North Kansas City

Talk about the ever expanding north side of KC.
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Re: North Kansas City

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staubio wrote: I took a bit of a detour today to check out all of Northgate Village.  The section from Burlington does look like pure crap, but it is indeed better closer to Holmes, where there  is a mix of street-fronting houses and townhouses.  I'll give a few points to them for the stuff on that side.  Check it out, it makes up for a little of what they did further west in the development.
Not sure how many remember what it did look like, but the one story apartment complexes spread on for blocks.  So much that there was always a bit of a stink that one entire ward in the city was owned by one company.
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Mr. Cranky
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by Mr. Cranky »

I used to like NKC until I lived there a couple of years, and that kind of cured me of it. I rented, and the homeowners around me - what's left of them - really resent what's happened to NKC.

This is what's happened (thanks, census.gov):

Occupied housing units                2,546
Owner-occupied housing units      606
Renter-occupied housing units    1,940

That's right - 75% of NKC's housing is rentals. If you drive up and down the little streets like 23rd-27th avenue, south of Macken Park, FOR RENT is the city flower. So that doesn't exactly add a lot of stability to the area. I'd be really curious to find out what percentage of those Northtown properties are being bought up by investors.

Nice to be here.
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Re: North Kansas City

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I lived in North Kansas City proper for two years. I spent one of those living in the Sunny Hills (North Kansas City Apartments) complex. After a fire killed a guy and destroyed about six of the units across the street from me, and another person was murdered in a neighboring building several months later, I decided to try renting a house in NKC. I am a younger person and I'm not really ready to buy a house yet, so that worked for me. I think it's an overgeneralization to imply that renters detract from stability in the area, especially if they are renting houses. I'd assume people renting houses are more likely to stay longer than those renting apartments. In fact, some landlords will offer a renter a "rent to buy" deal if you get in good with them and build a reputation.

If I hadn't needed to live closer to work, I would have rented that house for another year or two. In fact, I'm strongly considering moving back up to NKC this Fall, and I will most likely rent again. This time, I'll try to bring a little more stability to NKC.  :lol:
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by Phat Endy »

My wife and I are going to build a new house and we checked out the single family homes at Northgate Village.  They are cool in the fact that they have the traditional type floorplans with a bit of updating to expand the space inside.  The most expensive one was 270K and was about 2300 sq. ft.

The row homes are pretty neat, but they go for about 200K and they are a bit too small for a family of more than 3.  I'm from Denver and we were looking at some similar row homes in Highlands Ranch that are selling for about 300K.

Northtown is interesting, but we decided that we don't want to live there.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Welcome to the city and the board.  Where did you settle on?
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by Phat Endy »

LenexatoKCMO wrote: Welcome to the city and the board.  Where did you settle on?
Thanks.  I've actually lived here for almost ten years after I got out of school, but I still consider myself a Denverite on an extended leave of absence.

We haven't decided yet.  We live in West Shawnee now, but we are considering the Northland as well.
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Re: North Kansas City

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Electric_Cactus wrote: I think it's an overgeneralization to imply that renters detract from stability in the area, especially if they are renting houses.
Perhaps; I would hardly call my experience a trend - maybe they just didn't like me. But folks pretty much made it clear that, as a renter, I was persona non grata (they grumbled about it to the one other neighbor who treated me with any decency)....damage to personal property, superglued padlocks, just petty nonsense I could easily shrug off.

I wonder where all the people in the old Northgate Village apartments went? They were a diverse bunch. I doubt they're buying up those  200K townhomes.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by nota »

I think that the dislike of renters is just like dislike of people for any other reason. One or two bad apples spoil the barrel.

Our son just bought an old home in a neighborhood of rentals. They are one of only 3 owner occupied homes among about 10 on their block. About 3 of the rental families keep their place neat and treat it nice and take a bit of pride in their place. The rest never mow, have all kinds of junk in their yards, etc.

It just depends on who the renter is.
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Re: North Kansas City

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NKC is tearing down one of the old mills on 210 behind Burger King.  They want to develop it for retail.  I wonder what'll go in there.
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Re: North Kansas City

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North Kansas City is ready to expand its fiber-optic network

By MIKE RICE

The Kansas City Star


North Kansas City will begin to extend its fiber-optic network to area businesses and residences this month.

The City Council recently approved a $5.7 million contract with the Atlantic Engineering Group technologies firm to extend the network from the city-owned buildings where it is already in place.

The first customers should be hooked up this spring and the rest of the network will be completed by next fall, city leaders said.

“The impact of this cutting-edge technology will be similar to the fundamental infrastructure improvements the city spearheaded in the region nearly 100 years ago,â€
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by GRID »

Here is a shot of part of the NKC skyline that didn't exist a few years ago.

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Re: North Kansas City

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Michael® wrote: Grid, where was that taken from? Cliff Drive - Gladstone Blvd or Chestnut Bridge over lexington?

If you go to the 3500 bloc of Gladstone overlooking the entire east bottoms and NKC you can get the entire NKC skyline. It stretches from Cerner west to NKC downtown. There are several grain elevators that look like skyscrapers and other large warehouses. People would be impressed at the size and density.
Cliff Drive, yea the views from all those areas are pretty impressive.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by Beermo »

GRID wrote: Cliff Drive, yea the views from all those areas are pretty impressive.
wait til winter when all the leaves are gone from the trees and the air is clear. the best spot will be by the park bench on gladstone blvd at the edge of the cliffs over cliff drive.

took these in the middle of summer on a very humid day from the liberty memorial.

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Thrillcekr
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by Thrillcekr »

I was wondering if, once NKC got their network up and running, they could expand outside the city.  It would be nice for Time Warner to have some competition in downtown and the northland.  Maybe we could get some better prices then.  I know people that live in areas that are served by both TW and Everest pay less for Roadrunner than those that live in areas where they have no one to compete with.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Thrillcekr wrote: I was wondering if, once NKC got their network up and running, they could expand outside the city.  It would be nice for Time Warner to have some competition in downtown and the northland.  Maybe we could get some better prices then.  I know people that live in areas that are served by both TW and Everest pay less for Roadrunner than those that live in areas where they have no one to compete with.
The reason NKC can pull this off is the fact that they are granting themselves a franchise to compete with TW and SBC.  In order to go into the cable or telephone business you have to have a franchise from the city and more often than not they are exclusive.  Part of the reason Everest has been able to convince some of the cities to grant them a second franchise is that they are laying a different type of CoAX than TW uses; thus it is technically a different sort of franchise (at least on paper).  Other cities would be very unlikely to grant NKC a franchise within their cities.  Unfortunately, for most of us, our best hope of cable competition will come when SBC and other DSL providers begin selling IPTV next year.  They are still fighting the legal battle to get around the local cable franchise requirement though. 

Also - TW and Comcast are tentatively scheduled to trade KC and Hustom so we can all look forward to being Comcast customers. 
Last edited by LenexatoKCMO on Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by dangerboy »

Isn't NKC also barred from selling direct to consumers?  I thougth they could only sell service to businesses or other ISPs...
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Re: North Kansas City

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dangerboy wrote: Isn't NKC also barred from selling direct to consumers?  I thougth they could only sell service to businesses or other ISPs...
Nope.

"The first customers of North Kansas City’s liNKCity fiber optic network could begin using the system’s high-speed internet data services this coming spring. The City Council of North Kansas City recently approved the construction agreement with Atlantic Engineering Group to extend the City’s existing fiber infrastructure to area businesses and residents."

http://www.nkc.org/index2.htm?usid=716&class=All
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justin8216
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by justin8216 »

KCforumer wrote: I'm anti-morons who blow their money at casinos.

Anyway, NKC needs a grocery store to become complete. Maybe that will happen once the new urbanism project--claiming to actually be an extension of NKC's urban fabric--is finished. I don't remember what that project is called. I think Northgate Village. I'm interested in seeing the end results. I'm all for truly new urbanism that is an extension of an already urban area rather than so-called new-urbanism projects plopped at a major intersection.

I thought they had a Save-Allot Food Store near their Ruby Tuesdays.

I have a friend who lives in the Northland Lofts on Armour. The 24 Osco on Armour is the only place I can find Jolt Cola. ;-)
Kelso's Pizza is nice. Way better than Waldo's or Minskey's. LOL
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by KansasCityChiefs »

There are some neat places to eat in NKC, plus the casino taxes have given them a great community center. Next time you guys are in Northtown, try out Chappell's, it's a sports bar. The guy has an amazing collection of all sorts of anything related to sports.
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Re: North Kansas City

Post by justin8216 »

North Kansas City is a great city.
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