OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)

[TheBigChuckbowski]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... nfill.html

One development's ceiling could be another development's floor.
That's part of the pitch for the 2.77-acre deck of a four-story garage adjacent to One Park Place Luxury Condominiums, 700 W. 31st St.
John Sweeney, Matt Watkins and RC Jensen of Reece Commercial are marketing the site as a "Class A urban infill development opportunity."
The $4.4 million price tag includes the bottom two of three underground parking levels, or about 400 spaces. The first underground parking level will remain reserved for the 108 condominium units in the adjacent 19-story tower.

[FangKC]

I would support developing the garage into additional apartment units. Adding more residents around the park will only increase the number of potential users, and expanding potential for park use.

The top of the garage is essentially a wasted space, and opportunity. If they have the additional parking spots that are going unused, then by all means, add more apartments that can use those spaces.

In my estimation, the edges of Penn Valley Park provide the greatest untapped opportunity for high-rise residential apartment buildings in downtown, and adding density to the area. These adjacent parcels have some of the best potential unblocked views in the entire city, and for high-rise development, views are everything.

If the City wanted to create a market for this, it should work much harder on turning PVP into a more special place. The easiest thing to do would simply be to add more beauty to the park through the most inexpensive means -- adding more and better landscaping--and more sidewalks and paths to enjoy this landscaping. The other thing would be to add speed bumps on Broadway through the park to slow traffic down. That route should not be a speedway. The streets through Central Park certainly aren't.

The better landscaping could be paid for a couple of ways. Divert some of the TIF money from development around the park to improving park landscaping and infastructure. The other way is to set up a private non-profit park conservancy and have area benefactors and companies donate money for improvements. Central Park in NYC is partially funded by a conservancy.

A lot of this type of work could be done by conservancy volunteers as well--building and planting flower beds, planting more ornamental trees that provide color in spring and autumn.

I would think Crown Center would be on board with improving the park since it would provide an additional tourist attraction for the hotels and stores there, as well as make the remaining parcels more attractive for development.

Penn Valley Park should move in the direction of becoming more a botanical garden in the middle of the City. As it is now, it just isn't living up to its' potential.

[flyingember]

The other thing would be to add speed bumps on Broadway through the park to slow traffic down. That route should not be a speedway. The streets through Central Park certainly aren't.

I would do something different and way further.

Turn Penn Valley Drive into a quiet park street. Realign Penn Valley Dr to today's Broadway segment and connect to Wyandotte with a roundabout. Take out the overpass completely. Then close the I-35 ramps and put a roundabout in at 27th. Send all the NB I-35 traffic over to SW Trafficway. You would lose the crazy short merge making I-35 safer. This would also give a large parcel on the NW corner of the park to sell for development or put in a museum or something. The Kansas City museum would work well right there.

Now let's go really extreme. Move the SW trafficway onramp into a tunnel under 27th. this would remove a street light. And put SW Tfwy into a tunnel (cut and cover trench) from 2800 to 3000. reconnect the neighborhood to the park. park-fronting houses would almost instantly gain interest

This would give the design to add sidewalks to one of the least pedestrian friendly parks in the city and would allow for safe bike trails into the neighborhoods surrounding.

And then it would work for trees and shrubs and bike paths and all that

[moderne]

Back in the eighties there was a science museum proposal for the park that took up very little of the park surface. It was to put the museum in mined caves under the park, like the mines in the same limestone layer as off of 31st street. This could be revived as the History Museum, Cheap climate control and complete light control for the vast collections.

[FangKC]

I had the idea of expanding the WWI Museum into a larger war museum representing more wars and veteran's efforts. The museum would be placed under the north and south lawns. The cave idea might work as well depending on placement and an access for the mining of the limestone. One might place it west of the present museum and mine in on that dead-end street south of the IRS complex.

[rxlexi]

As it is now, it just isn't living up to its' potential.

Understatement of the century. PVP should be an amazing metro-wide asset, located as it right at the edge of downtown with the best skyline views in the area, and containing enough rustic beauty and densely wooded slopes and hollows to feel like a slice of the Ozarks within the densest part of the urban core. And yet, aside from the softball fields and dog park, it is essentially unused as parkland.

It wouldn't take much to begin to see dramatic improvements IMO. I'd love to see some trails running through the woods. A much better connection between the two sides of the park is essential. More activity on the west side (better maintained tennis courts, single-track trail running along the bluffs, a spray park and picnic area, rock climbing, whatever). Better signage and connections all-around, for the trails that do exist.

Running from "peak to peak", i.e. the highest point (Scout/tennis courts) on the west side, down around the lake up to the highest point (Fed building) on east side is a nice, intense little circuit. Promote it, and make the Broadway crossing usable.

Down the road, invest in new infrastructure, a large fountain, botanical garden area, slimmed down roads, whatever, but make it feel like someone cares about this place that should be so special.

And until then, we need to go out and use it. That's the first key right there.

[Midtownkid]

I think a dramatic, sweeping pedestrian & bike only bridge connecting two high points of the park would be a big improvement. From the bluff near the Pioneer Mother statue, over the valley where the lake is, to the Scout's bluff. The bridge would not only connect these two disconnected areas of the park, it would provide dramatic views of downtown and the valley (Broadway and the Lake). People would be able to better traverse the park via bike and jogging. Others would come to the park just for the view! It would become a city icon and another place people come to take photos, exercise and relax.

I'm imagining a modern, taller version of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis, more along the lines of Calatrava

[flyingember]

Promote it, and make the Broadway crossing usable.

crossing broadway would be one of the worst places to put a crossing in. Broadway is only on a bridge through the park and is right next to a signaled crossing.

as for a large fountain, there's already three in the park and a fourth right next to it. does it really need another?

does anyone not understand that Broadway doesn't actually bisect the park? It ends at Penn Valley Drive and doesn't start back up until the far side of the terminal rr trench to the north.

[Midtownkid]

Broadway / Penn Valley Drive it's all the same. Just a name change

[flyingember]

Broadway / Penn Valley Drive it's all the same. Just a name change

not even close.

Penn Valley Dr actually starts at 31st where Wyandotte and Central merge together. Broadway intersects it and ends a block to the north.

then Penn Valley Dr becomes W Pennway St at 27th.
at 21st W Pennway makes a hard right and becomes Beardsley at 17th in the westside. Broadway ends at 21st on the north end

so basically Broadway doesn't exist where the functional path swings away from Broadway. It really should be Pennsylvania or Jefferson through the park

[mgh7676]

If you drive south on Broadway from downtown, after driving through Penn Valley Park you end back up on Broadway. It really is pretty much all the same.

[flyingember]

If you drive south on Broadway from downtown, after driving through Penn Valley Park you end back up on Broadway. It really is pretty much all the same.

again, nope.

Broadway exists parallel to W. Pennway at Pershing, from there to the terminal RR. You can see the street sign in google street view

sure, in terms of a path it's easy. but if you actually follow the street row and the actual streets together it's not the same street through the park.

and the row on the south end actually doesn't follow Broadway, it goes to Wyandotte.

[Midtownkid]

Who cares about all there technicalities regarding Broadway?? If I'm driving from Downtown to Midtown via Broadway, I don't think about or am effected by the name changes...it's basically all one street!

Back to the park...

[flyingember]

Who cares about all there technicalities regarding Broadway?? If I'm driving from Downtown to Midtown via Broadway, I don't think about or am effected by the name changes...it's basically all one street!

Back to the park...

if you read my suggestions you would understand why it matter

it would redesign Penn Valley away from a through st that might as well be broadway to a quiet street in a park

[moderne]

Recently stumbled across an access into the park that I was not aware of. At Main just north of 30th St. on the south edge of the Fed Reserve property is a pedestrian walkway that goes west and intersects near the dog park. One can walk into the park from Union Hill and mostly avoid the traffic sewer of Main. There are some terrific views from the path and you can get to the Liberty Mem without going downhill then uphill.

[FangKC]

New book details lessons from park and boulevard history

Before it became a major city park, Penn Valley was a deep ravine with 300 homes scattered across its hillsides, as seen in this photo from 1890. Photo courtesy Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners as seen in the new book “Kansas City’s Parks and Boulevards.”

http://midtownkcpost.com/new-book-detai ... d-history/

[chaglang]

And here's an overlay of the 1895 (1909?) Sanborn and a current aerial. The Scout is in the front yard of 642 Villa Ave. It's clearer in this image how closely Penn Valley Parkway follows the old Pennsylvania Ave road path.

[loftguy]

New book details lessons from park and boulevard history




http://midtownkcpost.com/new-book-detai ... d-history/

In the book, they make the statement that the abandonment of the city, of the past 50 years, is not so complete and devastating as it would have been had not the boulevard system existed.

This is an observation that I had never heard. It struck me as audacious at first, then with time I have come to understand, recognize and agree.

[pash]

.

[FangKC]

There is a lot to be said for cities that have lovely parks, parkways, and nice boulevards as a retention tool. If a city has areas of beauty, people are less willing to abandon it than if the city has devolved into a hellhole.

I will use the Historic Northeast as an example. You will notice that the housing stock closest to Gladstone Boulevard ( a nice leafy boulevard) is better maintained than the housing stock that is closer to Independence Avenue or south of Independence Avenue.