Possible future multi-use development

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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dnweava wrote:
sounds like your friend is an asshole.

There is plenty of things in KC you can't get on the coasts. It's no NYC but if somebody can't enjoy a vacation in KC its because of them, not because of KC.

:lol: I'd agree but then again I think we (including myself) can all be (or have been) assholes at one time in our lives. If it makes you feel any better he also said he wouldn't visit me if I decided to live in Texas and he's originally from there.

I'm curious what Kansas City offers that you cant find on the coasts other than wheat fields ..ok that was a joke but it is a serious question. I mean Kansas City prides themselves on their BBQ and steaks but if you're a vegetarian then well you're probably going to be eating wheat bread and Sunflower seeds. :lol:

As for anyone not being able to enjoy a vacation in KC because of them and not the city, well I agree but you also have to concede that the same applies to anywhere you go on vacation, heck just getting a vacation these days is nice. But please list a few of these things that you cant get outside KC (expect the CC Plaza) After all Dallas Has Highland Park Village and although on a much smaller scale it still very plaza like and very nice to visit during the holidays with all its Christmas lights.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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KCroots wrote:
dnweava wrote:
sounds like your friend is an asshole.

There is plenty of things in KC you can't get on the coasts. It's no NYC but if somebody can't enjoy a vacation in KC its because of them, not because of KC.

:lol: I'd agree but then again I think we (including myself) can all be (or have been) assholes at one time in our lives. If it makes you feel any better he also said he wouldn't visit me if I decided to live in Texas and he's originally from there.

I'm curious what Kansas City offers that you cant find on the coasts other than wheat fields ..ok that was a joke but it is a serious question. I mean Kansas City prides themselves on their BBQ and steaks but if you're a vegetarian then well you're probably going to be eating wheat bread and Sunflower seeds. :lol:

As for anyone not being able to enjoy a vacation in KC because of them and not the city, well I agree but you also have to concede that the same applies to anywhere you go on vacation, heck just getting a vacation these days is nice. But please list a few of these things that you cant get outside KC (expect the CC Plaza) After all Dallas Has Highland Park Village and although on a much smaller scale it still very plaza like and very nice to visit during the holidays with all its Christmas lights.
Funny you mention it. Kc is an amazing city for vegetarians. We have a few restaurants dedicated to only veg or vegans. In my travels,it's probably the best Midwestern city for vegetarians.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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mykn wrote:
Funny you mention it. Kc is an amazing city for vegetarians. We have a few restaurants dedicated to only veg or vegans. In my travels,it's probably the best Midwestern city for vegetarians.

I’m sure KC does have a couple good vegetarian restaurants (I’m not a vegetarian so I don’t know) but I’d say almost every community / city around the country has at least one decent vegetarian restaurant.

You probably won’t see many people traveling to KCMO just to eat vegetarian food but I agree if they were there it’s nice to have that option.

I guess my point is that while KCMO does have a few neat attractions like the CC Plaza and Union Station they are not the types of draw to being long distance visitors, or should I say not in droves. I personally think the major attraction Kansas City has is the CC Plaza and that’s just sad. I say sad because while the Plaza is indeed nice its sad there is nothing else that stands out as unique in Kansas City. Am I wrong?
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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I would say that the Liberty Memorial and WWI Museum are unique to KC.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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grovester wrote:I would say that the Liberty Memorial and WWI Museum are unique to KC.

I was wondering when someone would mention the Memorial and the Museum, and while I totally agree they are unique to Kansas City and are in fact a great asset I disagree they are a real pull for overall tourism. Not many people really travel solely to see such memorials, meaning I don't think very many family / individual vacations are planned and set out to see the memorial or museum as their main destination goal.

I think the Memorial and the Museum are more along the lines of secondary stops while in the city but nonetheless I do agree they are really neat and individual assets to the overall city. Even more so as the 100 year anniversary of WWI is in upon us.

I do love the entire park and national monument feeling you get when at the memorial and think its neat but at the same time sad we humans cannot learn from our savage past and not to continue erecting all these various war memorials for all the thousands if not millions of lives lost, especially since we seem to have the same global disagreements to this very day.

Think it would be much better for any city to erect life parks or green space for people to enjoy and improve the quality of life, rather than memorialize all the loss of life.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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Well I'm certainly glad I didn't assert that they were a "real pull for tourism", though I think you discount military and historical tourism at your peril. Face it, outside of our nations capital, tourism is driven by hedonism or natural wonder. In KC I'd say the biggest draws are foodie tourism (bbq) and sports (Royals and Chiefs). Nothing to be ashamed of and better than a lot of metros. Seriously, why would anyone vacation in Dallas?
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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this whole dialogue just sets off my bullshit radar.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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grovester wrote:Well I'm certainly glad I didn't assert that they were a "real pull for tourism", though I think you discount military and historical tourism at your peril. Face it, outside of our nations capital, tourism is driven by hedonism or natural wonder. In KC I'd say the biggest draws are foodie tourism (bbq) and sports (Royals and Chiefs). Nothing to be ashamed of and better than a lot of metros. Seriously, why would anyone vacation in Dallas?

First let me apologize if my tone in the last post was a little gruff, It wasn’t my intention. I personally love Union Station and the WWI Memorial and think they look very good next to each other and are a huge asset to KCMO. I just don’t think they are huge tourist draws for the city, and when I say secondary draws I mean they get visited when someone is already in the city and is being shown around.

I was recently reading the numbers of visitors to the Memorial Museum and thought it wasn’t all that many. The article I read said “More than 150,000 people visited the museum last year”

Source: http://news.msn.com/us/100-years-on-wor ... ity-museum

Compare that to say St. Louis and the gateway arch,

The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world with over four million visitors annually,

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch



As for why would anyone vacation /visit Dallas, that’s a good question that I cannot answer for others but I will say Dallas has the 6th floor Museum and Dealey Plaza that get more visitors each year than the WWI Memorial and WWI museum.

The 6th floor museum attracts more than 325,000 people every year. (that’s more than double what the WWI Museum attracts)
Source: http://www.jfk.org/go/about/faqs

Kansas City does have great history and yes it’s known for BBQ, Steaks and its Jazz but those are more woven into its history and not really a destination attraction like a memorial or an Arch. Like Cowboy boots, western hats, and oil derricks are to Dallas’ woven history you don’t see people flying to Dallas to visit the western wear people use to wear.

Again for me, Kansas City is where I was born and where my grandparents and parents lived so I have roots there and a “connection” to the city. I love the rich history of the city but only because I feel that connection. All cities have a rich history but whether you personally have a connection to that history is another issue.

The fact Kansas City is my birth “home” I just wish there was a larger destination draw or something more than the woven history of BBQ, Steaks and Jazz to set the city apart and make it more of a tourism draw. I say that with sincerity as I really would love to see it one day happen.

While Kansas City MO does have a few things economically against at this time I do predict that Kansas City will once again be one of the most important cities in the USA in the future. There are factors in play at this very moment that indicate to me that Kansas City will rise to great prominence once again but most people are blind to these things at these time, they just cannot see them or believe in them.

As a betting man I do predict that Kansas City in 25 years will become one of the most important hubs in all of the USA.

What Kansas City needs to do right now is to get their collective shit together and get a nice professional first class mass transit system in place and operating. They also need to get a new larger (At least 3 times the size) international airport build and a large freight yard and distribution system developed to serve both the northeast and some of the west

Due to my age and health I know I'm not blessed with very many more years on this planet but I do know if I am given 15 years more to live I will see some of these huge changes take place. I just want to be back home to experience and be part of all the changes in Kansas City.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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ColumbusParkian wrote:this whole dialogue just sets off my bullshit radar.
And I could claim your comment here just sets off my troll indicator.

If this thread truly bothers you that badly let me suggest you refrain from participating in it and go about your merry way. However if you are going to participate then be a little more constructive. If you feel there is an element of bullshit then raise it, question it, and discuss it in a mature manner because there's no need to simply drive by with passing bullshit comments that are derailing and divisive in nature.

This is after all the internet so yes take everything with a grain of salt but at the same time remember we're just on a simple discussion board talking about possible private real estate developments that really don't always come to fruition.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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KCroots wrote:
grovester wrote:Well I'm certainly glad I didn't assert that they were a "real pull for tourism", though I think you discount military and historical tourism at your peril. Face it, outside of our nations capital, tourism is driven by hedonism or natural wonder. In KC I'd say the biggest draws are foodie tourism (bbq) and sports (Royals and Chiefs). Nothing to be ashamed of and better than a lot of metros. Seriously, why would anyone vacation in Dallas?

I was recently reading the numbers of visitors to the Memorial Museum and thought it wasn’t all that many. The article I read said “More than 150,000 people visited the museum last year”

Source: http://news.msn.com/us/100-years-on-wor ... ity-museum

Compare that to say St. Louis and the gateway arch,

The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world with over four million visitors annually,

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch
The WWI museum is great but WWI is an almost forgotten war; one that doesn't garner huge American interest like the Civil War and without the intrigue of WWII. That said, the museum in Dallas you speak of gathers interest probably because it's something to do in Dallas and Dallas is larger and gets more visitors than KC whether they come for business, family, or a regional get-away. Plus Kennedy is a much more modern and memorable figure than anything about WWI (can many Americans even name our president during WWI?). I seriously doubt if Dallas is all that big of a holiday draw on a national scale.

I do not think there are all that many cities in the US that are national draws on their own right. Only Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and a few others peak my interest. Other than that, there would have to be something in the area to make a visit more palatable like mountaineering (Denver), skiing (Salt Lake City), Disneyworld (Orlando) (clearly many go to Vegas for gambling - not me). KC is a great regional holiday location with a lot to do and has a few great events like the Plaza Art show that brings people in nationally or the Big XII tourney that brings in regional travelers. My kids who grew up in Europe and more recently Houston love the retro feel and walkable areas KC has to offer relative to the Texas cities they've been around more lately.

I certainly hope your predictions for KC come to fruition and I hope I am around long enough to see it happen. Pump a bit of money into KC's urban core and it would be just an incredible place.
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Re: Possible future multi-use development

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I totally agree about WWI almost being a forgotten war but the Memorial for its park space alone is so nice to have even if people forget the actual war but appreciate the memorial grounds. Also have to agree regarding the number of visitors to Dallas and the museum in Dallas. Why does Dallas have more visitors? Or why is the Dallas metro area so much larger than KCMO?

Woodrow Wilson was the president during WWI but I had to look it up to be sure. WWI was 100 years ago this year so give me some slack because at my age I often have a hard time remembering where I put my car keys much less who was in the Oval Office 100 years ago.

The city’s you listed that are of a national draw are quite a few in fact and I agree with many of them. I’ve been to almost every major US city and when anyone from out of the country asks me what US city I would suggest for them to visit as their first visit to the USA, the city at top of my list is always San Francisco. The reason for this is that not only can they see the big city by the bay with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, China Town, and the Trolleys (and too many other destinations within the city to list) but they can also travel short distances and see the redwood national parks and stop at Marin County to see the large Frank Lloyd civic center or take a day trip up to cannery row at Monterey Bay and stop in Santa Cruz. There is just so much to see and do in San Francisco area that in all my US travels it tops my personal list of places.

I also like and get the “Old”” or “Retro” feel of Kansas City and although many of the structures are long gone the city still reeks old school. Cities like Houston and Phoenix just can’t reproduce that old school feeling and have to result to being a more new modern type city but they just seem to lack any real flavor in that regard. Now watch Houston and Phoenix people shoot me for saying that lol.

As for my predictions for Kansas City once again becoming a major hub again I do truly believe this will happen but it will come only after great tribulation throughout the entire USA and for that reason alone I don’t welcome it but I feel it is unavoidable. Therefore since it’s unavoidable I think all anyone can do is the best with what they have to deal with and Kansas City will be one of the places that profits the most economically.

Although we all have our own opinions and I have my own answer regarding the question I am getting ready to ask, I will share it after several people chime in. I’d like to know what others think is one of the most important companies in Kansas City right now, and for the future of the city.
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