown Minneapolis is pretty good and loved that there was not a huge parking lot in front of it.

[earthling]

Downtown Minneapolis also has 3x the population.

[brewcrew1000]

^As well as the Target Corporate HQ like in the same building

[heatherkay]

They just opened one in Madison that was a inner-ring suburb, developing on the site of a defunct shopping center. Not totally analogous to DT KC, but the Madison store did have a structured parking on its first and second floor.

[Eon Blue]

I can not think of any, that would be a candidate.

Not even something like the Pickwick? That was a former bus terminal, no? And I thought the ground floor was gutted for parking. That would create ample floor space, while the upper floors could be used for office/residential.

[mgh7676]

To me, the spot that makes the most sense downtown is the empty lot just north of the P&L Building. This would put the Target near the rest of downtown's retail (possibly helping to draw more retail in) and also central to many of downtown's hotels and larger rental/condos.