Midtown Apartments

[Highlander]

Are there really so many apartments being built in midtown that local homeowners cannot find a place to park?

Publishing an article claiming parking issues are "ruining midtown" seems a bit hyperbolic.

Seems like it would be a much larger issue downtown where so many apartments have opened lately.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 56692.html

[kboish]

Are there really so many apartments being built in midtown that local homeowners cannot find a place to park?

No.

[mykn]

Are there really so many apartments being built in midtown that local homeowners cannot find a place to park?

Publishing an article claiming parking issues are "ruining midtown" seems a bit hyperbolic.

Seems like it would be a much larger issue downtown where so many apartments have opened lately.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 56692.html

Sounds like those homeowners should have purchased their own spot to park instead of being a mooch with public spots.

[flyingember]

Are there really so many apartments being built in midtown that local homeowners cannot find a place to park?

No.

It's exactly what you would expect. Everyone wants a spot right outside their door.

There's people pointing out on twitter they know people quoted in the article and there's parking always available right around the corner or just down the street.

The related point is midtown was developed to not use cars to get around so expecting parking to max out is completely expected.

[auntbigdog]

The obsession with being able to park 10 feet from wherever you want to be --work, restaurant, home -- is fascinating to me, and something I hadn't come across until moving to KC. Friends in Longfellow had a neighbor who would leave a nasty note on the windshield of anyone who had the temerity to park in front of his house (public street). And here in Volker, there's plenty of kvetching from residents who don't want to haul their kids or groceries from anywhere besides right in front of their house (again, public street).

I understand that it's not the convenience that folks have been used to, but I also think that you pays your money and you takes your chances. You want assured parking, then you might want to look for a house with a driveway, if not a garage. I could afford neither when I lived in Chicago, so I got used to parking 2-4 blocks away from my apartment, and anything closer was gravy.

I'm hoping this is just a growing-pain phase while people get used to living in a thriving city. Otherwise, these complaints make KCians look a little bit provincial.

[wahoowa]

eh, most kansas citians are more than a little bit provincial when it comes to the role of vehicles/parking/etc. if it is a phase, it's not going anywhere until we get a lot more transplants who are willing to tell longfellow lenny that he's being a jackass when he spends his time in the break room complaining about having to leave a note on peoples' windshields for parking in "his spot."

[grovester]

Right, it's not that these people exist, every city has them. It's that our newspaper will write a front page story about it that makes KC looks provincial.

[wahoowa]

that is a very good point.

at least some twitter users are appropriately telling the author of the article that longfellow lenny is being a jackass!: https://twitter.com/KCStarStafford/stat ... 9110216705

[geeman68]

I pointed out in one of these on twitter that the photo being used was north Plaza and NOT midtown so that was a misrepresentation.

[earthling]

This claims Midtown includes Plaza (up to 55th street). Have read other reports claim Midtown ends at 43rd, which makes Plaza sort of Uptown.

This one claims up to 55th...
https://www.flatlandkc.org/curious-kc/a ... d-midtown/

Have seen old maps that show Union Station area as Midtown and what we now call Midtown as Uptown.

[flyingember]

Midtown is Brush Creek to 31st, Troost to the state line

South of Brush Creek historically part of the suburban country club district and north wasn't.

The brush creek boundary is close to the 1897 annexation line on the south but not perfect and for any definition, most of midtown was annexed with that one while further south was the 1909 annexation.

You've not going to be able to logically split part of the country club district apart just to put it in midtown and not have an argument around why you would pick one country club dist neighborhood and not another.

Looking at historic housing stock, until recent years you could fairly say south of brush creek was single family homes and north was apartment homes, with only some exceptions. the towers to the south of brush creek have been and remain an upper class development, they were early white flight to not live in working class neighborhoods. I would put them outside of midtown and in the country club district for this reason.

to the east, Troost has been an economic and cultural boundar for over a century. So why think any neighborhood east of Troost is part of midtown?

if it was being defined as a part of town today I would pick different boundaries but that's not the point. midtown doesn't change size because someone wants it to.

[NorthOak]

Midtown is Brush Creek to 31st, Troost to the state line

No. Wrong. False.
Brush Creek has nothing at all to do with "Midtown."
Midtown historically has always been 31st St to 39th St.
State Line to Troost.

Since KC came of age and developed it's urban boundaries in the 40's-50's, Midtown was always the neighborhood between 31st and 39th. Main, Linwood, Armour, Broadway and Troost had many businesses with "Midtown" in their names. The Plaza and Westport never had businesses with Midtown in their name.

Westport has always been Westport - no one has ever referred to it as "Midtown."
The Plaza has always been the Plaza - no one has ever referred to it as "Midtown.".
They have always been distinct Districts.
The all encompassing Midtown term is confusing and really dumb.

Flatland KC gives no evidence in any way of how they came to their conclusion.
Perhaps the city and/or some development corp has changed the boundaries recently as KC has grown in the urban core and many buildings on the Plaza along Main St have become mid-rises - fine.
But they need to explain where this idea came from. It's really stupid to think that Westport or the Plaza could be called part of Midtown.

[flyingember]

Old Westport and The Plaza are the names of neighborhoods.
Midtown is a collection of neighborhoods.
Volker is half in and half out of midtown by that definition and would lose one Hyde Park neighborhood, and that name is part of a common shared background as much as midtown is.

you can be in Westport and midtown at the same time. you can argue that midtown ends at 43rd too, but even that is troublesome

You can find all sorts of pairings and the name of a business tells you little about neighborhood boundaries.

There's a place called Midtown laundry at 64th/Troost, Midtown Convenience Mart at 43rd/Indiana, Midtown Baptist Temple at 40th and Walnut inside Southmoreland.

Fountain View on the Plaza and Montreaux on the plaza aren't actually on the plaza or in a neighborhood with plaza in the name

Carstar Plaza and The Plaza Academy are both inside westport

You can find places using the Westport name when they're in Volker. For example, the Westport quicktrip that wants to expand


The city calls Midtown, Westport and Plaza as separate, sort of.
http://kcmo.gov/planning/midtown-plaza/
Their north meeting areas were 31st to 43rd but they weren't called midtown at all
They called plaza the area south of 43rd through to 55th, which many would call partially Brookside

This earlier study put South Plaza in the Brookside neighborhood
http://ww4.kcmo.org/planning/pdf/focus/ ... okside.pdf

This place puts Midtown and Westport together with a hyphen
http://www.remax-midstates.com/kansasci ... as-city-mo

This place is really off ones for midtown. The first home shown to me for midtown was at 63rd/Baltimore
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... as-City_MO

So when you take this all together the closest to a concensus is midtown is a collection of neighborhoods the plaza to North Hyde Park. Thus why Brush Creek is the de facto boundary.

Yes, you won't find many midtown ____ names inside Westport, but 95% of stores in Westport don't put the word westport in their name either and you're as likely to find the name used in a place outside midtown per your boundary

the best answer is what midtown is changes depending on need while the smaller neighborhoods don't change. it's why way more places use plaza and Westport in their name. so the midtown post can go east of troost because it works better for them

[geeman68]

SO, I was driving on Main north just passing 36th before Armour and that brownstone apartment now has a sign on it for Studio 6 Extended Stay. When was that announced? I didn't even know Motel6 had anything like that.

[ULCajun]

That sign has been up for a month at least.

[rxlexi]

Right, it's not that these people exist, every city has them. It's that our newspaper will write a front page story about it that makes KC looks provincial.

Bingo. Frustrating.

[mean]

I occasionally get people apologizing for parking in front of my house, and I'm like, "Dude, it's a public street... I can park 10 feet further away, it's fine." A suburban friend of mine called me flipping out because he couldn't find a parking spot in Brookside and I'm like, "Just find a spot on the street and... park there." He was incredulous because it was in front of someone's house. He couldn't believe that was legal. /shrug

Moral of the story: people are stupid.

[Highlander]

I occasionally get people apologizing for parking in front of my house, and I'm like, "Dude, it's a public street... I can park 10 feet further away, it's fine." A suburban friend of mine called me flipping out because he couldn't find a parking spot in Brookside and I'm like, "Just find a spot on the street and... park there." He was incredulous because it was in front of someone's house. He couldn't believe that was legal. /shrug

Moral of the story: people are stupid.

Since when can you not park in front of someone's house in the suburbs?

[brewcrew1000]

My friend in Waldo once made me move my car on the public street because it was parked in front of a neighbors house because it was "his neighbors spot" - Yes people are stupid but I don't think they like street parking in the suburbs and they especially don't like overnight street parking.

[taxi]

I can name several instances of my neighbors in Columbus Park believing only they are entitled to park in front of their own house. In one case, the guy backed his truck into the offender, knocking it out of his spot a few inches at a time. In another case, a neighbor broke into the offending vehicle and stole a bunch of stuff out of it, which he put on his porch – in plain site. Both of these guys are healthy, able-bodied men. Some of my neighbors put orange cones out in "their" spots. Every single one of these imbeciles complain about parking whenever a new development or business is proposed.