"Truman Blvd"??

[moderne]

Looks kitschy to me, like Hollywood & Highland faux DW Griffith Babylon.

[FangKC]

Well, I'm only using it at an example of the design possibilities.

[ShowMeKC]

Here is part of my idea for Truman Blvd...

The Hotel would be built west of Bartle Hall, a convention center expansion would span the highway west of Bartle Hall... A mixed use tower would be placed southwest of the Power and Light Building, about the same height as P&L and would allow a good southern view of the P&L Tower.
Along with the tower would be a huge, 250ft building spanning the highway east of the Ballroom. It would be a mixed use building including retail along the base, as well as additional convention uses, public uses, and gardens (design is meant to reference to the Hanging Gardens)

Along the southern edge of the Truman Boulevard Park would be a couple 15 floor + towers on currently vacant lots (or parking lots).

It creates a canyon effect for the park, the west side of the park would be anchored by a 150ft atrium on the massive mixed use building. The atrium is there to kind of insure that although the structure is huge, that it doesn't put too much weight above the highway.

[49r]

and it will only cost 10 billion dollars

[ShowMeKC]

So we can't do something if it would cost a lot of money? If so, then I guess we can give up our hopes on light rail and spending more money on Downtown development.

And btw, big buildings like that don't cost a huge amount of money to build.

The towers wouldn't really cost hundreds of millions, and the mixed use building across the highway has retail, some offices, convention uses, public gardens, additional public uses (like tennis courts, basketball courts, etc...), and maybe even some housing.

[anniewarbucks]

That would look sharp. the south loop has always been sort of an eyesore. It does need a facelift other than new railings on bridges and the wall on top side of the interstate. The south loop looks so much like the stretch of I70 that runs between the courthouse and the Arch in St, Louis. Kansas City needs to do more to cap it and make it go away from the sight of those that are using the P&L district and the Crossroads district.

[FangKC]

Showme, I like it.  You've done some fine planning.

I think it could be done for around $2.5 billion.  The city could get by with about $250 million in TIF.

Here's another idea for a garage over Truman wrapped by narrow retail spaces.

[anniewarbucks]

That would look good South of the P&l district. It seams to me like Truman Blvd. is a defining divide line between the P&L district and Crossroads. To place any building over the south loop and close off this area would make this divide line less obvious and tie these two great areas together.

[FangKC]

Rendering of what a covered deck might look like.





Or even more urban.

[anniewarbucks]

Wow FangKC! Those look great.

[FangKC]

[AllThingsKC]

Too...  many...  great...  ideas.

[anniewarbucks]

You can put a lot of stuff over that huge canyon. the total width is about 1 city block to work with.

[FangKC]

The only problem with it is that you can't really put any dense building that will house a lot of people at any given time day-in-and-day-out.  So it's mostly things like parking garages, ballrooms, convention halls.

[anniewarbucks]

True but the parkig garage that you had here just a while back:

FangKC

or something like it would look rather nice in thre area along with some other low profile buildings or a small park. This would make the Interstate below it almost invisible.

[anniewarbucks]

I walked down Truman today and was impressed with the work that has gone on. I love the Blue glass tiles inserted at random. I was going to try to get a pic but with all the dirt over them they wolud not look good.

[DaveKCMO]

[moderne]

Didn't know trees were going in on that side.  Anybody know what variety?  At last our leafy canopied boulevard system will have a presence downtown.

[chingon]

As a completely kitschy nod to arboreal love, I'd like to see all the streets in the loop that are name after trees, planted with their namesake, ie, locusts on locust, oaks on oak, cherries on cherry, etc.

[FangKC]

Not a bad idea actually.